I am looking for a place to take my Dad to backcountry camp and fish in Indiana or within 2 hours of Indianapolis. Prefer not to do more than 5 miles into camp. Must have pretty good fishing. Just looking for pan fish. At this point I am thinking Lake Monroe in HNF. Anyone have any other suggestions?
"If animals could speak the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow, but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much."
- Mark Twain
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- Mancat
I worked pretty hard to find any remote lake or large pond in a back country setting accessible via public land, and came up empty. Morgan Monroe SP use to have one or two, but low water and winter kills have seemed to reduced them to little more than wildlife pond status.
Monroe or the Upper Salt Creek or Crooked Creek flowages, might serve your purpose though. If you follow the fire trail to the pond at the end of Terrel Ridge in the HNF, you can bushwack from behind the dam all the way to Salt Creek, and a fairly nice campsite pretty much right on the water. Little more than an hour from the firetower parking lot. I've caught panfish nearby during the day, after setting up camp, and it's usually good for at least a few channel cats after dark. But its in the headwaters, so time of year and water levels will have a lot to do with your luck.
Another alternative would be of course to locate a land owner with some woods and a stream or impoundment on private land, and secure access. Much harder, but well worth the trouble IMO, if really good fishing is a priority.
Looking for a place to take a dad fishing with his son, should weight in pretty well with a lot of owners, who might think that would be a cool thing for their own son to be asking around about. You will never know until you ask.
Good luck!
Rolloff
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look at Salamonie state resivoir, they have a backcountry site, on the blood root trail, if taken from trailhead its about seven miles, but you can park at mt etna and its less then two miles in and right on the water___well up on the ridge above it but easy access . sorry dont know about the fishing but they have plenty of boats and fishermen there..good luck
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