Indian Lake, on the famed Indian Chain of lakes in Vermilion Bay, Ontario, is a gem hiding just north of famed Eagle Lake. Although the Indian Chain may be off the radar screen for many musky anglers, this chain of lakes is loaded with muskies and is a great place to catch them. Located approximately 150 miles north of International Falls, Minnesota, the Indian Chain is a drive-to destination where muskies abound.
We stayed at Indian Lake Lodge, an awesome resort on Indian Lake. It has nice cabins, a great docking facility, and its own boat launch. Pull up to the resort, unpack your gear, and you can catch muskies within sight of camp. In fact, we filmed much of our episode of The Musky Hunter within sight of camp!
The Indian Chain is comprised of nine lakes that make up some 30 miles of fishable musky water. There’s a variety of clear and stained lakes that provide you with multiple options regardless of the conditions. Plus, each individual lake isn’t that large, so regardless of any weather conditions, you have lots of places that are fishable and hold muskies.
While on our television shoot in early September, we had sustained winds over 20 mph. This can make musky fishing difficult on any water; however, we were able to fish calmer shorelines with rocks and sand and found lots of active muskies. In some areas where the wind was blowing into a rocky point, at a manageable level, we were able to effectively fish those points and caught active muskies. We also found some weed beds tucked out of the wind that held muskies, as well as a few classic “walleye” humps.
We caught most of our muskies on bucktails and minnowbaits, although we did have some chase large soft plastics, such as Bulldawgs. Key colors of the bucktails were silver blades with a blue skirt and black blades with a black skirt. Any minnowbait in a sucker pattern worked well too. You don't have to fish giant lures on the Indian Chain, and most of the bucktails we fished were with size 8 and 9 blades. The minnowbaits were seven inches in length.
The Indian Chain does produce a couple of 50 inches every year, but it’s most well-known for action. If you want to catch several muskies in a day in the 35- to 45-inch range, and have lots of followers, this is the place to fish. It had been 25 years since I had previously fished the Indian Chain, and not much had changed. It’s still the same fun body of water I used to fish, loaded with muskies. If you want to catch a bunch of muskies and not have to compete with a lot of boats, the Indian Lake Lodge on the Indian Chain should be on your list.
