Any lakes near NW Indiana with larger areas W/weed free hard bottoms with good shore access

[CDMTJager]

I would love to give a bass lake a try that has sizable areas accessible from shore that are weed free and can be fished with soft plastics rigged with an exposed hoog or with jigs. All of the bass lakes I fish are muck bottom and full of weeds and lily pads. Don't get me wrong these are very good bass lakes and I count my blessings I have such productive bass fisheries near my home. I would just like to try something different.

 

 I invested a sizable amount of monet in Ned rigs, ned rig compatible soft plastics and jigs and I really can not use either in the lakes nearest my home due to the muck bottoms and being full of weeds and lily pad fields.

[Bolar]

The only place I can think of that might match some of what your looking for is at Lake George, downtown Hobart.  The top of the dam they used a lot of large rocks to reinforce the bank.  Get too far out and your back in the muck bottom.

 

Other than that, I can only think of the various marinas along Lake Michigan.  You can make your way to the break walls.  You would be fishing in a lot of large boulders, which might not be what your looking for.

 

Clean hard bottoms (), are rare around here.  The closer you get to the Lake you will find more sand.  Finding a place to fish from the shore, is that much more of a challenge. 

 

 

 

 

[CDMTJager]

On 8/1/2024 at 10:33 AM, Bolar said:

The only place I can think of that might match some of what your looking for is at Lake George, downtown Hobart.  The top of the dam they used a lot of large rocks to reinforce the bank.  Get too far out and your back in the muck bottom.

 

Other than that, I can only think of the various marinas along Lake Michigan.  You can make your way to the break walls.  You would be fishing in a lot of large boulders, which might not be what your looking for.

 

Clean hard bottoms (), are rare around here.  The closer you get to the Lake you will find more sand.  Finding a place to fish from the shore, is that much more of a challenge. 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the help. I know hard weed free bottoms from shore within 30-40 miles of my home is a tough find. That's why I use to fish the IL and IN portions of the Kankakee river so much from the 1980's till I discovered power plant breakwalls close to home in the mid 1990's and use to murder the smallmouth bass. So good was the smallie fishing off these breakwalls in IL and IN I stopped fishing anywhere else near my home for over 20 years and catching a largemouth in these areas was rare.