Is there a public boat launch on Indian Lake?
How deep is Indian Lake?
What fish are in Indian Lake?
Is this the Indian Lake with the yacht club?
Indian Lake is the lake southwest Michigan can see but mostly can't reach: 758 acres straddling Brady and Pavilion Townships south of Portage, and genuinely two lakes in one. The main western basin plunges to 75 feet — among the deepest water in Kalamazoo County — while the northeast arm, known locally as Little Indian Bay, tops out at 29 feet. The DNR's fishery survey describes steep drop-offs off most shores with wide shoals along the east-central shoreline, marl-and-sand bottoms giving way to gravel and cobble patches on the east side, and organic bottoms in the bay. This is a working piece of the St. Joseph River watershed: Dorrance Creek enters Little Indian Bay's northeast corner, and the Portage River flows in at the bay's northwest and out its southern end — the lake breathes.
The fishery has a paper trail most lakes would envy: stocking records reaching back to 1933, and a full DNR survey in May 2010 (trap nets and electrofishing) that rated the bluegill, northern pike, largemouth bass, and black crappie populations moderate to strong, aging bluegill from scales and spines and pike from fin rays. Seventy-five feet of water means the lake stratifies in summer — the DNR profiled its temperature and oxygen in September — giving fish the deep, cool refuge most area lakes can't offer, and giving anglers with access a genuine thermocline game.
And now the honest part, and the reason you may have zoomed in and found nothing: Indian Lake has no public boat launch. Access is private — riparian owners and their guests. This isn't an oversight: the DNR's own management writing lists purchasing lakefront property to develop a public access site on Indian Lake as a standing goal, citing the lake's size, its location near Kalamazoo and Portage, and its strong fishery as exactly the reasons the public should be able to get on it. One more caution for the map-readers: Michigan has many Indian Lakes — the Sister Lakes-area Indian Lake near Dowagiac, with its yacht club, is a different lake in a different county. This one is Kalamazoo's: bigger, deeper, and for now, admired mostly from the road. If public access ever comes, we'll be the first to map it.