Upper Mystic Lake Fishing Guides

About the Upper Mystic Lake

Upper Mystic Lake is the deep half of a two basin system that sits improbably close to downtown Boston, about six miles from the harbor and surrounded on all sides by dense suburb. It covers roughly a hundred and eighty acres and drops to around seventy five feet, which makes it far and away the deepest water in the Mystic River watershed and the reason it fishes differently from every pond around it. Because it is deep enough to stratify through the summer, it holds a band of cold oxygenated water well after the shallow ponds nearby have gone warm and weedy, and that thermal refuge is what allows trout to survive from one stocking to the next rather than being caught out or dying off by August.

MassWildlife stocks the lake with rainbow and brown trout in spring and again in fall, and those fish share the water with a resident warmwater community that is genuinely good in its own right. Largemouth and smallmouth bass both do well along the rocky western shore, chain pickerel patrol the weed edges in the shallower coves, and the lake carries strong numbers of white perch, yellow perch and black crappie that draw a steady winter following once safe ice forms. The white perch in particular are a legacy of the lake’s tidal past, and they school heavily enough in early summer to reward anyone willing to find them.

The gauge here is mounted at the gate house on the Mystic Lakes Dam and reports lake elevation rather than discharge, which is the right measurement for a controlled urban lake whose level is managed for flood storage and for the fish ladder below. The ladder matters: river herring now run the Mystic system again in numbers that were unthinkable a generation ago, and their arrival in April and May puts bait through the whole chain and lifts the bass and perch fishing with it.

Access

Winchester - the town on the western shore, with Shannon Beach and the most direct public frontage on the upper basin.
Medford - the eastern shore town, with Sandy Beach and parking close to the narrows between the two lakes.
Mystic Lakes Dam - the gate house structure at the south end, the gauge reference point and the site of the fish ladder.
Lower Mystic Lake - the shallower basin immediately downstream, warmer and weedier and worth a look for pickerel.
Arlington - the town at the southwest corner, with the Mystic River path and further bank access below the dam.
Horn Pond - a stocked alternative a few miles north in Woburn when the lake is crowded or blown out.
Boston - fifteen minutes southeast, with the nearest airport, tackle shops and every service.

Seasons

Spring: the best fishing of the year, with fresh stocked trout, spawning bass in the coves and the herring run arriving through April and May.
Summer: the surface goes warm and busy with boat traffic, and the trout drop to the thermocline where a deep presentation is the only thing that reaches them.
Fall: the second stocking lands and the water cools back through the bass range, giving the most comfortable shoreline fishing of the year.
Winter: ice forms in the shallower margins most years but the deep basin is unreliable, so caution matters more here than on the ponds nearby.