OddChase Posted June 28, 2017 Posted June 28, 2017 Planning a camping trip with some newer fishermen and bringing some kayaks. Any good parks in Indiana or Western Ohio you guys would recommend? I've been looking at the Chain O'Lakes State Park north of Fort Wayne. Prefer a lake that is either electric only or idle only as I don't want to get pushed around in the 'yak. Willing to travel up to 3 hours from Indy. 1 Quote
WiseBass Posted June 28, 2017 Posted June 28, 2017 1 hour ago, OddChase said: Planning a camping trip with some newer fishermen and bringing some kayaks. Any good parks in Indiana or Western Ohio you guys would recommend? I've been looking at the Chain O'Lakes State Park north of Fort Wayne. Prefer a lake that is either electric only or idle only as I don't want to get pushed around in the 'yak. Willing to travel up to 3 hours from Indy. Fowler Park in Terre Haute. Roughly an hour and a half drive from Indianapolis. Kayaks are allowed on the lake and every campsite has direct water access. Indy local here, went camping there last weekend for a mountain bike race and was able to catch a ton of bass topwater fishing. 1 Quote
BigBassLoveSenkos Posted June 28, 2017 Posted June 28, 2017 On 6/27/2017 at 10:16 AM, OddChase said: Also - went fishing with @BigBassLoveSenkos yesterday. As his name implies, we caught the majority of fish on senkos and a few on jigs/texas rigs. The problem with senkos is once I start catching them that way, I won't put that rod down. probably need to start leaving it in the rod locker until I cycle thru the others On 6/27/2017 at 10:16 AM, OddChase said: he will have close to 25 rods across his deck in the morning but only use about 4 throughout the day I hate retying 3 hours ago, OddChase said: Planning a camping trip with some newer fishermen and bringing some kayaks. Any good parks in Indiana or Western Ohio you guys would recommend? I've been looking at the Chain O'Lakes State Park north of Fort Wayne. Prefer a lake that is either electric only or idle only as I don't want to get pushed around in the 'yak. Willing to travel up to 3 hours from Indy. Do some recon on google maps for gravel pits with some sort of public access. There are lots of pits around indy that were mined back in the day for gravel to build 465 with. Less time driving, more time fishing 2 Quote
dsqui Posted June 28, 2017 Posted June 28, 2017 5 hours ago, OddChase said: Planning a camping trip with some newer fishermen and bringing some kayaks. Any good parks in Indiana or Western Ohio you guys would recommend? I've been looking at the Chain O'Lakes State Park north of Fort Wayne. Prefer a lake that is either electric only or idle only as I don't want to get pushed around in the 'yak. Willing to travel up to 3 hours from Indy. It's just a little further but I think it would be worth it for you it's just north of cold water mi and it's called camp potowatomi it has access to three lakes two of which are electric only and the third well ill just say ive never seen a gas motor... there is a river to kayak and fiah as well here is a link http://www.michigan.org/property/potawatomi-recreation-area Quote
CroakHunter Posted June 28, 2017 Posted June 28, 2017 7 hours ago, OddChase said: Planning a camping trip with some newer fishermen and bringing some kayaks. Any good parks in Indiana or Western Ohio you guys would recommend? I've been looking at the Chain O'Lakes State Park north of Fort Wayne. Prefer a lake that is either electric only or idle only as I don't want to get pushed around in the 'yak. Willing to travel up to 3 hours from Indy. Prides creek in southern indiana. Just off of interstate 69. The park is nice and clean and the water is easily accessible and has some decent fishing, it is an idle only lake and the water doesn't get very much boat pressure. This is my "home lake" make sure you let me know if you go there. Quote
Amoore9900 Posted June 29, 2017 Posted June 29, 2017 We went out for 3 hours yesterday got 11 fish (and 1 drum). About 6 of the fish came on a storm swim bait the rest came on a range crawl or a kvd 2.5. I was surprised we got most of the fish shallow still I had wondered with the weather if they would have been pushed deeper but they were still active and shallow. 5 Quote
IndianaFinesse Posted July 2, 2017 Posted July 2, 2017 I'm fishing the the state championship next weekend on Monroe (provided the boat shop can get our boat fixed, the power packs went out on it and they said that they would be lucky to get it done on Friday, but I'm just going to have to plan like we're going to fish it). Frustrating after missing a qualifier tournament earlier in the year cause of the boat, and now after we just managed to qualify for state our boat has more problems. Anyway, does anyone have any reports out of Monroe? What's the predominate patterns going? How much vegetation and pads are there this year? Is it worth going upriver right now? I would prefer of to be low and dropping for upriver, I'm not sure if it would be good with two foot high rising water. Any info on Monroe would be greatly appreciated. We almost certainly won't be able to prefish, and we will be lucky to fish the tournament at all, so I'm going to have to go off of research if we do make it. Quote
CroakHunter Posted July 3, 2017 Posted July 3, 2017 Decent bite today. 1/2 oz fogy with magnum rage bug, popper, rage craw, and a few blow ups on frog but none landed Quote
dsqui Posted July 8, 2017 Posted July 8, 2017 Made it out on clear Wed not a whole lot go in on allot of boat traffic was about it. Through a keitech most of the day managed one smallies that threw the hooks boat side. probably should have picked a different lake because I have a love hate relationship with clear I love to go there and fish I just always hate the results lol Quote
OddChase Posted July 11, 2017 Posted July 11, 2017 Headed to Raccoon in a few weeks - can the lake be fished by a kayak or will we get pushed around by pleasure boaters? Also where should we look for bass/panfish? Also hear there is a healthy population of white bass in the lake, any particular area? Quote
Scratchmo Posted July 11, 2017 Posted July 11, 2017 Launch at Walker boat ramp. Lots of shoreline to fish in the large idle zone before making it to the main lake body. Another option is to fish north of US 36 which is all idle zone. Put in at Portland Mills ramp. 1 Quote
Alan Reed Posted July 11, 2017 Posted July 11, 2017 Any of you Northern guys familiar with Palistine Lake up by Warsaw? They just changed the location of my kayak tournament this Saturday due to all the rain so now I'm scrambling to be prepared. Any information would be appreciated . Quote
Cole Richards Posted July 13, 2017 Posted July 13, 2017 On 7/11/2017 at 0:37 PM, Alan Reed said: Any of you Northern guys familiar with Palistine Lake up by Warsaw? They just changed the location of my kayak tournament this Saturday due to all the rain so now I'm scrambling to be prepared. Any information would be appreciated . Heavy cover , pads and slop . Flipping and pitching with Texas rigged baits and frogging . Don't be shy with your setups , above average fish here, big sacks are common. With all the rain the water will be high , fish will be buried in the deep stuff. There are to deep holes in the lake where they school, early in the day , think zoom fluke in pearl, or a Zara spook. Had a buddy have a 25 lb bag in 5 casts the other day on the hole in end south end of the lake on the edge of the deep hole . When the sun gets high , find the matted grass , they don't the old on the pads for some reason very much . 1 Quote
Alan Reed Posted July 13, 2017 Posted July 13, 2017 40 minutes ago, Cole Richards said: Heavy cover , pads and slop . Flipping and pitching with Texas rigged baits and frogging . Don't be shy with your setups , above average fish here, big sacks are common. With all the rain the water will be high , fish will be buried in the deep stuff. There are to deep holes in the lake where they school, early in the day , think zoom fluke in pearl, or a Zara spook. Had a buddy have a 25 lb bag in 5 casts the other day on the hole in end south end of the lake on the edge of the deep hole . When the sun gets high , find the matted grass , they don't the old on the pads for some reason very much . Great thanks, heading up tomorrow night to prefish Friday. 1 Quote
CroakHunter Posted July 13, 2017 Posted July 13, 2017 2 in the popping frog in 30 minutes, last fish messed up my reel, now I can cast 10 yards farther. Weird. 2 Quote
OddChase Posted July 13, 2017 Posted July 13, 2017 2 hours ago, CroakHunter said: 2 in the popping frog in 30 minutes, last fish messed up my reel, now I can cast 10 yards farther. Weird. Sounds like you had a piece of sand get ripped out of the bearing - good news for you! Quote
frosty Posted July 13, 2017 Posted July 13, 2017 4 hours ago, CroakHunter said: 2 in the popping frog in 30 minutes, last fish messed up my reel, now I can cast 10 yards farther. Weird. Maybe fixed instead of messed up ? Quote
CroakHunter Posted July 13, 2017 Posted July 13, 2017 Yeah something definitely happened because I used to have to turn all my brakes off and back spool tension way off and still wasn't getting distance like I should have been, so first cast after that fish was a crazy backlash, but then once I dialed it in again I was chucking the frog 40 yards easily. Quote
frosty Posted July 13, 2017 Posted July 13, 2017 2 hours ago, CroakHunter said: Yeah something definitely happened because I used to have to turn all my brakes off and back spool tension way off and still wasn't getting distance like I should have been, so first cast after that fish was a crazy backlash, but then once I dialed it in again I was chucking the frog 40 yards easily. Wow, something was definitely jammed up in there. I've never heard of a fish fixing a reel before this... Quote
CroakHunter Posted July 13, 2017 Posted July 13, 2017 25 minutes ago, frosty said: Wow, something was definitely jammed up in there. I've never heard of a fish fixing a reel before this... I'm not sure if the fish actually did it or if it was a coincidence, but I'm ok with it lol 1 Quote
frosty Posted July 13, 2017 Posted July 13, 2017 Guys if any of you are looking for a project I saw an old boat with a trailer and I think it had an outboard, it had a free sign on it. It's on the west side of Plainfield, I can give you directions if anyone is interested. Btw, it looks like you would imagine a free boat would 1 Quote
IndianaFinesse Posted July 17, 2017 Posted July 17, 2017 Sorry it took so long to get the state championship tournament on Monroe report in, I was busy catching big bass and pike up in Michigan. It was last week on Sunday. On tournament morning we idled off in a blaze of glory (we launched from a ramp next to a causeway in the nowake zone), always rather anticlimactic when your adrenaline's going. Started out throwing topwater around the causeway and picked up a nice three pound even keeper on a frog, nice to get that first fish in the boat early. Caught a dozen or so short fish along the causeway on assorted topwater and shallow cranks, no more keepers. Went upriver to some spots we found in prefishing, caught about two dozen short 12-13.75 inch fish on shallow and middepth cranks. Got out of the slow side around noon with only one keeper in the live well, and tried a few offshore spots. No dice there, and with a little less than an hour and a half left we went to plan D and found some mats to throw frogs on. Caught one two pounder on the first mat we fished right off the bat, and then broke the tip off my frog rod on a stupid cast. Had to swap over to a 6'6" medium powered spinning rod with 8 pound braid after that, which kinda messed up my hooking/landing percentage a bit. Got about five or six more bites after that, all while running other mats in similar areas. Didn't connect on anything else. Went back to the weigh in, and it turns out only two limits were weighed! Our 5.03 pounds got us an 11th place finish, a very solid finish for the state championship in my book. Prizes went down past or place to, so that was cool. Another thing a learned was that the club with the highest weight in the state finals gets two tickets to the national championship, and even though our club only had three teams qualify (many had 5-7) we all made the top 12 and one team won it. Not entirely sure how the lucky teams are chosen, aoy points, placement in the state, or if the club president picks. But we do have some chance of getting a coveted ticket, not a big one as both other teams have a higher aoy (one of them only because we missed a tournament because of motor problems). Would be pretty awesome if we did make it. 2 Quote
dsqui Posted July 17, 2017 Posted July 17, 2017 Made it out on clear Sat night fished til 2 am managed one short pike on top water ( I have still not found a good top water bite I don't understand) switched to a Ned as sun went down for a big goose egg on it back to top as the sun was in its final half hour still nothing fished top til about1030 At this point I went to a bladed swim jig most fish I've ever caught on one all were rock bass lol well and two bonus walleye typical day on clear gotta love to hate this lake but it keeps me coming back for more 1 Quote
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