Best Water Indiana Lakes?

So i wakeboard on Pine lake now which gets tons of traffic and wind chop and sick of it looking like the ocean out there. I would drive up maybe an hour for some good water.

Anyone have experiences with any of these lakes?

Koontz Lake in Walkerton, Indiana (closest at 30min)

Bass Lake in Knox, Indiana (also 30min)

Lake Maxinkuckee in Culver, Indiana (little less than Hour)

Barron Lake off of 60 (little less than Hour)

Simonton Lake at border (about an hour)

Ideas??? The water has to be worth it for the drive.

Simonton is kind of shallow in places and dangerously busy as hell on weekends. You need to know someone to get on Barron lake. No where to park trailers. However, I know somewhereon Barron you could park. Its uusually fairly quiet even on weekends aside from Holidays. Barron has been low since last summer. It us much better now, but still not normal.

If you come up, let me know.

Koontz is decent size, shallow in spots busy on weekends. Bass is small and shallow. Maxinkukee is big and deep but I've heard you need to launch early to get a parking spot

My family has a place on Koontz Lake and we ride there just about every weekend. We go out and ride early to avoid boat traffic and try to be done by 10am at latest. Theres a line we run in the AM that 80% of it is deep water. If you end up going out there at all look for the red Supra 21v. Cant speak much about the other lakes other than a friend telling me Bass lake is really shallow.

Cedar Lake, IN.....Pinecrest Marine is on the lake and they are a MC dealer

As far as public lakes, I'd have to say Koontz has the best water in the a.m. I've ridden out there a bunch and where Mike and those guys ride is a nice deep patch that keeps the wake meaty.

I lived on Cedar Lake a few years...I got only a handful of butter sets on that toilet bowl. Lots of seawalls, so the wakes have no choice but to bounce around all day.

IMO, the best water in Northern Indiana is on the private lakes/community lakes. Todd and I live in a small community with a real tiny lake.....but it's not so bad as we usually get some flat water.

If you guys need a 3rd during the week, let me know.

which lakes are you available to ride at?

and im not looking for weekends, i dont ride on the weekends, i ride strickly during the week, i just want a nice semi-buttery spot during the week w/ not alot of traffice.

You know...you could just wake up an hour earlier and ride better water. It always seems to look good around 7am. Are you going to be around this weekend? Sunday ride? I might head up Friday night by myself, so maybe Saturday morning? I'm still trying to get that approved by the boss.

I saw an Axis on the lake yesterday. Anyone on here?

I've seen more wakeboats on the lake in the last month than I've ever seen. They seem to be come out Sunday afternoon during the absolute worst water, and hanging out at the public beach.

Mmobious, barron is glass during the week most of time time.

Never rode Simonton even though I live 10 minutes away. Just know people who have.

Oh well that changes everything then if your looking for water during the week. Last few years we stayed at Koontz for a full week during the summer at some point and it is dead. We would go out and ride everyday at like 10-11am and then take another set right before dinner and it was calm all day. The key is to ride the deep water which is actually a pretty long stretch going from right before where the sandbar/public beach is then into the cove on the east side of the lake. The only time you run into shallow water that way through the channel that goes from the big part into the cove it will get to 6-7ft where as the rest of that stretch is 20-35ft.

Originally Posted by ripr

As far as public lakes, I'd have to say Koontz has the best water in the a.m. I've ridden out there a bunch and where Mike and those guys ride is a nice deep patch that keeps the wake meaty.

I lived on Cedar Lake a few years...I got only a handful of butter sets on that toilet bowl. Lots of seawalls, so the wakes have no choice but to bounce around all day.

IMO, the best water in Northern Indiana is on the private lakes/community lakes. Todd and I live in a small community with a real tiny lake.....but it's not so bad as we usually get some flat water.

Interesting....I tried PMing you but for some reason I can't figure it out. Could you tell me more about your Cedar Lake experience. I currently live in Chicago, but am thinking about making the move over to IN primarily because of how bad of shape this state is in. What are the pros/cons to Cedar Lake?

Originally Posted by luke22885

Oh well that changes everything then if your looking for water during the week. Last few years we stayed at Koontz for a full week during the summer at some point and it is dead. We would go out and ride everyday at like 10-11am and then take another set right before dinner and it was calm all day. The key is to ride the deep water which is actually a pretty long stretch going from right before where the sandbar/public beach is then into the cove on the east side of the lake. The only time you run into shallow water that way through the channel that goes from the big part into the cove it will get to 6-7ft where as the rest of that stretch is 20-35ft.

Hey where is the best place to launch. I drove around it and saw 2 public launches but didnt see much for parking

Phil, when I go there I pay to launch at the little marina/tackle shop. It's a pretty decent launch and I don't mind throwing the local business guy $10 or whatever it is.

The red line is approximately the deep water line. There's a sandbar in front of the beach on the west side that I don't think is marked, so be careful.

Chris, depending on what you're looking for, Cedar Lake can either be heaven on earth, or a total toilet bowl. If you're looking for an inexpensive area to enjoy a little skiing, tubing, wakeboarding, surfing and hanging out, then it'll do the trick I think.

That being said, I'm probably a little spoiled with some of the water I get to ride on regularly, so I don't want to make it sound like Cedar Lake is all bad. I mean, it's a lake that's rideable within an hour of downtown Chicago....That's gotta be worth something.

Like I said, the only problem with Cedar Lake is the traffic and the fact that it's all sea walls, which means the water is not as calm as one would hope. You really have to be up/out as the sun comes up to get a butter set. Many complain about the cleanliness of the lake, and I can't speak much for that, but many of the small lakes around here aren't the cleanest, including mine.

Other options for you would be to move further south to the Kankakee area and use the Kankakee River, to the southwest there's the Illinois River in Morris (great riding spot), or in Valparaiso, IN there's a private community called Shorewood Forest that has a lake in it. I haven't had an opportunity to ride that lake, but I know some people who have and they seem to like it.

Originally Posted by ripr

Chris, depending on what you're looking for, Cedar Lake can either be heaven on earth, or a total toilet bowl. If you're looking for an inexpensive area to enjoy a little skiing, tubing, wakeboarding, surfing and hanging out, then it'll do the trick I think.

That being said, I'm probably a little spoiled with some of the water I get to ride on regularly, so I don't want to make it sound like Cedar Lake is all bad. I mean, it's a lake that's rideable within an hour of downtown Chicago....That's gotta be worth something.

Like I said, the only problem with Cedar Lake is the traffic and the fact that it's all sea walls, which means the water is not as calm as one would hope. You really have to be up/out as the sun comes up to get a butter set. Many complain about the cleanliness of the lake, and I can't speak much for that, but many of the small lakes around here aren't the cleanest, including mine.

Other options for you would be to move further south to the Kankakee area and use the Kankakee River, to the southwest there's the Illinois River in Morris (great riding spot), or in Valparaiso, IN there's a private community called Shorewood Forest that has a lake in it. I haven't had an opportunity to ride that lake, but I know some people who have and they seem to like it.

Thanks for the info!

To launch the boat at the marina its like $6 or $7 and totally worth it. The public launch is a bit sketchy and tough to manuever around in a wakeboat unless you can just ride in and pull right onto trailer. The sandbar is now marked by 2 buoys so you will be able to tell where it is at. The only other place you need to really worry about shallow water is the small channel going from the cove where the launch ramp is, to the big part of the lake. If you drive through the center on plane you will have no issues at all and could probably even idle through now that the water is up way higher than it was last year.

Originally Posted by ripr

Phil, when I go there I pay to launch at the little marina/tackle shop. It's a pretty decent launch and I don't mind throwing the local business guy $10 or whatever it is.

The red line is approximately the deep water line. There's a sandbar in front of the beach on the west side that I don't think is marked, so be careful.

so i will have no problems doing a turn (ie double up) in that little cove, its deep enough?

No problem at all it is bigger than it looks. We actually call that the double up cove because there is enough room to turn and then circle around to line them up perfectly. You can run that straight line without turning at all if you play it right and setup a double up turning left or once you get into cove run right down the middle so you can make turn to the right. As far as depth, once you get through the channel there and into the cove it gets deep again especially down where you would throw the double up

I live in Highland Indiana and my "Home" lake is Cedar Lake, a friend of mine has a cottage there on the conference grounds. I agree with NAW to some degree about the lake. Yes it gets crowded VERY quickly and it seems that most of these people only drive their boat once or twice a year, driving like maniacs and such. But once you learn to avoid mid Saturday afternoons and the freak super hot weeks like last week, which seems to lure out the speds, all is well. That and find the nice spots out of the wind or take a nice early trip before work and your set.

Also, I have a few friends with places on Bass lake. It is a decent size lake with room for everyone, the biggest worry is that half of the lake is around 4ft or less so people with i/os have to be careful. Beautiful lake though.

Been a long time since I was at Culver/ lake Max so I cant tell you much about the traffic or quality. It is huge though, and an awesome little town wraps around it. Worth a drive, if anything to check out the town and marina.

What about the big lake in Lake of the Four Seasons? I think it's called Lake Holiday?

Chris- It's a terrible place. You don't ever want to go there, the water is dirty, the people are A-holes and the cops are brutal. I mean, it's not like you can drive on the streets in your golf cart while drinking there or anything. : )

In all seriousness, it's where Todd (ifinallygota21v) and I live. It's the best kept secret in NWI. The lake is private, and you have to be a property owner with a boat sticker ($$$) to use it.

Todd actually has a nice, affordable house for sale just off the lake if you're serious about looking to make a move.

Many moons ago, in a thread like this on this very site, I told him about Four Seasons.....he moved there not long after.

email me if you want some more info. nawresources@yahoo.com

Appreciate it!


Is Shorewood Forest Lake big enough to wakeboard on? It looks really long, but windy and is there a bridge to drive under to the other side?

The rideable part of shore wood is actually smaller than what we have. There are a lot of boats on that lake and it gets pretty tossed

Lake George in Hobart?

I almost lost a snowmobile in Lake George once.

I believe it has a real low horsepower limit and is shallow.