Adding to the depth charts

By
Posted on Feb 01 2016 in Outdoors

Map courtesy of Indiana DNR

By Jack Spaulding

Learning a new lake is always a challenge for anglers. When you are on an unfamiliar lake you may be asking yourself: Where are the drop offs? The humps? The flats? The ridges and breaks?

Knowing the water makes it easier to find fish.

Fishing aficionados plying Indiana lakes have been given a tremendous gift courtesy of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Maps of 25 additional Indiana lakes, showing their depths in detail, are now available online for anglers and individuals who enjoy other water sports.

The website provides maps for a total of 185 lakes. The maps are at wildlife.IN.gov/5759.htm.

“These maps will help anglers find selected depths, drop-offs, bottom contours and other promising fishing spots,” said Brian Schoenung, DNR’s chief of fisheries.

Listed by county, here are the new lakes available:

• Allen: Hurshtown Reservoir;

• Fulton: South Mud Lake;

• Huntington: Wahk-Shin-Gah Lake;

• Jackson: Starve Hollow Lake;

• Kosciusko: Sechrist and Sellers lakes;

• LaGrange: Brokesha Lake;

• LaPorte: Upper and Lower Fish Lake;

• Marshall: Lake of the Woods and Zehner Millpond;

• Noble: Eagle, Engle, Sacarider and Skinner lakes;

• Pulaski: Bruce Lake;

• Putnam: Glenn Flint Lake;

• Steuben: Bell, Big Otter, Fox, Gage, Hamilton and West Otter lakes;

• Sullivan: Sullivan Lake;

• Wabash: Hominy Ridge Lake;

• Whitley: Old Lake.

The depth maps were developed through the Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish and Wildlife’s Lake and River Enhancement (LARE) Section, which completed vegetation and bathymetric (depth) surveys on the lakes starting in 2015.

Indiana’s DNR aims to add roughly two dozen new lake maps each year.

Knowing lake depths can also be helpful to property owners, swimmers and boaters to avoid hazards.

Jack Spaulding is a state outdoors writer and a consumer of RushShelby Energy living along the Flatrock River in Moscow. Readers with questions or comments can write to him in care of Electric Consumer, P.O. Box 24517, Indianapolis, IN 46224; or email jackspaulding@hughes.net.