Outdoor Indiana - March/April 2024

CATCHING ADVENTURE

DNR Director Dan Bortner

Fishing is a sport that’s open to everyone.

I got the bite for these blissful days on the water when I was a kid. Fishing plays a starring role in many of my most cherished memories, whether our family was loading up the station wagon for a day trip, or my buddies and I were unwinding after a day of summer chores.

Our DNR team is hard at work to make fishing one of your family’s favorite activities as well. DNR fish hatcheries, which welcome guests, in 2022 raised and stocked more than 26 million fish into Indiana’s lakes, rivers, and streams. When my adult daughters were younger, we lived near one of those fascinating facilities and loved visiting, which of course inspired more fishing trips.

As we look toward spring, it’s the perfect time to buy your fishing license and start planning your family trips to Indiana’s fishing holes. To help that happy effort, grab the new Indiana Fishing Guide, which is hot off the presses.

In the guide, you’ll read about some impressive anglers and learn about how women, like my daughters, are getting their households out on the water.

You can also visit on.IN.gov/where2fish to scope out a spot for your next fishing adventure. We’ve also launched a dashboard at on.IN.gov/fish-stocking that shows you the species and quantities stocked in the state’s public waters.

Indiana’s lakes and waterways are full of fish and ready for your next outing. Catch some bluegills, bass, or whatever bites—and some great memories—out on the water this year.

White River State Park offers nature and culture in the middle of Indianapolis
By Scott Roberts, OI staff

The Old Washington Street Bridge provides skyline views and a rotating collection of sculptures, as well as room to stroll or roll, free from car traffic.

When Charlotte Simpson moved to Indianapolis in the late 1970s, she dreaded having friends or family come to visit because it was hard to find activities for them to do.

But the city was beginning a transformation, and she moved in just in time to enjoy the benefit.

Downtown’s revitalization had begun a few years earlier with the building of the Indiana Convention Center and Market Square Arena. City officials wanted to turn the aging core area into a regional cultural and economic center.

With that goal in mind, in 1979 city and state officials began designing White River State Park (WRSP). Simpson said she remembers seeing the various attractions and landscapes being built and feeling hope.

“It was nice that the development was focusing on families,” Simpson said. “I remember watching them building up the canal and museums; it made you proud to watch and be a part of it.”

Today she has no problem finding a host of things to keep her visitors entertained, and she said the park is a big reason. It covers 250 acres on the downtown’s southwest side and welcomes 3 million visitors a year with a collection of natural and built features that cater to a variety of interests.

To read the rest of this article subscribe to Outdoor Indiana or pick up a copy at one of our state park inns. To subscribe, click here or call (317) 233-3046.

Protection of Putnam County tracts highlights trust-funded acquisitions
By Marty Benson, OI staff

State-threatened paper birch trees grow at North Woods Nature Preserve, Indiana’s 299th, which added 38.22 acres to the Boreal Flatwoods Nature Area in LaPorte County.

Big Walnut Nature Preserve, in the Big Walnut Creek Valley in north-central Putnam County, is a 245-acre treasure. Hikers seeking a moderate, secluded 2-mile woodland trek love its Tall Timber Trail for its wildflowers and wildlife.

A National Natural Landmark since 1968, the nature preserve lies within the greater conservation mass known as Big Walnut Natural Area, which protects about 2,500 acres from development.

The area’s land is a large, intact forest block in central Indiana’s portion of the Wisconsin till plain, within what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calls the Eastern Corn Belt Plains Ecoregion. As the name suggests, this ecoregion was largely converted to agricultural use, mostly for corn, after European settlement, which harmed its terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. For that reason, conservationists have been looking to protect as much of it as possible since the early 1960s.

Since the mid-1980s, DNR, with partnership and assistance from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Central Indiana Land Trust, Inc. (CILTI), has protected a complex of parcels throughout Big Walnut Natural Area, piecing together a matrix of upland and lowland refuges, including the nature preserve.

Mostly known for its north-facing-slope ice age relic plant communities, Big Walnut Natural Area shelters Indiana’s most extensive populations of state-endangered Canada yew, an evergreen native shrub that is always associated with steep slopes in the understory of the state’s rare Eastern hemlock groves.

In 2022, thanks to funding from the President Benjamin Harrison Conservation Trust (BHCT), the long road toward acquisition culminated with this vital piece of the conservation area’s core in DNR’s protective hands.

To read the rest of this article subscribe to Outdoor Indiana or pick up a copy at one of our state park inns. To subscribe, click here or call (317) 233-3046.