Lily Pond ice fishers

GILFORD — Two ice fishermen who ventured out on Lily Pond in Gilford Tuesday said that the ice is already 4 to 5 inches thick.

Robert Dabbraccio of Northfield and Alex Delucca of Belmont were the first ice fishermen to try their luck on Lily Pond this year and had landed one pickerel between them by mid-afternoon.

“It’s mostly pickerel and perch in this pond,’’ said Dabbraccio.

The small pond next to Laconia Airport is the site of an annual kids fishing derby held by the Belknap County Sportsmen’s Association. This year the event will be held on March 6.

Dabbraccio said that they checked the ice carefully before venturing out on the pond to make sure that it was safe and, after drilling holes and setting their lines with tip-ups using smelt for bait, walked around the pond to check out the ice in other locations.

They said that Lily Pond is one of the first small ponds in the area to build up enough ice for safe fishing and that they’ll move on to other bodies of water when they are safe.

Dabbraccio, who works at Vista Foods in Laconia, said he likes to fish Webster Lake and checked it out over the weekend but that it wasn’t safe yet.

Delucca, who is seasonally employed at Four Daughters Landscaping in Northfield, said he usually fishes on Paugus Bay in Laconia.

Both of the men said that when they aren’t ice fishing this winter they plan to do lots of snowmobiling.

They said that they have fished in the Great Rotary Fishing Derby for the last six or seven years. Sponsored by the Meredith Rotary Club, the derby awards $50,000 in prizes each year and will be held Feb. 13 and 14.