Indiana concentrates its quality: Monroe and Patoka in the forested south (hybrids, bass and famous bluegill), Lake Michigan's corner in the northwest with genuine trout-and-salmon water, and a hundred natural kettle lakes in the north where muskie and panfish culture runs deep.
Reports current for Friday, October 23
Every one of the 15 Indiana waters we cover has a live read this morning. They are all sitting in the middle of the scale today. Water runs 55 F to 74 F. Pressure is holding steady on most of them, so the day comes down to water temperature and wind.
Best right now: Blue River 3/5, Brookville Lake 3/5, Cagles Mill Lake 3/5
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
Indiana's big water: quiet coves, hybrid stripers and Hoosier National Forest shorelines.
Patoka Lake: an 8,800-acre southern Indiana reservoir with ten launch ramps, stocked walleye and hybrid striped bass, and no outboard limit.
Indiana’s clear-water anomaly: Brookville hides walleye, smallmouth and true striped bass in Whitewater Valley hill country.
Indiana's largest natural lake: 3,410 acres of developed shoreline near Syracuse, with bluegill, largemouth and northern pike at the core of the catch.
Indiana’s smallmouth float: the Tippecanoe winds 180 miles of gravel and current through farm country to the Wabash.
Indianapolis’ backyard lake: Geist holds bass, crappie and hybrid stripers among the docks.
Crappie water on the upper Wabash: Salamonie Lake’s 2,665 acres, with walleye and white bass in the tailwater below the dam.
Mississinewa Lake near Peru: a 3,210-acre Upper Wabash flood-control reservoir with stocked walleye, four ramps and a marina.
Cagles Mill Lake: Indiana's first flood-control reservoir, a 1,400-acre Corps lake at Lieber SRA known to IDNR for walleye, white bass, channel catfish and white crappie.
The West Fork of the White River through Indianapolis: smallmouth bass, channel and flathead catfish in a river recovering from the 1999 fish kill.
Indiana’s canoe creek: Sugar Creek runs smallmouth past the cliffs of Turkey Run and Shades.
Indiana's Blue River: a state-designated natural, scenic and recreational river in Harrison, Crawford and Washington counties.
The Wabash at Lafayette: a long free-flowing river with catfish, sauger and black bass, under Indiana's river bass slot.
A Tippecanoe impoundment: Lake Freeman holds bass, crappie and catfish near Monticello.
Sylvan Lake: a 669-acre man-made lake at Rome City in Noble County, stocked with walleye every year and known to IDNR for bluegill and crappie.
Species activity across the state's covered waters. Peak of the year: May.
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.
Seasonal surface curve for this state's dominant water type (estimated).
| Water | Type | County | Live gauge | Peak month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Monroe fishing report | Reservoir | Monroe | USGS | Mar |
| Patoka Lake fishing report | Reservoir | Orange | USGS | Mar |
| Brookville Lake fishing report | Reservoir | Franklin | USGS | Mar |
| Lake Wawasee fishing report | Lake | Kosciusko | modeled | Apr |
| Tippecanoe River fishing report | River | Pulaski | USGS | May |
| Geist Reservoir fishing report | Reservoir | Hamilton | modeled | Mar |
| Salamonie Lake fishing report | Reservoir | Huntington | USGS | Mar |
| Mississinewa Lake fishing report | Reservoir | Miami | USGS | Apr |
| Cagles Mill Lake fishing report | Reservoir | Owen | modeled | Mar |
| White River fishing report | River | Marion | USGS | May |
| Sugar Creek fishing report | River | Montgomery | USGS | May |
| Blue River fishing report | River | Harrison | USGS | May |
| Wabash River fishing report | River | Tippecanoe | USGS | May |
| Lake Freeman fishing report | Lake | Carroll | modeled | Mar |
| Sylvan Lake fishing report | Lake | Noble | modeled | Mar |
Southern Indiana is reservoir country: Monroe's big-water hybrids and Patoka's timbered bass water inside national forest. The north holds glacial kettle lakes (Webster's muskies, Wawasee's depth) with an old-school resort fishing culture. And the northwest corner touches Lake Michigan: skamania steelhead run Trail Creek and the St. Joseph in the heat of summer, a fishery most of the country never hears about.
May: bluegill beds (a Hoosier institution) and crappie brush. Summer: skamania in the tributaries: the only true summer steelhead east of the Rockies: plus night bass on the reservoirs. Fall: muskies on the natural lakes and hybrid schools at Monroe. Winter: ice season on the kettles, sauger below the Ohio River dams.
A summer-run steelhead strain stocked in Lake Michigan tributaries: they enter Indiana creeks in June-August heat, jump like tarpon and break hearts. Trail Creek in Michigan City is the epicenter.