Fairbanks Ice Fishing Tours

For most visitors the best Fairbanks ice fishing tour is Rod’s Alaskan Guide Service’s four-hour daytime trip: a heated cabin on Chena Lake, poles and bait, grilled reindeer sausages and your own fish cooked on the spot, from $179 with a 4.7 rating across 32 reviews. If you want the northern lights in the same outing, 1st Alaska Tours’ Aurora Ice Fishing Tour adds an evening sky watch and hotel pickup for $210.

Every tour on this page fishes the same water or its neighbourhood: Chena Lakes Recreation Area, just outside North Pole and about 17 miles from Fairbanks. So the choice comes down to time of day, whether you have a car, and how much food comes with it.

Pick by what you want

Best straightforward tour: Rod’s Guided Ice Fishing Tour

Four hours, $179, and the deepest review record of the five. The cabin has heat and electricity, park admission is included, and the guide grills reindeer sausages while you fish, then seasons and grills whatever you land. You drive yourself to the lake; Rod’s can arrange transport for $50 per person if you ask. Rod’s runs day trips at 10am or 2pm.

Best northern lights and ice fishing combo: Aurora Ice Fishing Tour

The 1st Alaska Tours evening trip runs six hours from $210, rated 4.9 from six reviews. It includes hotel pickup and drop-off in Fairbanks (not Airbnbs or private homes, and it depends on the option you choose), gear and tackle, a heated shelter, hot drinks and the chance to cook your catch. Groups are capped at 10, and the tour needs at least four people to run. Reviewers mention catching fish, seeing the lights and eating well, all in one night. The aurora is not guaranteed and there is no refund if it stays hidden.

Aurora combo for drivers: Rod’s Chena Lake Aurora & Ice Fishing

Five hours from $239, rated 4.7 from seven reviews, with the same heated cabin, sausages and cocoa as the day trip. Each angler can keep one fish to have grilled or take home; the rest go back in the lake. There is no transport included, so you drive to Chena Lake late in the evening. Rod’s runs its aurora trips from 10pm to 3am.

Best for travelers without a car: Half-Day Ice Fishing Excursion

At $150 for two to three hours, it is the cheapest and shortest option, with hotel pickup within Fairbanks city limits. The listing includes only bait and tackle besides the transport, and no cooked meal is listed. It has three reviews, all five stars.

Best small-group, catch-and-cook day: Ice Fishing Day Tour

From $200 for five and a half to six and a half hours, with pickup, a heated shelter, gear, hot drinks and a hot lunch cooked from the fish you caught. Groups top out at 10. It has a single review so far, from 2022, so it is the least proven of the five.

What a day on the ice is like

You walk from the parking area across the frozen lake to a cabin sitting over drilled holes. Inside it is warm enough to take your gloves off. The guide baits your line, shows you how to jig, and you sit and watch the hole. On Rod’s aurora cabin, covers in the floor lift off to expose the fishing holes.

Chena Lake is stocked by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game with rainbow trout, Arctic char, Arctic grayling and landlocked salmon. It covers about 230 acres. The fish are pan-sized: stocked rainbows usually run 9 to 14 inches, salmon and grayling 8 to 12. Catches vary a lot. One February guest on Rod’s day trip reported more than 30 fish each for her and her husband, while a December half-day group with 1st Alaska Tours caught nothing despite seeing fish on the underwater camera. A bald eagle overhead turns up in reviews more than once.

Season and ice conditions

ADF&G says the big stocked lakes around Fairbanks, Chena, Harding, Birch and Quartz, should produce good catches from November through early March, and early winter is especially good. Rod’s opens on November 1 or once there is 6 inches of safe clear ice, and runs through early April. If the ice is not ready, the tours do not run; all five listings offer free cancellation on GetYourGuide.

The longest nights and the deepest cold fall in December and January. Fairbanks averages a January high near 0.6°F and a low around -17°F, which matters less inside a heated cabin than it does on the walk across the lake and the wait for the aurora outside. By March the days are long again and the cold eases, while the fishing holds up to early March.

Practical details

The fishing licence

Alaska requires a sport fishing licence for every non-resident aged 16 or older, guided tour or not. None of these five tours include it. A one-day non-resident licence is $15 (three days is $30) and you can buy it online from ADF&G and get it immediately. Rod’s listing mentions paying on site but also says to buy it online before you arrive, so buying it the night before saves a problem at the lake. Licences run by calendar year, so a trip that spans New Year needs a new one from January 1. You do not need a king salmon stamp for the landlocked salmon in stocked lakes.

Ages

None of the five tours takes children under 5, going by the listings and Rod’s own rules. Children 13 and under must be with a paying adult on Rod’s trips.

What to wear

The cabins are heated, but you still walk across open ice and step outside to look for the lights on the evening trips. Insulated boots, a warm hat, mitts and a windproof layer will cover it. Rod’s sends the exact meeting point by email 24 hours before.

Getting there

Chena Lakes is roughly a 30-minute drive from Fairbanks on the Richardson Highway toward North Pole. 1st Alaska Tours includes hotel pickup on all three of its listings; Rod’s is self-drive unless you pay for transport. If you are staying in North Pole, our North Pole guide covers what else is nearby.

Fitting ice fishing around aurora nights

The aurora usually peaks after midnight, which shapes the rest of a Fairbanks itinerary. A daytime cabin on Chena Lake suits the day after a late northern lights tour, particularly the 2pm start, which leaves you time to sleep in. The evening combos turn the fishing into your aurora night itself: Chena Lake is one of the lakeside viewing spots in our guide to the best places to see the northern lights near Fairbanks, and you wait for the sky from a warm cabin.

Rod’s also runs snowmachine tours from North Pole, so pairing a morning on the ice with an afternoon on the trail is easy; see our Fairbanks snowmobile tours page. For more ideas on filling winter daylight, our list of things to do in Fairbanks in winter sorts them by time and effort.

Ready to pick a date? Check availability for Rod’s heated-cabin tour.