It was a gorgeous August Saturday, 80 degrees no humidity and a light breeze. I spent the day working around the house and my rod&reel were resting against the book case, catching my eye all day, calling to me. There was no way that today would end without my going fishing. Lucky for me there is a small lake, Lake Wintergreen minutes from my apartment.
Lake Wintergreen:
Lake Wintergreen borders New Haven and Hamden Connecticut, It is part of West Rock State Park. It’s a small quiet lake, shallow on one end deep and rocky at the other, the dam end. I always fish at the rocky end as it has the perfect bass habitat of rocks, steep drop offs with cattails and brush on the shore and in the water for a few feet. I have heard that there is trout in the lake but I have never seen one caught nor I have I fished for them personally at Lake Wintergreen.
The bass population is good with a lot of smallies in the 12″-16″ range. This is the most common size range throughout Connecticut’s lakes and ponds. Of course there are occasionally bass pulled from the lake are measured in pounds rather than inches.
Learn more about Lake Wintergreen here.
Fishing, August 14 2010:
As I said above the weather was great. I packed the little woman and our Dog “Toby” into the 4 runner and off we went. We got to the lake some time between 6-6:30pm. The parking lot was pretty full but not many people to be seen. We trekked about 10 minutes to the first place I like to fish. I hooked a small bass on about the third cast. Toby was so excited he jumped in the water and go swimming. I decided to move to my next spot. It was gone, too over grown. I eventually settled about 50 yards farther down, about 25 yards from three other people fishing. This was a good move. I went on too catch quite a few bass, every few casts I would catch another and another. It was awesome The sizes ranged from about 3 times the size of my lure to one really chunky bass about 14″ . The latter was the best fish of the night. After about an hour just as the sun was hitting the mountains I noticed the water was peculating ever so slightly straight out in front of me at about my casting distance limit. A quick cast revealed my suspicions. It was a school of Calico Bass (Crappie) actively feeding. I could have probably caught one just about every cast If I desired. It was one of those moments I wished there was a kid around. It would have created a memorable moment.
I decided to move further along just for a change of scenery and I had planned on visiting the three people next to me and offer some advice as the kid looked bored to tears and the two men were not catching anything. The kid was nice, the men weren’t friendly so I moved on. I stopped at the spillway for a few minutes of final fishing as the park closes at sunset. Before I got to the water we were greeted by a conservation officer. He was pleasant and made Toby’s day by giving him some cookies. Toby likes fishing but loves cookies even more. Anyhow I spent about 5 minutes fishing and caught the smallest bluegill I have ever seen and a few more Calico Bass.
It was a beautiful sunset walking back to the truck. On our way home we took a detour to the top of West Rock Ridge Park. The view was fantastic due to the low humidity. Toby scored once again. His favorite conservation officer Doug was their. Doug and Toby have shared many a treat.
Finally we headed home to eat the remainder of the Ernie’s Pizza we had for supper.
It was a great day for fishing.
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