The trout trucks have been busy over the last few months, setting up some great winter fishing opportunities for New England anglers who refuse to let Old Man Winter ruin their fun. The most recent stockings as of this writing were the 15 Rhode Island ponds stocked with brook and rainbow trout ahead of the Veteran’s Day holiday weekend. Those ponds were: Barber Pond and Tucker Pond in South Kingstown, Carbuncle Pond in Coventry, Meadow Book Pond in Richmond, Olney Pond in Lincoln, Peck Pond and Roundtop Pond in Burrillville, Shippee Sawmill Pond in Foster, Simmons Mill Pond in Little Compton, Silver Spring Lake in North Kingstown, Stafford Pond in Tiverton, Tarkiln Pond in North Smithfield, Watchaug Pond in Charlestown, Willet Pond in East Providence, and Wyoming Pond in Hopkinton.
This round of stocking usually sees light angling pressure and sustains good fishing through December and well into the New Year. For those who might want to keep a few trout, the Rhode Island regulations change on December 1 to two (2) fish (trout and/or salmon) per angler per day with a minimum size of 8 inches and the winter season closes February 28th.
Over in Connecticut, the fall stocking wrapped up at the end of October and you can check their interactive trout stocking map at www.ctdeep.com, this will help you find out which waters near your home were recently stocked with trout. Connecticut is known for doing a great job stocking waters around the state and winter is the perfect time to take advantage. In addition to brook and rainbow trout, the state has also been busy stocking Seeforellen brown trout (seefs) into select bodies of water as well, those include: Beach Pond in Voluntown, Crystal Lake in Ellington, Long Pond in North Stonington/Ledyard, Squantz Pond in New Fairfield/Sherman and West Hill Pond in Barkhamsted/New Hartford. Connecticut DEEP also continues to stock Atlantic salmon into the Shetucket and Naugatuck Rivers.
In addition to the rivers, state officials also release salmon into select ponds, those include: Mt. Tom Pond in Litchfield/Washington and Crystal Lake in Ellington. Keep an eye on the DEEP website for additional releases of seefs and Atlantic salmon around the state. For trout (including seefs) in Connecticut the daily creel limit is 5 fish, with no minimum size. For salmon, the laws vary by body of water so check online before you go fishing.
According to our inside sources, Massachusetts wrapped up their trout stocking in early October, but, Bay State waters are well-known for producing trout all winter long, especially on Cape Cod, where open water fishing is usually possible during all but the very coldest winters. But Mass doesn’t just stick to trout. Massachusetts has a long history of stocking pike, and if you spend a little time poking around on the Mass Division of Fisheries and Wildlife website, you’ll see that they have stocked 10 ponds around the state on a semi-regular basis, those ponds are East Brimfield Reservoir in Sturbridge, Rohunta Lake in Salem, Buel Lake in Monterey, Holland Pond in Holland, Cochituate Lake in Framingham, Cheshire Reservoir in Cheshire, Quaboag Pond in Brookfield and three ponds that straddle the border between Worcester and Shrewsbury, Lake Quinsigamond, Newton Pond and Flint Pond. This year, they added a new one to the list, Spy Pond in Arlington.
There have been many others over the last 30-plus years that continue to put out fish in spite of not being stocked in more than 20 years. In addition to the ones noted above those include, Wequaket Lake in Barnstable, Quacumquasit Pond in Brookfield, Hamilton Reservoir in Holland, Woods Pond in Lenoxdale, Onota Lake in Pittsfield and Pontoosuc Lake in Pittsfield. Additonally, the Connecticut River, Housatonic River and Concord River all contain pike as well. And in many of these waterways, northern pike are known to successfully reproduce setting up sustainable populations.
Earlier this fall, the Massachusetts DFW stocked more than 2,000 northern pike into Cochituate Lake and Spy Pond. These pint-sized pike measure about 11 inches long and will take 2 to 3 years to reach the state’s minimum harvest size of 28 inches. The pike were obtained through a cooperative exchange program courtesy of New Jersey Fish & Wildlife. These toothy gamefish are a prized target of ice fishermen, but will readily strike lures and can be caught year round.
