The Twin Lakes are adjacent

Lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

s Washining and Washinee, commonly referred to as East Twin Lake and West Twin Lake, in

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

amidst Connecticut's Northwest Hills. StoneTowerInWashiningLake

Geography

Lake Washinee is about 1.6 miles (2.6 km) long, and under a quarter mile (0.4 km) wide of except for its squarish roughly 0.5 by 0.6 mile (0.8 by 1.0 km) southernmost section. Its deepest part is around . Lake Washining is much rounder, and roughly 0.9 by 1.3 miles (1.5 by 2 km). It has a maximum depth of . Much of the shore is wetland, but there are some private residences. There is a

thermocline A thermocline (also known as the thermal layer or the metalimnion in lakes) is a thin but distinct layer in a large body of fluid (e.g. water, as in an ocean or lake; or air, e.g. an atmosphere) in which temperature changes more drastically with ...

that forms around . The Twin Lakes are located in Salisbury, Connecticut, roughly five miles away from both the Massachusetts and New York borders. The two lakes are separated by an

isthmus An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmu ...

under 300 feet (100 m) wide, and they maintain the same water level. They are located in the

Housatonic Valley The Housatonic River ( ) is a river, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 in western Massachusetts and western Connecticut in the United S ...

in northwestern

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

. Near the 'Between the Lakes Road' is located a series of limestone caves, including the Bashful Lady Cave, one of the longest in the state.

History

The original settlers in the area were

Mahican The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, who ...

Indians, from which the names of the lakes come from. ''Washinee'' is translated as "smiling water" and ''Washining'' is translated as "laughing water". In the 1720s and 1730s,

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

settled the area and farmed around the banks of the lakes. In the early 1900s, Camp Isola Bella was built on the island on Lake Washining (East Twin). The lake is also known as "Similar Lakes", "Dual Lakes", "Replica Lakes", and "Where the Lakes Are the Same".

Fishing

According to the State of

Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, East Twin Lake is "one of the most managed and studied coldwater lakes in the state". For many years up until the late 1980s, it had been home to the most popular kokanee fishery along the east coast of the United States. However, illegal introduction of alewives into the waters precipitated a near total collapse of the kokanee population by the early 1990s. Holdover brown trout began thriving in the aftermath of the kokanee collapse, growing to substantial sizes in great quantities for over a decade. However, shifting environmental conditions, including the introduction of the invasive

zebra mussel The zebra mussel (''Dreissena polymorpha'') is a small freshwater mussel. The species originates from the lakes of southern Russia and Ukraine, but has been accidentally introduced to numerous other areas and has become an invasive species in ma ...

in 1998, eventually resulted in the alewife population declining by 2008 along with the lake's ability to support large, holdover trout. It was at that time that an apparent remnant population of kokanee were observed spawning in East Twin Lake for the first time in more than 15 years. Management for kokanee was resumed and a robust salmon fishery was restored. Gamefish species present in both of the Twin Lakes include largemouth bass, chain pickerel, black crappie, yellow perch, brown bullhead and sunfish. East Twin Lake hosts a few species not found in West Twin, including kokanee salmon and stocked brook, brown and rainbow trout.

References

{{Coord, 42, 01, 06, N, 73, 23, 12, W, type:city_region:US-CT, display=title Lakes of Connecticut Lakes of Litchfield County, Connecticut