Lake trout are not really trout at all but the largest of the char, built for cold, deep, clear water. In Massachusetts they live in a handful of big reservoirs, and they bring a taste of the North Country to New England: heavy fish that pull slow and hard from deep water.
How to identify them
Lake trout are long and heavy-bodied, gray to greenish, densely covered in pale, cream-colored spots, with a deeply forked tail. The light-spots-on-dark pattern and the forked tail separate them from the other trout and char.
Where and when
Lakers need cold, deep water, so in Massachusetts they are found in the big deep reservoirs, notably Quabbin and Wachusett. They cruise shallower in the cold of early spring and late fall, then retreat to the depths through the summer.
Tip Follow the temperature. In spring and fall lakers feed shallow and are catchable on cast and trolled lures; by summer they are deep and cold, so you jig or troll down where the water is cold enough to hold them.
How to catch them
Lakers eat smelt and other baitfish. In the cold months, cast or troll spoons and swimbaits in the shallows; in summer, vertical jigging or deep trolling reaches them down deep. Heavy, patient fishing for a heavy, patient fish.