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| Message Subject: Indian Lake Chain, Ontario | |||
dliles |
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Posts: 2 | Was wondering if anyone had advice for Indian Lake Chain, On. in terms of bait presentations, techniques, locations? I'm taking a small group up in mid August for a second year in row. Had fished Canyon Lake for many years and had lots of luck on top waters, jerk baits, even rapalas. On the Indian Chain, we have never gotten a single one on top waters or even jerk baits. We have gotten plenty on Muskies wacking the walleye when pulled off the bottom. Anyway, I didn't know if it was truly a good lake in August or if we are just using the wrong approach given it is a stained lake versus the clear waters of Canyon. Any advice is appreciated. Dave | ||
| Zman |
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Posts: 94 Location: Perham, MN | I was there for a week in august last year. The bite was slow! Small baits were the key for us... micro bulldawgs, rattle traps, buckstails. We did move fish on topwater but only in the morning and evening. We found most on the rocks but a few in the red cabbage. If the bite is slow maybe try fishing deep. The biggest fish of the trip was clamped onto a walleye in about 15 feet. i hope this helps. | ||
| Illineye |
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Posts: 65 Location: Springfield, IL and Vermilion Bay, ON | I go to Indian Lake twice each year and have been going since 1960...tho I really didn't know much back then. Small baits can be a real winner. Larger baits for trolling the main lake points and reefs, but smaller ones for casting shoreline rocks and weed beds. Best spot on the lake is the North end of the main body. Opposite from the camp. Shallow water that does drop off into deep. A very large weed bed that has an inside edge, too. Weeds will come up to the surface and then drop slowly back to the bottom. There really is hardly any 'bad'shorleine on the lake, but my favorites have always been the three points along the north side, and the bays in between. Trolling deep water has been pretty successful, too. My take is that most of the bite will appear to be off the rocks, but if you can find the large weedbeds, you will do well. I'll be there July 21 for a couple of weeks and then again in October. Please let me know how you get along. | ||
| MuskieRob |
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Posts: 14 | I've fished Indian Lake and caught a few muskies while there and all were caught while trolling larger baits in the main lake basin and along the shorelines in about 20-30 feet of water. Other members in our group caught muskies while trolling for walleyes and all were caught on small Rapalas. We did raise some that were hanging around larger boulders. We found the walleye bite difficult while we were there and actually headed up to the English River near Ear Falls and slayed them. We couldn't catch a walleye under 23". Best walleye fishing ever! Hope you have good luck when you go and if you're staying at Indian Lake Lodge, you'll have great hosts in Kevin and Karen! | ||
| Musky Brian |
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Posts: 1767 Location: Lake Country, Wisconsin | I kinda do the opposite of most when fishing on the chain. When fishing Indian and Edwards, I focus my attention on the many bays of downed Timber in the old creek beds and besides one spot I can think of generally ignore the weeds. Fishing these with top raiders and bucktails is very productive at any point of the summer. Also in a lake system known for having smaller fish, the average size of the fish that come out of the stumps is usually better then most areas I have found. In these spots, there's no such thing as "too shallow". In general, always keep a black bulldawg next to you, and SMALL bucktails work very well. Cobble is another must fish lake, it's darker water so anything with the red cabbage, timber, or sand is just dynamite with bright bucktails and top water. | ||
| BrianSwenson |
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Posts: 201 Location: Stevens Point | When I was there rocks were Key. couldn't get fish moving in weeds. caught a lot, springdawgs small tails and jerkbaits are what worked, didn't get any fish on topwater, but it was a cold front when we were up there. Good luck. | ||
| Into The Outdoors |
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Posts: 2 | Dave- We've fished there for many years as well and were there 6/23 to 6/30- earlier than we typically go. Here's what I can tell you. They've had huge amounts of rain. The water is up over 2 feet from last years low point (there's been 3-4 years of sustained drought and we've watched the water go down down down- until now.) The weather was hot as Hades for the first 2 days of our trip with mondo storms on Saturday night and again Monday night. (5" of rain while we were there). By Thursday morning 6/28, I was building a fire in the woodstove that morning to ward off the chill- it was a cool 40 degrees that morning and a major post-cold front. (Lovely!) We stay at Forest Lake Lodge with Gordy, Mary and Blair Therrien- they are wonderful folks for sure. Anyway- the fishing... I can concur with some of what was said here. Small bucktails- Mepps#5, Fudally Musky Candy and Buchertails work best for me. Black, White, Purple and Orange/Chartreuse seem best. Topwater from just before sunset to civil twilight. I've never had much luck in the early morning on anything- topwater or otherwise there- and a few years back we started concentrating on the 9AM to 2PM slot and again from after dinner to dark- it seems to take the most fish for us during those times but that's usually July- not August. Rocks, weeds and Timber- those are your choices. I've found fish in all of them. Boulder at the south end is pretty clear and deep- cobble and Edwards and Whitney are murky with more weeds and some rock. Forest is clearer and has combinations of all three- weeds, rock and shoreline timber. Large stands of timber between the lakes in the channels are worth a go with bucktails, spinnerbaits and topwaters. Suicks used to be HUGE for me there but for the first time ever I raised not a single fish on a Suick. We ended up with 5 or 6 fish for the week between my wife and I - largest a 35" fish. Had two better fish on (one 41 or so another about 40) and lost them both at the boat (both hit on figure 8's). During the time you're going- I like rock. The narrow channel at the north end leading towards the dam is filled with rock and holds many fish- some of them decent. I agree with the previous post about the north shore across from Forest Lake Lodge going down towards the island and the dam- that shore and it's bays- hold fish and some good ones. There's a large bay about half-way down that shore that is filled with downed timber. The past 3 years it's been so low that nothing's been in there- this trip we raised 3 good ones and caught one in there. Lots more places to fish this year now that the water's up. However- there's a down side I'm finding that will probably not see us come back to the Indian Chain for awhile and that's pressure. With the consolidation and new owners of some of the lodges there- the exposure has gone WAY up. 8-9 years ago- I'd fish some spots on Edwards and Indian and never see a boat. Now- the past 3 years- you'll see A LOT of boats on a bunch of those spots.... and the fish are showing it in their response to baits too. They 're getting spooky and shy. Used to be they'd charge right at you- "boat and angler be #*^@ed..." and you'd get LOTS of fish on figure 8's. Now- many of them virtually stop dead in their tracks 8-10 feet away as soon as they see the boat. Similar to down here on the Fox Chain- these fish are starting to hit now on real long casts- way away from the boat and we're getting fewer and fewer bites at the boat and the baits have to be smaller and smaller and smaller each season and for me- that's not fun- that's just over-pressured fish. The Indian Chain was never (IMHO) a big fish fishery- it's a numbers location. In all the years I've fished there- I've seen one bonafide 50" fish and the biggest ever caught in our group was 47" and that was many years ago. The trade-off was that you'd always see 15-20 fish a day, hook about 4 or 5 and boat a few in the mid to high 30's. Now- you'll see nearly as many fish (we raised 21 one day- Monday I think) but you'll hook far fewer (we even went to flouro leaders and downsize line but they are just plain spooky and we were there the 2nd week of the season...). For the work we do to get there- fish hard and be creative- my feeling is the Indian Chain is becoming overfished and the fish are getting too wise. Time for us to move on I think. Our group of 8 boated 9 fish during the week this year the largest being 39.5". Compare that to 2000 when our group (10 that year) boated 61 fish during the week and it's virtually gone down every year since (maybe we're just becoming bad anglers!!! :)) But- it's a beautiful and very manageable body of water- with plenty of good looks at fish and a good walleye population that's not hard to find eaters and is very fishable even in nasty weather. By the way- two baits that we had good luck with this year- one was the new Rumbler topwater. Caught 2 nicer fish on it and lost one of the bigger ones on a figure 8 at the boat at mid-day in high skies on Thursday. That bait was impressive. And- in accordance with the small bait thing- the bass-sized chatterbait in white was good too- but add a trailer hook- absolutely essential. Good luck- hope that helps and by all means have fun and when the fish pulls- pull back! -Todd Edited by Into The Outdoors 7/10/2007 8:49 AM | ||
| dliles |
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Posts: 2 | Thanks everyone for simply the GREAT responses and suggestions. I know it is easy to get trapped into the same routines and baits so this gives me allot of new ideas. The wonderful camp hosts at Clarks Camp, Wayne and Karla, said that last year the water levels were extremely low and that was impacting the Muskie bite. I know lots of boaters were complaining even about the walleye bite although our group had very good success on Walleyes. Most were great eating size with only a few in the 3lb+ range. It was fun to be able to catch walleye all day as opposed to Canyon which is predominately an early morning and evening walleye bite due to the clear water. Anyway, hopefully we will have some big Muskies to report. | ||
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