I took a few vacation days leading into the long 4th of July weekend. I decided to give Crystal in Ellington a shot about 6 this morning. I had 2 solid blow ups on a large Buzzjet top water but both fish needed glasses and missed the bait. Going deeper I threw a keitech and a drop shot and had some short largemouth and some rock bass for my efforts. Out in 25’ of water I marked a fish next to a Boulder and sent the ds down and the fish thumped it immediately. I came tight on a solid fish that fought very well and turned out to be a decent, although rather scarce, Crystal smallmouth. This would be the best one for the trip, but the boat ran great and it was good to be back on it.
The parking lot at Crystal is small, with about 8 trailer spots, and 6 were filled with passenger cars without trailers. Some were long distance swimming and some were sharing a boat out fishing. 6 am on a Thursday and the lot was almost full…. Not cool, they need a non trailer parking lot.
Here’s the smallie slapping me in the face and finally behaving.
All of the boat launches have this problem. Worse now due to Covid and the folks at home who want to walk their dog or them selves around to exercise. Every boat launch has a "monitor" who comes around to check on them on a schedule. The DEEP manager is MikePayton@ct.gov. Let him know that people are using the launch for other than fishing, launching, hunting, trapping and bird watching. They will check it more often and insure the launch info board has the rules of what is allowed and not allowed. Nice trip and smallie.
I think the problem has exacerbated with the explosive increase in the use of kayaks and they’re not being taken into account with a separate parking area for non-trailered vehicles. I understand their predicament is that they have no where to park unless they park in the trailer parking area, but for people with trailers, which was the original intent here, it leaves us no where to park either. Many of our lakes have limited trailer parking of 6 to 8 vehicles and it doesn’t take long for kayakers or fishing partners parking in those spots before it’s full, as evidenced in my experience on a Thursday morning at 6 AM.
#1817237 - 07/04/2105:48 AM
Re: Crystal Lake 7/1
[Re: Tall 1]
mattmann7
Member
Registered: 08/25/06
Posts: 3844
Loc: wethersfield ct
Nice trip Jon. Any sign of weeds on the flats?
My weekday club was sponsored by crystal lake bait shop for a few years and we would fish a couple tournaments there every year. Once we figured the lake out it was a decent place. I went there once last year and didn't spot a weed anywhere. The place was never over weedy and what weeds were there held good fishing. I have caught some decent smallmouth there. The biggest I have seen caught in a Ct. Lake came out of there in the 90s. 5lbs 4 ounces caught in an evening tournament. My old tournament partner and I fished it on July 4th around 2000 and we found a big school of smallmouth suspended under a ball of bait fish that was surfacing in the center of the lake. We landed a bunch of them up to 3 pounds using senkos which were just starting to be the craze around then.
I started on the left shore line and was hoping to catch a few on the bluegill beds on those sand flats. I did have 2 hits on top doing that. I cut across and worked off the main point. There was some stringy sand grass off the main point. I wanted to hit an offshore rock pile but a nice young man was on it and did well there. There was some grass and cabbage by the beach but not as much as I remember, but I don’t fish here enough to really judge. The smallmouth are few and far between in there but they seem to be healthy when you get one.
Sebecsalmon
Member
Registered: 05/18/15
Posts: 202
Loc: Bolton Ct
nice report. good to see that there are still smallies in Crystal. I will catch them in the spring time drifting shiners for trout. The lake is deep enough at 50+ feet to hold the smallies when the summer heat sets in.
MikeV
Member
Registered: 07/07/03
Posts: 2375
Loc: Tolland
Jon,
Nice outing. Nice small mouth. With regards to the cars with out trailers in the boat lot; it could very well be yaks or people using the area for other purposes. I went out there in December of 2020 and the lot was jammed. There was one boat with one passenger on the lake which accounts for the the truck and trailer and possibly one car. I highly suspect the locals are using it as a "parking area". It could easily be confirmed by an officer running the plates. If it is as I suspect, they should be heavily fined.
nice shake down trip.
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