ILLUSTRATION BY CAT KAHNLE

The first soft tufts of green poke up from the garden. Our tires are muddy; our inland waters have thawed. Winter is over but spring hasn’t quite sprung. Ducks are back, paddling officiously along the riverbanks. While we wait for spring produce, anglers begin tying flies, dusting off their waders, replacing rusty hooks. As the birds come home, similar homecoming occurs beneath the surfaces of our rivers and ponds. Fish give us our first taste of spring.

Deerfield River

BROOK TROUT

Most of the trout caught in Massachusetts began life in a hatchery. Every fall, Mass Wildlife releases more than 450,000 brook, brown, rainbow, and tiger trout in lakes, rivers, and ponds throughout the state.

Massachusetts’ only native trout, wild brook trout are prized by anglers for their beauty—olive-green bodies marbled with gold, a smattering of haloed blue dots along their flanks, tomato-red bellies. Brown trout, an introduced European species, tolerate warmer, siltier water, but “brookies” require cold, clean, oxygen-rich water. They’re considered an indicator species for environmental health. Stocked trout, conditioned in the tank to eat aggressively, are generally larger and easier to catch than wild fish, which are wary of predators, adapted to survive, and thrilling to hook. Fishing for wild trout requires stealth and stamina: Anglers climb over boulders and through thick brush to find the shallow pools of cool water where they thrive.

In 2023, with the support of the Deerfield River Watershed chapter of Trout Unlimited, an angler-conservationist group, the state stopped stocking brown trout in the river’s northern catch-and-release area. A four-year study of the area yielded surprising results: Even after 40 years of stocking, the population was self-sustaining; 80% of the sampled brown trout were wild. In 2025, rainbow trout followed. The Deerfield and its tributaries offer some of the state’s best trout fishing year-round, but peak season begins after snowmelt in April. In Charlemont, the Mohawk Trail State Forest offers easy terrestrial access to the Cold River, a tributary, for novice trout fishers and families. But in spring, a float down the river with a seasoned guide (many local businesses offer this service) is your best shot at hooking a brookie.

Trout fishing is highly regulated. The upper Deerfield is strictly catch and release, and there’s a three-fish daily limit statewide. But if you’re lucky enough to catch a wild brook trout further downstream, the rewards are rich. The flesh is milder and sweeter than brown trout, more akin to salmon. Baked in foil or pan-fried, wild trout offers a taste of the cool, clean valley water.

Connecticut River

AMERICAN SHAD

In early spring, before the foliage emerges along the riverbanks, the twiggy branches of American Serviceberry trees erupt in delicate star-shaped blossoms and the shadbush are blooming—sure signs that it’s fishing season. Native to the Atlantic coast of North America from maritime Canada to Florida, silver-scaled American shad are the largest herring species found in Massachusetts. The industrial revolution nearly wiped them out. By the mid-1800s, damming, dredging, and pollution from the factories that anchored cities and towns along the Commonwealth’s rivers had eliminated American shad from the Massachusetts portions of the Connecticut River.

Since the 1950s, the state has required companies harnessing the river’s power to invest heavily in its health. Infrastructure like the Turners Falls Fishway, operated by FirstLight Power, and Holyoke Gas and Electric’s Robert E. Barrett Fishway at the Holyoke Dam have increased shad numbers dramatically.

Shad are anadromous. They are born in freshwater, where they remain through their first summer. As river temperatures decline, juveniles migrate to the ocean, returning home to the freshwater where they were born to spawn.

Commercial harvest was banned statewide in 1987, but recreational harvest in the Connecticut River and its tributaries continues to provide some of the most exciting spring fishing in the valley. A hard-fighting gamefish, shad are rewarding to catch even when the water is thick with them. Delicious and packed with omega-3s, they’re also filled with brittle little bones, making them better suited to smoking or slow-cooking than filleting. If you’re lucky, you’ll find lobes of shad roe, the delicate egg sacs that are delicious sautéed with bacon.

There are shad fishing spots in each town along the Connecticut, from Northampton to Holyoke to Chicopee, but Slim Shad Point, just below the dam off North Street Bridge in Holyoke, is a hard spot to beat. In season, every American shad fish traveling upstream to spawn passes Slim Shad Point. It’s ADA-accessible and open to the general public between April and October each year.

Quabbin Reservoir

SMALLMOUTH BASS

In the 1930s, the state displaced 2,500 residents and wiped four towns from the map when it built the Winsor Dam and the Goodnough Dike to form the Quabbin Reservoir, the largest inland body of water in the state. The Quabbin provides drinking water for millions of people, mostly in Greater Boston. Swimming is forbidden, but beginning each April, the reservoir’s vast expanse of deep water offers some of the region’s best opportunities for large- and smallmouth bass fishing.

Members of the sunfish family, smallmouth (smallies) and largemouth bass were introduced to the state for sport fishing in the 19th century and quickly became some of the most prominent freshwater fish in New England. Smallies have red eyes, torpedo-shaped bodies, and a cleaner flavor than their more prolific largemouth cousins, which are bigger, greener, and distinguished by their underbite. Both species stand up well to baking, frying, or sautéing on the day they’re caught.

Shore fishing and boat fishing are both permitted, but regulations are particularly stringent at the reservoir, so it’s important to check MassWildlife’s website for current information. The Quabbin’s size and depth can make for a daunting prospect—looking out at the water’s surface, there are few clues as to what lies beneath you. Experts recommend an early arrival, a boat rental in Belchertown (area 1) on the warmer southern side, a good sonar unit, and a topographical map.

Climbing over boulders, rolling up to a hydroelectric dam, or floating on an 80-year-old man-made lake, fishing situates us at the confluence of industry, government, and wild nature. Beets and asparagus will be here soon. Until then, look beneath the water’s surface for a slippery little taste of our valley and its history at this moment in time.