between the Quinebaug and Moosup rivers, the massive Quinebaug Valley Hatchery in Plainfield was completed in 1971. At the time—and even as late as the mid-1980s—it was the biggest fish hatchery east of the Mississippi River. That same year, the Kettle Brook Hatchery closed and the Town of Windsor Locks bought the land. Not long after, the Kensington Hatchery began raising Atlantic salmon as Connecticut's part of an interstate/federal program to re-introduce Atlantic salmon back to the waters of the Northeast. Connecticut essentially has only two trout hatcheries now—Burlington (15 miles west of Hartford) and Quinebaug Valley (38 miles east of Hartford) in Plainville.
A boy bringing a trout to net
If Connecticut is the gold standard in hatcheries and trout stocking, how do neighboring states fare? For many years, a New York visitor's fishing license permitted angling in many trout streams in the Adirondacks on a whirlwind expedition to the Empire State's northernmost reaches— the fabled Battenkill (on the New York side), the lovely and exciting West Branch of the Ausable, the North Branch of the Saranac, the Salmon (near Malone, where mobster Dutch Shultz once stood trial for bootlegging) and finally the Chateauguay River, in the apple country near the Canadian border. This fishing tour of the Adirondacks is not what it used to be. Sad to say, trout fishing is on the wane.
The same is true of other once-famous trout fishing areas of the Northeast. Anglers and state biologists suspect that acid rain, pesticide runoff, silt from stream bank erosion, and even geese have taken a toll on the streams and rivers. At present, states that are twice the size of Connecticut are stocking about half as many trout. The fisheries divisions of the New England states and New York are all trying to rebuild habitat and reinvigorate their trout fishing programs, but acid rain, deforestation, and budget cutbacks are impeding these efforts.
Stocking in Connecticut
Raising 800,000 trout a year would be of little value without tank trucks and the manpower to equitably release fish over the lakes, rivers, and streams of Connecticut. The Inland Fisheries Division has used basically the same model aerated tanker trucks to relocate trout since the late 1930s. It's a long process. Weather permitting, the first round begins in early March and lasts until the end of May. In 2009, for example, 55 to 60 percent of the full year's supply of trout was stocked by opening day—the third Saturday in April (6 a.m.). The remaining 231,000 trout are distributed in different ways on a variety of streams during the remainder of the season. In some places, there is only a single follow-up stocking, while in others, where the heaviest fishing pressures the fish population, trout are stocked until Labor Day.
All of the trout-stocking numbers can be found in the State of Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection's Connecticut Fish Distribution Report, but let's dissect a few number from the state's 2009 account just for the fun of it. Firstly, the number of trout stocked annually on the east and west sides of the Connecticut River are almost identical (West side–346,461; East side–356,287). Secondly, by watershed, trout are stocked as follows: Connecticut River watershed–211,245 (30% of the total); Thames watershed–195,056 (27.7% of the total); and Housatonic watershed–172,245 (24.5% of the total). Thirdly, the five towns (or town combinations) in Connecticut that received the most fish in 2009 were: Cornwall–18,000; Salisbury–14,316; Danbury-Milford–13,550; Eastford-Chaplin–12,824; and Thompson-Norwich–12,098. Lastly, if you add up all the trout stocked in the Housatonic River and the West Branch–Farmington River, it comes to about 22 percent of all the fish stocked in 2009 on the west side of the state.
The senior biologists at the Inland Fisheries Division say that in the areas where the creel limit is two fish, 90 percent of the stocked fish are gone in seven to ten days; in the places where the creel limit is five, 90 percent are gone in four days! Connecticut's trout fisher folks are short on patience. They follow the stocking trucks and leave when the fish aren't biting.
“Riparian” is derived from the Latin, riparius “of a natural riverbank,” so a “riparian agreement” refers to a deal made regarding the fishing rights on the shores of a given waterway.
Muddying the waters a bit, in eastern Connecticut, the levels of the Quinebaug, Salmon, and Natchaug Rivers get low in late summer. The rivers whose water levels must be maintained by old riparian agreements—like the Farmington River (courtesy of the Metropolitan District Commission)—will by definition offer more consistent trout fishing throughout the season than rivers whose water levels are allowed to rise and fall with the seasons.
The streams of Connecticut's East and West sides vary in another way. In northwestern Connecticut, the trout waters flow easterly toward the Connecticut River. Thanks in large part to the Bolton Range—as high as 800 feet— the rivers and streams in the eastern part of the state flow toward Long Island Sound.
The best trout fishing in eastern Connecticut is spread out along miles of meandering streams that sometimes run almost the length of the state. The best-stocked bodies of water in eastern Connecticut are the Quinebaug River, Blackwell's Brook (and Kitts Brook) in Canterbury, and Five Mile River, running through Thompson, Putnam, and Killingly. The Little River, in Hampton and Canterbury, also benefits from considerable stocking. Owing to eastern Connecticut's wide-ranging diversity of rivers and streams, many of the finest fishing holes in that part of the state remain a secret to the very people who live there. (See Chapter 2 for some of Sam Tippet's favorite pools in eastern Connecticut.)
Here's a little known fact. The Inland Fisheries Division stocks the following urban ponds with about 10,000 trout annually — Beardsley Park Pond in Bridgeport, Keney Park Pond in Hartford, Lake Wintergreen in Hamden, Upper Fulton Park Pond in Waterbury, and Mohegan Park Pond in Norwich.
Since there is little fly fishing on lakes, ponds, bays, and sounds, a book on fly fishing in Connecticut must necessarily be about the state's many rivers and streams. Way back in 1880, Dr. William Hudson of Hartford claimed “Connecticut has some of the finest trout brooks in the world.” Though he was obviously biased, an inventory of the state's many trout streams and rivers bolsters Dr. Hudson's stance.
For the beginner especially, knowledge of the state's new Trout Parks and its Trout Management Areas (TMAs) is imperative. In these areas, there are plenty of fish and the beginner is far less likely to get skunked.Be sure to read the Connecticut Angler's Guide, Inland and Marine Fishing, available as a PDF or paperback booklet from the DEP and sporting-goods stores, where you'll find rules, regulations, tips, dates, photos, and a treasure chest of angling information.
Every once in a while, someone asks me about saltwater fly fishing in Connecticut. It's a completely different sport than fly fishing for trout on streams and rivers.On Long Island Sound, an angler would use a #9 weight rod, reel and line with a leader that tapers down to 15 lbs. Striped bass can be taken on streamers (fished wet), and in the fall, Bonita and False Albacore. This type of fishing gained popularity in the late 1980s, but is on the wane now. Even when there is interest, saltwater fishing—of any kind—requires a different conversation than ours about trout fishing on inland streams.
“Skunked” comes from the Algonquin word squunck, and used as a verb it means, “to defeat.” An angler who gets
