Fisherfolk: Gage White, from left, Gabby McLaughlin, and and Kyle and Tom Locklin head off the ice from their Bryant Pond ice shack at sunset on Feb. 24. Rose Lincoln

WOODSTOCK — Although the eight hours spent ice fishing that day weren’t particularly productive—only catching a single bottom-feeding cusk – the group of four huddled in an ice shack on Bryant Pond was content to be out on the ice. “Last year was awful; [because of warmer temperatures] we never even got the ice shack out,” said Kyle Locklin of Buckfield.

Kyle, his father Tom Locklin of Bethel, his friend Gage White, and his fiancée Gabby McLaughlin, also from Buckfield, were getting ready to head home at sunset after spending the day in the shack.

Inside the shack, snacks and fishing rods lined the shelves. A portable grill sat on the bench, and a propane buddy heater, along with insulation covering the interior walls, kept the space warm. “All the comforts of home,” said Tom.

“My father and I have been doing this our whole lives,” Kyle said. “We built this ice shack three or four years ago, based on the design of the old one that’s been out here since I was a little kid. I’m about to turn 21.”

Looking down at the hole in the floor, Kyle pointed to the three feet of ice they had drilled through with their auger to reach the water. Seven other holes dotted the ice around the shack, which was surrounded by a moat of solid ice, with no snow covering, making entry and exit difficult.

Kyle recalled ice fishing from Jan. 1 well into March as a child, catching fish year after year. “I haven’t had a season like that in four or five years,” he said. This year, they made it out on the ice on Feb. 1, and despite warmer temperatures in the forecast, they hoped to stay on the ice until the end of March.

Kyle described the fish they were hoping to catch: trout, salmon, splake (a cross between salmon and lake trout), brown trout, and other trout species. “Lately, the lake’s been filled with perch. They’re not usually here, but someone must’ve let them in. The perch are eating all the smelt, so now there are fewer of those.”

“We try to look important,” joked the elder Locklin. “Once in a while, we actually get a fish.”

Kyle smiled as he recalled the time he dropped his new $800 iPhone into the hole when he was about 13. “It fell in,” said Tom laughing. Kyle added, “I’ve been holding onto my phones tight ever since.”

Inside their ice fishing shack on Bryant Pond are Kyle Locklin, from left, Gage White, Tom Locklin and Gabby McLaughlin. Rose Lincoln

Kyle Locklin, Bryant Pond Ice Fisher. Rose Lincoln

The group caught just one fish, a bottom feeding cusk. Rose Lincoln

It was McLaughlin’s first time in the ice shack, and she said she had a great time and was thankful it wasn’t too cold. As for a bathroom, she’d have gone to Breau’s Too convenience store up the street, but thankfully, she didn’t need to, she said.

When the ice finally thins and the shack is packed away, the group will head to Tom’s East Bethel home and their old shack, which has since been repurposed as the “sugar shack.” It’s where they huddle every spring to boil sap into maple syrup.