Exploring Kalamazoo

So I flew home yesterday for Thanksgiving Break to see my family and the house they are living in for the moment.  My family moved to Kalamazoo Michigan a few months ago and I hadn't seen the area at all so I took the day to explore the area and check out the fishing opportunities that I'll be experiencing this summer.

First and foremost, Gull Lake is only about five minutes north of our house.  It's an early stage mesotrophic lake, which means that it is deep and clear - over a hundred feet deep, with a visibility of over 20 feet.  It has smallmouth and largemouth, walleye, pike, rainbow trout, brown trout, and lake trout.  The pike and the lake trout both can get over twenty pounds, which are truly large fish.  I'm very excited to try and chase a 20 lb pike or fly fish for the lakers.

There are a number of nearby streams that are either stocked or have naturally occurring brown trout.  The best of these are Spring Brook and Augusta Creek, which are fifteen and five minutes away.  These give me classic small stream trout fly fishing opportunities.

The Kalamazoo River is a great warmwater river fishery with pike, walleye, and even lake sturgeon.  However, the stretch near to me is best for smallmouth bass.  The Kzoo is about ten minutes away.

An hour south of my house is the St. Joseph River, which has lake-run brown trout, steelhead, and salmon.  These fish can get upwards of twenty pounds and the river is one of the top ten steelhead rivers in the midwest.

And finally, of course, there are numerous ponds around with largemouth bass.  There's even one about two hundred yards in front of the house that will be perfect for the canoe in the summer.

I'm very satisfied with the Kalamazoo area.  I have excellent fishing for lake and brown trout, huge pike, and smallmouths.  There's also possible walleye fishing, rainbow trout, sturgeon, and largemouths.  Should be a good summer.