Indy Pressure

What a difference a year makes. Indy has been one of our mainstay metro lakes for years, but last year we began to see the effect of fishing pressure from the lake’s increased popularity. It’s not Buffalo Lake “city”, yet, but the bite has certainly suffered the past two ice seasons from extensive fishing pressure and recreational use. I’ve been out three times this year and between all of us we’ve caught a handful of baby eyes and perch, and we’ve been to all the key spots. From talking to others we’re not alone, but it sounds like the North point has been giving up a few of the nicer fish.

Indy is a great lake, but this year patience and determination might be your best strategies. We HAVE had good luck in numbers and fish size at Washington (Meeker) and Tonka. Simple presentations with fatty heads have worked best for us.

Good luck!

I too have notice the added pressure, not only on Indy, but on most lakes. With the advances in clothing to stay warm along with technology to be mobile and catch fish, the days of only the hardy souls sitting on their buckets has gone by the wayside.

Even with the added pressure, at least on Indy, I haven’t noticed a decline in the fishing. The fishing on lakes like Indy is very dependant on the stocking that has taken place. You can definatly see when there is a strong year class. For example they stocked over 18000 fingerlings in 2001 that are now many of the fish that you will be catching.

If you see a purple Otter, stop over and say “hi”.

Hey Mike:

I agree with you on the success of stocking. The lake does seem very healthy and we must be seeing the results of those stocking efforts. We’ve just found it unusual to catch so many cigars, which must be those 2 year old eyes. But what happened to all the bigger fish?? Even this fall when we usually have success catching larger fish, all we caught were fish in the 8″-14″ range. It appears to be a very strong class and I guess that bodes well for the future walleye population. That said… have you had any success on any of the other west metro lakes?

I’ll look for ya next time out.

Indy is my goto for numbers. Size I like Tonka at times. I’ve toyed with Wacionia, but find small fish the norm there. I wish I spent more time on Prior.

I’ve seen quite a few nice fish on the camara on Indy, but it seems like the cigars are usually much more agressive and hit the bait first. I’ve also noticed the big fish to show up later and alone.