Best Fishing Spots in Eastern Connecticut
If you are itching by opening day for some trout action, then you most likely will enjoy a large number of brooks in the area. Blackwell’s Brook and Kitt Brook, both in Canterbury, are stocked every year; Blackwell yielded the state record brookie in 1998 at nine pounds and three ounces! Five Mile River, a large stream that flows though the towns of Thompson, Putnam, and Killingly, is another terrific place to try your luck for early season trout. Little River, in Hampton and Canterbury, is another big stream that receives attention from the Department of Environmental Protection {DEP} stockers. The Moosup River, winding through Plainfield and Sterling, is a Trout Management Area, a designated body of water that has abundant trout, but for catch and release only.
Alexander’s Lake in Killingly is a renowned trout producer. It is 215 acres in size, deep, and easily accessible. Amos Lake is a little over half the size of Alexander’s, coming in at 113 acres. It is a Trophy Trout Lake, meaning it is stocked with a higher proportion of the larger fish. I have ice fished Amos Lake only twice, with not much luck. Beach Pond, on the Connecticut-Rhode Island line in Voluntown, is the deepest lake in eastern Connecticut. A Connecticut fishing license is good on either side. It was stocked with walleye in 2001, but I have not heard of great success by anyone actually catching any there.
If bass fishing is what makes you get up out of bed in the morning, then the fisheries of eastern Connecticut, vastly underrated for this species, should keep you happy. Gardner Lake, 529 acres, is a Bass Management Lake that is in parts of Salem, Bozrah, and Montville. You need to obey the slot limits when you catch bass here; you can’t keep fish between a prescribed length. Pachaug Pond, largest lake in the area in terms of acreage at 841, is full of largemouth bass. My favorite bass lakes are the underestimated Moosup Pond, five minutes from my house and West Thompson Lake, in Thompson. Moosup has always produced for me during ice fishing season and several five pound plus monsters have been pulled from its waters in the summer by local anglers. The biggest bass I ever caught came out of West Thompson Lake in 2003 while I was ice fishing. A dam on the Quinebaug River forms the 239 acre lake that is about ten to fifteen feet deep on average. It is also known for having more than its share of black crappies.
Quaddick Reservoir, on the east side of Thompson, also has largemouth and smallmouth bass, as well as an introduced species that is flourishing- the northern pike. They can be caught from shore or boat and through the ice as well. A forty one inch, sixteen pound behemoth was iced a week prior to my writing this article! Pachaug Pond also has been stocked with pike in recent years. Many of them have made their way into nearby Hopeville Pond and Ashland Pond, both in Griswold, by way of connecting streams. Mansfield Hollow, in Windham and Chaplin, is another Northern Pike Lake that has produced good numbers of these toothy, finned predators.
There are too many places in eastern Connecticut to list that are teeming with pickerel. Moosup Pond is my preference for these voracious feeders. I have pulled in several pickerel from this 96 acre lake that were well over twenty inches, with my personal best being a twenty seven inch long, football-shaped giant in 2005. Quaddick is also a good lake to fish for pickerel, as is crystal-clear Killingly Pond, on the Rhode Island line in East Killingly.
If you ask me, far and away the absolute best fishing spot in eastern Connecticut over the years has been the lightly fished and under appreciated Quinebaug River. The Quinebaug runs north to south through Connecticut, where it empties into the Thames River. I fish it on the Canterbury-Plainfield line, where I know every inch of it for about two miles. In the spring, I pull brown trout and white perch out of its waters, which are usually high and swollen from the winter snows and early rains. As the year wears on and it gets warmer, I find that you are capable of catching almost anything here! There are plenty of catfish in the river, especially up towards the town of Lisbon’s end of it. Black crappies are located in pockets throughout its winding curves. Largemouth and smallmouth bass are plentiful, smallmouth in particular during the hot months when the river gets very low. They congregate in the cooler, deep pools and if you tie into one you will get an aerial show that no other fish can rival. White perch, not as abundant now for some reason as even a few short years ago, are still in good numbers. Yellow perch are in the Quinebaug as well, often in its slow moving backwaters.
There are two species in the Quinebaug that provide the best freshwater fight you could want, and they are the carp and the eel. Fish the river at twilight and in the evening, with a campfire or light close by, and you will start to catch eels. They fight so hard that you will scarcely believe it. Bring a burlap bag or an old towel so that you can grab onto them and get the hook out! The carp in the Quinebaug can grow to impressive size; I caught a small one last year. He “only” weighed seven pounds. He was almost more than I could handle with my spinning reel. Throw in pumpkinseeds and sunfish and it would be hard to get skunked angling in this waterway.
No matter how you slice it, the best fishing spots in eastern Connecticut have enough variety and quality of fish to keep anybody interested for a long time.
