Indiana Lake Depths

Panfish · sunfish family

Rock bass

Ambloplites rupestris · also called goggle-eye, red-eye

Native to IndianaRecorded in 34 Indiana lakes
Illustration of a rock bass in side view
AI-generated illustration, not a photograph and not to scale.
Typical adult
7–10 in, under a pound
Spot it by
Red eyes and six spines in the anal fin
Matures
At about 3 years
Favors
Clear, rocky water around boulders and roots
Indiana record
3 lb — Sugar Creek, Hancock County, 1969

Where rock bass have been recorded

34 of the 186 Indiana lakes on this site with fish records list rock bass, across 9 counties. Tap a dot to open that lake’s depth map.

Lake Wawasee, Kosciusko CountyLake Maxinkuckee, Marshall CountyTippecanoe Lake, Kosciusko CountyHamilton Lake, Steuben CountyLake Manitou, Fulton CountyCrooked Lake, Steuben CountyWinona Lake, Kosciusko CountyDewart Lake, Kosciusko CountyBig Chapman Lake, Kosciusko CountyOliver Lake, LaGrange CountyLake Gage, Steuben CountyAdams Lake, LaGrange CountyJAMES LAKE, Kosciusko CountyHurshtown Reservoir, Allen CountyPike Lake, Kosciusko CountyBlue Lake, Whitley CountyWabee Lake, Kosciusko CountyPretty Lake, LaGrange CountyIrish Lake, Kosciusko CountyFox Lake, Steuben CountyWall Lake, LaGrange CountyKuhn Lake, Kosciusko CountyIndian Lake, Perry CountyCedar Lake, LaGrange CountyIndiana Lake, Elkhart CountyCass Lake, LaGrange CountySechrist Lake, Kosciusko CountyOlin Lake, LaGrange CountyBall Lake, Steuben CountyBig Otter Lake, Steuben CountyMessick Lake, LaGrange CountyEve Lake, LaGrange CountyMartin Lake, LaGrange CountyGreen Lake, Steuben County

Recorded here Other lakes with fish records

How we know

  • 34lakes 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 191) and from 22 to 125 ft deep (median 57.5 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
31 of 175 lakes surveyed this way
Typical rate
4.0 per hour where found
Highest
42 per hour
Method
fish per hour of night electrofishing

“Typical” is the median across the lakes where the survey caught at least one. Nets and electrofishing catch different fish: by the other method it turned up in 25 lakes at a typical 1.5 per net lift. A single survey is a snapshot of one season.

Highest survey rates on this site

  1. Pretty Lake, LaGrange 2018 42
  2. Lake Maxinkuckee, Marshall 2020 24
  3. Olin Lake, LaGrange 2021 16
  4. Eve Lake, LaGrange 2016 14
  5. Fox Lake, Steuben 2015 14
  6. Tippecanoe Lake, Kosciusko 2018 14
  7. Kuhn Lake, Kosciusko 2013 10
  8. Oliver Lake, LaGrange 2019 10
  9. Indiana Lake, Elkhart 2014 8.0
  10. Lake Manitou, Fulton 2017–2021 7.7

Fish per hour of night electrofishing, 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 large mouth, red eyes, a dark teardrop under the eye, black-edged fins and six anal spines. It can switch quickly from pale silver with rows of spots to dark and blotchy.

Don’t confuse it with

Warmouth — Three anal spines, stripes from the eye instead of a teardrop, and pale-edged fins.

Life in an Indiana lake

Rock bass prefer clear streams and rivers with rocky bottoms, hiding near boulders, rock piles, roots and steep drop-offs. They eat mostly aquatic insects, and larger ones take crayfish and small fish.

Males build nests over gravel, often beside a boulder, and fan the eggs until they hatch in 3–4 days.

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 34 lakes with rock bass

Show every lake, by county

Allen County 1

Hurshtown Reservoir

Elkhart County 1

Indiana Lake

Fulton County 1

Lake Manitou

Kosciusko County 11

Big Chapman Lake, Dewart Lake, Irish Lake, JAMES LAKE, Kuhn Lake, Lake Wawasee, Pike Lake, Sechrist Lake, Tippecanoe Lake, Wabee Lake, Winona Lake

LaGrange County 10

Adams Lake, Cass Lake, Cedar Lake, Eve Lake, Martin Lake, Messick Lake, Olin Lake, Oliver Lake, Pretty Lake, Wall Lake

Marshall County 1

Lake Maxinkuckee

Perry County 1

Indian Lake

Steuben County 7

Ball Lake, Big Otter Lake, Crooked Lake, Fox Lake, Green Lake, Hamilton Lake, Lake Gage

Whitley County 1

Blue Lake

Sources

← All fish of Indiana