This manmade lake on the headwaters of Indiana's central Blue River, is in Summit Lake State Park. Thus, it offers plenty of parking and easy access to the ice.

Wisener said bluegills are definitely the top species in the lake, but he added that walleyes seem to be taking off. Walleyes run up to 26 inches, Wisener said, pointing out that earlier surveys turned up numerous walleyes that ranged just below the 14-inch minimum size limit, and that those fish probably are legal size now.

Recent surveys of the lake have not turned up great numbers of yellow perch, Wisener said, but he added that other indicators (including creel checks) note that there are some perch up to 15 inches. Summit Lake also offers a good population of largemouth bass.

Southern district biologists point out that while the length and geographic location of Indiana tends to eliminate ice-fishing on larger bodies of water in most years in the southern half of the state, smaller standing waters (especially farm ponds and small watershed lakes) offer some good fishing for a variety of species. Ice doesn't usually come as early there, nor does it last as long. But the smaller southern waters do get safe ice occasionally.

The southern district biologists are Dave Kittaka, District 6 (10 counties on the western border of the state immediately south of District 5), Dan Carnahan, District 7 (10 counties in the southwest corner of the state), and Larry Lehman, District 8 (the other 14 counties of the southeastern part of the state immediately south of District 4).

Kittaka pinpointed smaller strip pits in Greene-Sullivan State Forest, and small ponds and lakes of Indiana's state forests and the Hoosier National Forest, especially for bluegills, redear sunfish, bass and crappies. He added that the DFW has been stocking smaller standing waters with thousands of channel catfish fingerlings and that this fishery has much to offer if ice comes to the southern part of the state.

Carnahan nods in favor of small lakes at Ferdinand State Forest on the Dubois/Perry counties line, and the water-supply lakes of Oakland City, and other smaller cities and towns for a panfish/bass smorgasbord. Lehman said Delaney Park Lake, off SR 135 in Washington County, offers very good fishing for bluegills and redears. He added that Yellowwood Lake, in Yellowwood State Forest (Brown County), has been giving up strings of 10-inch bluegills.

To polish off this collection of ice-fishing potential in Hoosierland, Bill James, chief of the DFW's Fisheries Section for many years, was asked to pinpoint some of the spots he would go for various popular species of game fish.

Here are his picks: For bluegills and redear, Summit Lake; for walleyes, Maxinkuckee, or Sullivan Lake for hybrid walleyes (saugeye); Lake Wawasee for yellow perch, or many of the other natural lakes of the northeast; for northern pike, the narrows between Lake James and Snow Lake (far northeast corner of the state); for largemouth bass, the natural lakes of the northeast on first ice, and for crappies, Dogwood Lake (Glendale State Fish and Wildlife Area in Daviess County) or Sullivan Lake.