Fishing is simple—a line, a lure, a license, and, if fortune smiles, a fish. But when ice is involved, there’s more: cold, arctic winds, distance from help, and, needless to say, the possibility of falling into freezing water. And yet generations of families ice fish Harvard’s Bare Hill Pond and love it. This winter, however, ice fishing carries one more descriptor: short-lived.
“This is the first weekend since January where the ice has been good enough to fish on,” said Barre resident Scott Rexford. “We checked the ice all over this area, and found that it was 7 to 9 inches deep.” Using a sonar-based fish-finder to measure the ice, Rexford and Steve Burque were fishing near Sheep Island on Bare Hill Pond this past weekend with family and friends. It was a sunny 42-degree day under a bright blue sky, and the fish were biting.
On Bare Hill Pond, 11-year-old Christopher Busold from Spencer “pounds” an impromptu jig—which may or may not attract fish under the ice. In this case it brought Christopher a 2½-pound largemouth bass. (Photo by Laura Vilain)
But as firefighter and resident Duane Barber said, “No ice is ever safe.” Every year, Harvard’s Fire Department practices ice rescue drills with specialized suits and sleds. Barber recalled that in March 2008, firefighters rescued a snowmobiler from pond muck and ice water. There were no injuries.
With the appropriate precautions, ice fishing is a passion shared by many residents in town.
“I’ve been ice fishing for 50 years,” said Jeff Baer, who lives with his wife on the shores of Bare Hill Pond in an old summer camp he refurbished. “My dad and I came from Clinton to fish on the pond. We caught bass, pickerel, and perch. Always in the winter.” Baer reminisced about the 8-pound largemouth bass he caught in the 1970s. “And a 5½-pound pickerel.”
“My dad would tell me stories of how they’d fold newspaper around the fishing line so it wouldn’t freeze while it was lying on the ice. They used ribbons instead of flags,” said Baer. Out on the ice, Baer has seen foxes, swans, lots of gulls, deer in the early morning, and sometimes the “resident” pair of bald eagles that live near the pond.
“I fish all the time, every weekend, and sometimes during the week,” said Baer. He is in good company. Just this past weekend, rumor has it at Carlson Orchards that Jimmy Bakun, of Still River Road, was out fishing Sunday on Bare Hill Pond. He and Walter Carlson, with son Bruce Carlson and Sheldon Rockwell, were devoted ice fishermen, recalled Robert Carlson in a phone conversation.
A family tradition
Barber also ice fishes as much as possible, and he has passed the fervor down through the generations to his grandson, George Taggart, who is 7 years old. Barber recalls cold mornings during his childhood, taking long walks before daybreak across the ice with his father. “We ate what we caught. My dad was from the Depression era, and there was no wasting food,” said Barber. These days, Barber said, he brings a Coleman stove for cooking hot chili, folding chairs, the Sunday paper, and his family for a day’s outing on the ice. All his fishing is catch and release.
“We’ve had sporadic freezes since January,” said Bruce Leicher, chairman of the Bare Hill Pond Watershed Management Committee. “The ice is fragile.” He said that most of the water comes into the pond through springs and these currents can cause thin spots.
For safety, Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife recommends using an ice chisel to chop holes in ice to determine its thickness and condition. It says 4 inches of new ice is the minimum for foot traffic, and double that thickness is required for older, white ice. State guidelines also recommend wearing ice safety picks around the neck to use for climbing out from the slippery underside of ice.
Learning to balance risk and reward is one of the many life lessons drawn from ice fishing. These are lessons passed down across the generations. Steve Walz, owner of Harvard Outdoor Power Equipment, said it best: “[Ice fishing] is a tradition.”
