A Day on Halls Pond
Locals Share Fishing Stories on a Frigid February Weekend
EASTFORD — What drives people to sit out on a frozen pond for hours in frigid weather? Not being a fisherman myself, it’s a question I’ve contemplated as I look out my office window at the ice fisherman on Hall’s Pond. They have been particularly active this winter. And so, I ventured out on the pond myself on the weekend of Feb. 14 to find out more about these fishermen and what motivates them.
Antoni Wilczynsji, of Newington, a 45-minute drive away, said he comes to Hall’s for the nature and clean water. He comes here often and has been coming for years.
“I enjoy the fishing,” he said. “I catch sometimes calico bass. Not big, but hey — my wife fries the fish for me. Around where I live, the water is not so clean.”
I asked if he had any fish stories for me. He broke into a big smile and pointed.
“Behind that island there was a really big pike,” he said. “I brought him up the hole and he filled the hole. Then he bit the line and got away. Two years ago.”
Wilczynsji immigrated here from Poland in 1979.
“Those days, the Communists came in, then martial law. It was so bad,” he said, adding that he worked as a toolmaker and is retired now. “Now if it weren’t for my grandkids and kids, maybe I go back. But my life here is good.”
Nick Brisson and Matt Hall come from Ashford.
“I come here because the volume of fish is the best around here,” Brisson said. “It’s great that it’s only 10 minutes away … we like being outside.”
Sometimes they also go to Mashapaug Lake, Mansfield Hollow, or Bolton Lake. At Hall’s Pond he sometimes catches bass, yellow perch, and croppie. He releases the bass.
“But yellow perch or croppies are keepers,” he said.
What do they do for fun in the warm weather?
“Fish,” they said in unison. Brisson’s uncle got him into fishing about seven years ago, but Hall said he is new to it.
Any fish stories? Brisson pointed to the north end of the pond.
“Right over there, in the spring, I caught a 5-pound bass,” he said. “I would’ve kept that one, but I was in a kayak.”
“We want flags,” said Alex Riendeau, from Danielson, referring to when the flags on his “tip-ups” indicate a fish is on the line.
“We started with about four dozen minnows [for bait]. Now we’re down to 10,” added his uncle, Brandon Riendeau, from Manchester. “We’ve been out here since 6 a.m. … we lost count of how many fish we caught, after 10. Hall’s Pond is worth the drive.”
They don’t have a method for where to make holes — it’s kind of random. Born and raised in Connecticut, they also like to fish at Beach Pond and Pachaug Pond in Voluntown, as well as in the Connecticut and Thames rivers. Their main criteria for fishing? Lakes with clean water.
“Clean water means good-tasting fish,” Riendeau said.
At Hall’s Pond, they’ve been catching mostly pickerel, and pulled one out as we spoke. It was about 14 inches long.
“Sometimes, we catch them three times that size,” Riendeau said, adding that that very day they caught a big wide-mouth bass. They always throw back the pickerel, but said “we might eat a bass if we’re camping on the ice.”
In warm weather they fish from a boat.
“It’s all about being on the water,” he said.
John Hatch Jr. is an excavator who had just driven in from Willington. He was drilling holes with his auger while his young sons John III and Parker bounced around with excitement. John Jr.'s father used to bring him to Hall’s Pond when he was a little boy.
“It’s nice to bring my boys here now,” he said, adding that in the warm weather, he’s “either fishing trout in a stream somewhere or hunting deer or game birds.”
He dipped a perforated ladle into a hole to measure the thickness of the ice.
“Looks like about 12-14 inches,” he said.
He likes to drill holes where other people have fished.
“I have to figure there’s something in those spots,” he said as John III was scooping something out of a bucket. I asked what he had.
“Bait fish!”
What kind?
His father whispered into his ear, and the boy cried “Shiners!”
Randal Chinnock photos
