Game fish · perch family
Walleye
Sander vitreus
- Stocking
- Natural reproduction is limited in Indiana; the DNR stocks walleye every year
- Feeds
- Deep water by day, shallow flats at night
- Eats
- Fish
- Found over
- Rock or gravel bottoms, drop-offs and points
- Indiana records
- Walleye: 14 lb 4 oz — Kankakee River, Lake County, 1974
Walleye: 14 lb 4 oz — Tippecanoe River, Pulaski County, 1977
Where walleye have been recorded
20 of the 111 Indiana lakes on this site with fish records list walleye, across 11 counties. Tap a dot to open that lake’s depth map.
Recorded here Other lakes with fish records
How we know
- 20lakes 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 36 to 1,913 acres (median 131) and from 12 to 85 ft deep (median 53.5 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
- 16 of 100 lakes surveyed this way
- Typical rate
- 1.0 per net lift where found
- Highest
- 4.0 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. Nets and electrofishing catch different fish: by the other method it turned up in 15 lakes at a typical 6.0 per hour of electrofishing. A single survey is a snapshot of one season.
Highest survey rates on this site
- Pike Lake, Kosciusko 2016 4.0
- Wall Lake, LaGrange 2017 3.0
- Lake Maxinkuckee, Marshall 2020 2.8
- Kokomo Reservoir, Howard 2019 2.5
- Pretty Lake, LaGrange 2018 1.8
- Riddles Lake, St. Joseph 2014 1.5
- Fish Lake, LaGrange 2019 1.0
- McClish Lake, Steuben 2017 1.0
- Bixler Lake, Noble 2022 0.50
- Cedar Lake, Lake County 2018–2023 0.50
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
Olive to gold, with large, cloudy eyes that gather light for night feeding. A member of the perch family.
Don’t confuse it with
Life in an Indiana lake
Walleye prefer the deeper water of lakes and large rivers, moving onto shallow flats (5–10 ft) to feed at night. They school, so where you find one there are usually more.
Because walleye reproduce poorly in most Indiana waters, the DNR stocks walleye or hybrid walleye (saugeye) fry and fingerlings in several lakes and one river.
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 20 lakes with walleye
Show every lake, by county
Henry County 1
Howard County 1
Kosciusko County 2
LaGrange County 7
Fish Lake, Hackleburg Lake, Lake of the Woods, Pretty Lake, Royer Lake, Wall Lake, Westler Lake
LaPorte County 1
Lake County 1
Marshall County 2
Noble County 1
Porter County 1
St. Joseph County 1
Steuben County 2
Sources
- Indiana DNR: Fishes of Indiana list (native and introduced species)
- Indiana DNR: Walleye fishing
- Ohio DNR: Yellow perch
- Indiana DNR fish surveys (Indiana Data Hub) — lake records and survey catch rates
- Indiana DNR record fish list (angler names are not reproduced here)