Caspian Lake

Caspian Lake sits above the village of Greensboro in the high farm country of the southern Northeast Kingdom, 789 acres of famously clear water at nearly 1,400 feet of elevation. Long a quiet summer colony town — writers and academics have kept cottages here for generations — Greensboro wraps around the lake's southeastern corner, and Willey's general store in the village has served as unofficial fishing headquarters for a century. What sets Caspian apart in a state full of pretty lakes is the quality of the water and the wildness of the fish.

Caspian supports self-sustaining populations of lake trout, rainbow trout, and rainbow smelt, with brown trout adding a fourth salmonid to the mix. The lake has no significant nuisance aquatic species, visibility runs deep, and the fishery persists with little hatchery support: these are, to a degree rare in New England stillwaters, wild fish. Typical lake trout run two to four pounds, but Caspian has a long history of outsized fish, and lakers over 20 pounds hang on the wall at Willey's as proof.

The fly angler's calendar at Caspian follows the smelt. At ice-out in late April, lake trout, rainbows, and browns move onto the shoreline gravel and off the inlet mouths to intercept spawning smelt, and streamer fishing from a small boat or the town beach shoreline is as good as it gets on this lake. The window lasts into late May most years. Because Caspian is mid-sized and relatively sheltered compared to Willoughby or Seymour, it is friendlier water for canoes, kayaks, and float tubes.

Summer fishing rewards finesse. Morning chironomid emergences over the 20-to-40-foot contours, evening midge and Callibaetis activity in the shallower coves, and damselfly migrations along the weed edges in June and July keep a floating-line angler busy while the lake trout sulk in the depths. Rainbows and browns cruise the margins early and late all season.

Fall turns the lake over slowly, and October streamer fishing for browns and rainbows along the shorelines is an underrated finish to the year before the lake settles into its winter ice season. Caspian is not big-numbers water, and its clear, calm surface can be humbling, but it offers something increasingly scarce: a healthy, intact, largely wild coldwater lake fishery in a village setting that has hardly changed in a hundred years.

Caspian is a clear, cold, spring-influenced lake in a glacial basin, with a deep central hole over 140 feet and broad shoulders in the 20-to-60-foot range. Gravel and rubble dominate the shorelines, with limited but important weedbeds in the coves that hold damselflies, dragonflies, leeches, and Callibaetis mayflies. Chironomids are abundant throughout.

Water quality is exceptional — the lake is often cited among the most pristine in Vermont — and the smelt population sustains wild lake trout, rainbow, and brown trout without heavy hatchery support. Clarity cuts both ways: fish see a long way, and fine leaders and quiet presentations matter more here than on most Vermont stillwaters.

Caspian supports a traditional winter ice fishery for lake trout during Vermont's ice fishing season for trout and salmon, with jigging over the deep central basin most productive. The village plows keep access simple; check ice conditions locally at Willey's store.