Trout anglers itching do some early season lake fishing should consider Harvey's Lake. Harvey's is one of Vermont's beautiful, deep, glacially-scoured Northeast Kingdom trout lakes. But it is also the southernmost, lowest elevation such lake, and it is consistently one of the Kingdom's first major trout lakes to lose its ice each year. Often the ice is out by mid-April, and this year it appears likely it will be at least partially open by opening day, April 12.

Whenever it comes, the period just after ice out is one of the best times to cash in on the 409-acre lake's rainbow trout fishery, according to state game warden, Ken Denton of Danville. "It can be quite a producer of rainbows just after the ice goes out," Denton said. "People fishing all along the shore and do quite well then." "Most of the rainbows run 12 to 20 inches, although bigger rainbows are occasionally caught," said retired Burlington Free Press outdoors editor, Bish Bishop, who maintains a camp on the lake. "Chunky, 4 pound rainbows are not unusual." Bishop said, and the biggest rainbow he recalls seeing was a 32-inch, 8-pound bruiser that was caught by a neighbor while brook trout fishing in the early spring on South Peacham Brook, a tributary that flows into the lake's outlet.

"It's not a bad little lake for fishing." said Bishop, who times his return to Vermont from Florida each year in mid-April when the ice goes out. "The rainbows are the main thing, but it's also got some pretty good lake trout as well as some nice perch and pickerel."

Traditionally, Harvey's has been one of Vermont's top lakes for producing big lake trout, although, as on any lake, they do not come easy. The biggest lake trout Bishop is aware of coming from the lake weighed 25 pounds. "There's a few big trout in there, but you've got to work hard for them," said Gilbert Laferriere of Barre, In the mid 1970's, Laferriere caught a 19-1/2 pound laker from Harvey's, and 20 years later followed that with a 17 1 D2 pounder.

Laferriere is a traditional lake trout specialist. He trolls the lake with wire line and bounces Sutton spoons along the bottom, manually yanking his line to give the spoon extra action. Rainbow specialists fish along the shore and on the surface early in the season, and troll flies and spoons down 30-40 feet in the summer.

One reason why Harvey's produces occasional lunker lakers and rainbows, despite relatively heavy fishing pressure, is it historically has had an excellent smelt fishery. Over the years, state fishery biologists have collected smelt eggs from Jewett Brook on Harvey's Lake and used them to restore depleted smelt populations on Willoughby, Caspian and other northern Vermont trout lakes.

But natural reproduction of both lakers and rainbows is rare. The trout fishery is sustained with annual stockings of about 2,000 lake trout and 1,500 rainbows. In order to determine how much natural lake trout reproduction occurs, state fishery biologists recently began marketing stocked fish by clipping a fin; these lake trout should begin showing up in the creel as legal, 18-plus-inch fish by 1999 or 2000.

While trout are the main draw on Harvey's, it also holds some very large chain pickerel, including the odd fish up to six pounds! Both the southern and northern ends are weedy and home to pickerel, although pickerel weighing 2-4 pounds can be caught virtually all along the shore.