Fishermen are known for keeping their fishing spots secret. And while there is definitely a time and place for this (such as a small pond with native brook trout), I don’t mind sharing some stocked fishing spots in Southern Maine. This is what they’re stocked for — for folks to catch fish. People protect what they love, and I want more people to love fishing.
My family has lived on Crystal Lake in Gray for six years. We are avid anglers. Crystal Lake is stocked with brook trout, brown trout and rainbow trout. There are also largemouth bass, pickerel and yellow perch. It’s a great lake for beginners, as you can usually catch something. We fish it at least once per week but give the fish a break in the summer, when the trout are harder to catch and doing so would stress them out.
We recently began fishing again this fall. It was a Sunday evening around dinnertime when my husband, Travis, our 1-year-old son, Oscar, and I loaded into our 18-foot Alumnacraft boat. As I pulled line off my L.L. Bean trolling fly rod, I announced to Travis, in my best Moby Dick impression, “Put us on the fish!”
I put out two more lines while Travis drove, then sat back to wait. Trolling is the most effective method of fishing when you have to entertain a 1-year-old. I fed Oscar yogurt melts, blew bubbles and pointed out migrating mallards.
Only 20 minutes into our lap around the lake, the tip of one of the rods bent sharply and bounced up and down. “Fish!” I announced as I removed the rod from the rod holder and began reeling. “Oh that one’s on, too!” I nodded toward the other rod with lead core line on it off the starboard side.
“Doubles!” Travis announced as he removed that rod from its holder and began reeling. I brought my fish in first and netted it myself since Travis was busy. It was a beautiful brown trout. Travis brought in his fish — another brown, but slightly smaller.
“Wow, you really did put us on the fish.” I congratulated Travis on a job well done. With two hooks, two live fish and Oscar in the boat, things were hectic for a minute, so we decided to keep my fish for dinner and released Travis’ brown back into the pond.
We were off to a good start. With one fish in the cooler, we returned the flies to the water and continued on our way.
About half an hour later, my rod bent again and I grabbed it. This time the fish felt heavy — really heavy. It pulled and took line off my reel as I tried to reel it in. After about five minutes, but what felt like an hour, I got the fish close to the boat and Travis and I got our first look at it.
“That’s a good one!” Travis announced.
“Don’t make me nervous!” I jokingly snapped back. “I don’t think I can net it myself,” I said anxiously to Travis, so he grabbed the net and scooped it up for me.
It was a 23.5-inch brown trout — the biggest fish we have caught in our six years of living on the lake. It had a slight kype (lower lip bend that male salmonoids develop during spawning). We hooted and high fived as Oscar stared silently and curiously, wondering about this big fish.
“Should we keep it?” I asked Travis. “It would be nice to get a weight.”
“No, let it grow bigger and let another angler catch it,” Travis suggested, and I sent it back to the depths, swimming.
“Ok, next fish is yours,” I announced to Travis. And there was a next fish, and another and another. In less than two hours, we caught four brown trout, one rainbow trout and one big, largemouth bass. It was the best night of fishing we ever had.
Fishing requires ultra-optimism. You must be willing to go, willing to take one more cast, willing to fish just five more minutes.
The next night we went back out and caught nothing.