Cade Lake in Saint Joseph County: How and When to Fish It

• Overview

  Cade Lake lies in Saint Joseph County, in Michigan. Height above sea level is 863 feet. Surface area is around 33 acres, which gives you real water without needing a boat. 2.9 miles away sits Sturgis, the nearest town. The big place round here is South Bend, 47 miles distant. This one sits near enough to a boundary to be worth checking.

• Where to Fish on Cade Lake

  No published figure covers depth, so learn it as you fish. The productive water is a rod length or two out, not a hundred. Read the surface for the wind lane, then fish the edge of it. Open biodiversity records for Saint Joseph County list bluegill, largemouth bass and yellow perch. Those are county-wide records, so not every one of them will be in this water. Cade Lake fishes better once you know its edges.

• Seasonal Patterns

  The seasonal spread runs 22°F to 72°F. The freeze arrives properly here and holds. Ice-out usually falls in late March, and the weeks after it fish hardest. On average, late March opens the water and mid December closes it again. The shoulder weeks of the open season are the productive ones. At Cade Lake the season follows that pattern closely.

• Tackle & Baits

  The rules here are undocumented as far as public sources go. A campsite lies half a mile away for anyone staying over. There is a toilet block some half a mile out. Bass water: a Texas-rigged worm near cover, a spinnerbait when you need to cover ground. Rules for this water may differ from the county norm. Rules for boats are stricter than rules for the bank in many places. Failing this one, try Dark Lake, 0.7 miles away. Where Cade Lake is concerned, a local answer beats a written one.