Indiana Lake Depths

Game fish · pike family

Northern pike

Esox lucius · also called pike

Native to IndianaRecorded in 26 Indiana lakes
Illustration of a northern pike in side view
AI-generated illustration, not a photograph and not to scale.
Range
Indiana is the southern edge of its native range
Found in
About a third of Indiana's 452 northern glacial lakes
Needs
Cool water (≤73°F) with enough oxygen year-round
Spawns
Among the earliest, right after ice-out, in flooded wetlands and weeds
Indiana record
30 lb 2 oz — Clear Lake, Steuben County, 1992

Where northern pike have been recorded

26 of the 111 Indiana lakes on this site with fish records list northern pike, across 7 counties. Tap a dot to open that lake’s depth map.

Lake Wawasee, Kosciusko CountyDewart Lake, Kosciusko CountyBig Chapman Lake, Kosciusko CountyJames Lake, Kosciusko CountyPike Lake, Kosciusko CountyPretty Lake, LaGrange CountyWall Lake, LaGrange CountyLittle Chapman Lake, Kosciusko CountyBixler Lake, Noble CountyDiamond Lake, Noble CountyBarton Lake, Steuben CountyCass Lake, LaGrange CountyHunter Lake, Elkhart CountyMyers Lake, Marshall CountyWestler Lake, LaGrange CountyLawrence Lake, Marshall CountyMessick Lake, LaGrange CountyLower Long Lake, Noble CountyHackleburg Lake, LaGrange CountyWilliams Lake, Noble CountyEmma Lake, LaGrange CountyPinhook Lake, St. Joseph CountyEve Lake, LaGrange CountyGordy Lake, Noble CountyMartin Lake, LaGrange CountyRupel Lake, St. Joseph County

Recorded here Other lakes with fish records

How we know

  • 26lakes where a DNR fisheries survey caught them

A lake can appear in more than one line. A lake that isn’t listed may still have them: records exist only where someone caught, netted or stocked them.

Inland lakes on this list run from 25 to 3,508 acres (median 96) and from 9 to 85 ft deep (median 35 ft).

How many turn up in DNR surveys

Indiana DNR crews survey lakes the same way everywhere: timed night electrofishing along the shore, plus gill and trap nets set overnight. The standard method makes lakes comparable. These are the DNR’s own sampling rates from its community surveys, 2008–2025 — a measure of how many fish a lake holds, not how many an angler will catch.

Found in
26 of 100 lakes surveyed this way
Typical rate
0.88 per net lift where found
Highest
3.2 per net lift
Method
fish per net lift (gill and trap nets)

“Typical” is the median across the lakes where the survey caught at least one. A single survey is a snapshot of one season.

Highest survey rates on this site

  1. Big Chapman Lake, Kosciusko 2021 3.2
  2. Lake Wawasee, Kosciusko 2008–2022 3.1
  3. Little Chapman Lake, Kosciusko 2018 3.0
  4. Lawrence Lake, Marshall 2017 2.5
  5. Dewart Lake, Kosciusko 2018–2020 1.8
  6. Hunter Lake, Elkhart 2016 1.8
  7. Pinhook Lake, St. Joseph 2022 1.8
  8. Gordy Lake, Noble 2014 1.2
  9. Wall Lake, LaGrange 2017 1.2
  10. Barton Lake, Steuben 2018 1.0

Fish per net lift (gill and trap nets), with survey years. Survey effort and season differ between lakes.

Often found with

Share of these lakes that also list each fish.

How to recognize it

A long, slender body with a duck-bill mouth full of needle-sharp teeth, a single soft dorsal fin near the tail, white or yellow spots on a dark green body, and dark spots or wavy lines on the fins. The cheek is fully scaled; the lower half of the gill cover is bare.

Don’t confuse it with

Redfin pickerel — Much smaller, with a dark teardrop under the eye and no dark markings on the fins.
Muskellunge — Dark bars or spots on a light body, six or more pores under each side of the jaw, and scales on only the upper half of the cheek.

Up close

Illustration of a northern pike's head from the side and slightly below, showing five sensory pores along each side of the lower jaw, a fully scaled cheek, and scales on only the upper half of the gill cover.
Northern pike: five pores under each side of the lower jaw; the whole cheek is scaled; the gill cover is scaled only on its upper half.
Illustration of a muskellunge's head from the side and slightly below, showing seven and eight sensory pores along the two sides of the lower jaw, with scales on only the upper half of the cheek and gill cover.
Muskellunge: six or more pores under each side of the lower jaw (seven and eight drawn here); the cheek and gill cover are scaled only on their upper halves.

AI-generated close-ups, not photographs, drawn from the cited descriptions. They show what to look for; they are not a substitute for an expert identification (provenance).

Life in an Indiana lake

Pike are voracious predators that grow fast. They need cool, oxygenated water all year and flooded wetlands or submerged plants to spawn; after spawning, adults move progressively deeper as the surface warms.

DNR spring surveys find most Indiana pike are 21–28 in and mostly male, while most pike over 28 in are female. Development and weed removal that warm and enrich lakes are thought to be squeezing pike habitat.

Source: the sources below.

Rules and eating

Check the rules before you keep fish. Each lake page shows the regulations that apply there, and the Indiana Fishing Guide is the official source. Before eating fish from a particular lake, check the Indiana Fish Consumption Advisory.

All 26 lakes with northern pike

Show every lake, by county

Elkhart County 1

Hunter Lake

Kosciusko County 6

Big Chapman Lake, Dewart Lake, James Lake, Lake Wawasee, Little Chapman Lake, Pike Lake

LaGrange County 9

Cass Lake, Emma Lake, Eve Lake, Hackleburg Lake, Martin Lake, Messick Lake, Pretty Lake, Wall Lake, Westler Lake

Marshall County 2

Lawrence Lake, Myers Lake

Noble County 5

Bixler Lake, Diamond Lake, Gordy Lake, Lower Long Lake, Williams Lake

St. Joseph County 2

Pinhook Lake, Rupel Lake

Steuben County 1

Barton Lake

Sources

← All fish of Indiana