Mystic Lake in Pend Oreille County: How and When to Fish It

• Overview

  Look for Mystic Lake in Pend Oreille County, Washington. It stands 2,989 feet above sea level. Surface area runs to about 19 acres — small enough to read in one session. The closest town, Newport, is 11 miles distant. The nearest city of size is Spokane, 48 miles away. What else is close: Cooks Lake (1.7 miles), No Name Lake 2.2 miles, Bead Lake (2.2 miles), Vances Lake 2.7 miles and Conklin Lake (4.4 miles). No boundary runs near, so the county rules hold throughout.

• Where to Fish on Mystic Lake

  No depth figure appears in our records, so the bank has to tell you. Where the bottom changes texture, fish gather; find that line. This is a lake, so the margins and the first drop matter most. County-wide records name rainbow trout, tench, cutthroat trout, pumpkinseed and brook trout. These are county-wide records, so not all of them will be in this water. The shape of Mystic Lake decides where the fish sit.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Averages here run 64°F at the top of summer and 24°F at the bottom of winter. The freeze arrives properly here and holds. Ice fishing carries the winter, and the water opens about late March. Ice clears near late March and comes back about early December in a typical year. Early summer and early autumn carry the open-water season. The season on Mystic Lake rarely departs from it.

• Tackle & Baits

  The access position is unclear from public sources. Parking is close: a car park sits half a mile from the bank. For the bass here, soft plastics worked slow along cover and a spinnerbait for searching do most of the work. Check locally before you travel, because a wasted drive is a long one. Rules for boats are stricter than rules for the bank in many places. Should this one be busy, Cooks Lake is 1.7 miles off. None of that is settled for Mystic Lake in what we hold.