Just moved here to NW Indiana and have only been out once, an to the Calumet River at that. Caught a bunch of short Largies right next to Lake Michigan, but not a single Smallie. Tried to go up river and found it to be more of a creek. Not good fishing. Anyways, looking for a good river and some good lakes in the Portage or Valpo area. Let me know if any of you know anything this way. ;) ;)
where did you move in the region? i hail from Lowell, IN moved up to GR in '05.
I can tell you a couple spots to fish near home......
hey dude, you fished with my partner Tcook on Muskegon for the Firecracker I believe it was! How has it been? I live in Chesterton, right next to Porter just off 20, so if it's calm enough, which it never is when you plan on it, I'll be trying Lake Michigan, but if not, I need good water to play in. Any tourney trails down this way that are fun little outings?
yeah... things have been ok.. up and down... seems everytime i get a good sack, the next week i get a junk one.
hit stone/pine lake in portage... not a great big fish lake, but you should be able to go out and catch a ton of 13-14s... you can hone your deep & clear water skills there to on the weed edges.
try the deep weeds out in front of the tennis courts on the south shore on pine. also just to the west of the tip of the big penninsula is a bowl in thats about 8' deep thats good too. there are some pads up on the NW corner of the penninsula that hold the bigger fish usually.
to get in you have to launch on stone lake and go under a bridge to get to pine... make sure the water is up high enough to get through... or there is a marina you can launch in on pine.
then theres wawasee, maxinkuckee, james chain, tippy lake, manitou......
2 other sleeper spots south of ya are Area 3 at Lasalle FWA down by schneider. Its really a big nasty swamp, but i've seen a 9lber come out of there and have several 5+. Theres a good ramp, but its all stumps and pads and general nastiness..... decent fishing tho... just find the deeper water.
other spot is willow slough... they drained and refilled the lake a few years back and its is LOADED with 14-16'ers. You can put your big boat in, but its electric motor's only. 1400 acres of marshy lake... spinnerbaits in the brush and flipping the brush by the creek channel (very easy to find).
as for tournies... there's a weeknighter on wolf lake ... which isn't the greatest lake, but a tourney nonetheless... gets a fair amount of boats. i have a buddy that fishes it.
if you get bored head down to Morse or Geist Resevoirs down by indy... good big fish lakes and something a little different than you'll see around michigan.
when i was there i did FOM indiana north division. Decent trail and they usually had 40-50 boats and good payouts.
Looked and looked for Stone Lake in Portage, but found it in Laporte instead. Close though. Think I am going to go tonight. Need some fish after fishing Lake George yesterday. What a sorry lake it seemed. Got a few bites, but a speed limit of 10 and the deepest spot I found was about 8 ft.
yeah. laporte.. not portage. duh. my brain is still on vacation. :-[