Trout fishery: But know your regulations on gear, and the illegality of possessing salmon.

FOR THOSE ice fishermen who are frustrated with the slow ice build-up and want to get onto some big water for lake trout and other trout, the Connecticut Lakes — First, Second, Third and Lake Francis — would be a good choice, You should know, however, that as with all other lakes in New Hampshire, the possession of salmon of any kind is illegal when ice fishing.

The Connecticut Lakes have salmon along with lake trout and brown, rainbow and brook trout.

Special regulations for these lakes include no minimum length limit for brook trout, rainbow trout, brown trout or their hybrids (good example would be a tiger trout which is a cross between a brown and brook trout).

Bag limit for brook, brown and rainbow trout and their hybrids is five fish or five pounds, whichever is reached first but for lake trout, the bag limit is two fish with minimum length of 18 inches.

If you want to catch lake trout and some outsized cusk, there’s no doubt that the First Connecticut Lake should be your choice. This lake has a natural reproduction of lake trout that seems always to be able to support a considerable fishery and some cusk that will strain your gear.

Know that although general regulations allow six ice fishing devices, when fishing the designated lake trout waters such as the Connecticut Lakes, only two ice fishing devices may be used. That would be two tip-ups, or one tip-up and one jigging line, or two jigging lines. This rule is often confusing to ice fishermen who mistakenly think that the term fishing device refers to a tip-up but not to a jigging line.

A jigging line most certainly is considered a fishing device.

Cusk fishing is often done at night, and special regulations allow six additional fishing devices that do not have free running spools and special regulations so you are well advised to check out the requirements in the rule book or online at www.FishNH.com.

Also know that you may leave these special cusk lines unattended for up to 24 hours and that all species of fish that are not cusk must be released alive. There are no bag or daily limits for cusk.

Although cusk are not the glamour fish that trout are, they are a treat on the table.

Cusk have clear white meat and can be fried, baked, broiled or my favorite way, in a fish salad. Here is the recipe: Remove head and fins, including the tail and remove the skin. Then steam the fish in some white wine, pick the meat off the bones, let chill and make the best fish salad by adding some finely chopped celery, mayonnaise and salt and pepper to taste.

You just won’t believe how an ugly fish can turn into a princess.

Lake trout seem to have a bad reputation for table qual-ity, and we think we know the reason. Lakers, especially some of the older and larger ones, have some strong-tasting flesh along their lateral lines.

So best results are realized by filleting the fish and then skinning the fillets, which will remove quite a bit of the darker, stronger flesh. With the bigger fish, we will carefully cut out some of this dark meat, and we’ll still cook it separately for our pets to eat. But the remaining fillet is gourmet quality.

We like to paint the fillet with mayonnaise and lightly spread crumbs we make ourselves from Ritz crackers.

Then we’ll often add a few tabs of butter on top of the crumbs and sprinkle with garlic powder to taste.

Set the oven at 350 degrees, lightly set foil over the top and bake for 30 minutes, remove foil and set over to broil and remove when crumbs start to brown.

As my friend Tomcat would say, “You’d have to be a communist to not like it!”

Baked, stuffed trout are also a specialty at our table. We prefer to cut off the heads but that is not mandatory. Remove tail. Slit the stomach cavity and remove entrails and the blood line along the spine. Salt and pepper the cavity to taste.

With roughly crushed crumbs, mix melted butter and very finely chopped onion and green pepper to your taste. Also we like to add enough prepared horseradish to taste as well as some celery salt and a dash or two of Worcestershire Sauce. Stuff the fish cavities, lay them out on a cookie sheet (use foil if you want on the sheet), cover with foil and bake for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Remove foil, set oven to broil and remove the fish when the crumbs start to brown.

For averaged sized trout, serve one fish to each diner.

For larger fish, cut and serve sections. And thank your lucky stars that you read this column!

Drop us an email and get out there and get you some.

Dick Pinney’s Guide Lines column appears weekly in the New Hampshire Sunday News. Readers may e-mail him at DoDuckInn@aol.com