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Home › Waters › Michigan › Austin Lake
Lake · Southwest Michigan, Kalamazoo County, the lake country just south of Portage and Kalamazoo · Michigan

Austin Lake Fishing Guides

A shallow, weedy thousand-acre lake on the south edge of Portage, easy to reach and consistently productive for bass, pike and panfish in the middle of southwest Michigan lake country.

Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

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About the Austin Lake

Austin Lake sits on the south edge of Portage in Kalamazoo County, in a part of southwest Michigan dense with small glacial lakes. It covers roughly a thousand acres and is shallow through most of its area, with extensive weed growth and a soft bottom across much of the basin. It is a genuinely urban-adjacent lake with houses along much of the shore, and it fishes better than that description suggests.

Shallow and fertile is a good combination for warmwater fish. Largemouth bass are the signature species and are well distributed through the weed beds, pads and woody cover along the shoreline. Northern pike use the same cover and reach respectable size. Smallmouth bass are present where harder bottom and gravel occur, though they are secondary to largemouth here.

Panfish carry much of the fishing pressure and reward it. Bluegill are abundant and spawn heavily in the shallows in early summer, black crappie school through the deeper weed edges and around structure, and yellow perch are taken consistently through the year. Walleye are present through management effort rather than in the numbers a dedicated walleye lake would show, and channel catfish occupy the deeper holes.

The lake’s shallowness has consequences worth knowing. It warms early and strongly in spring, which starts the fishing sooner than on deeper lakes nearby, but it also means heavy summer weed growth that can make navigation awkward by August, and aquatic vegetation management is an ongoing subject locally. Early season and fall are the cleanest fishing.

Access is easy. There is a public boat launch on the lake, the shoreline road system makes it simple to reach, and Kalamazoo and Portage supply everything an angler needs within a few minutes. The surrounding county holds a large number of other lakes of similar character, so a trip here is easy to extend if conditions on any one lake turn poor.

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Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Pool right now

855.16ft NAVD88
  • 24 hours-0.01 ft → steady

Reading taken 2h ago at USGS 04097188, AUSTIN LAKE NEAR KALAMAZOO, MI. Elevation is the surface of the lake above the survey datum, not depth. Source.

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Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Austin Lake.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Access

Austin Lake public boat launch - the main public access on the lake.
Portage - the city on the north shore, with full services and tackle.
Kalamazoo - the larger city just north, with everything else.
Kalamazoo County lakes - the dense cluster of similar lakes nearby.
U.S. Highway 131 - the main highway serving this part of the county.
Michigan DNR boating access listings - the authority on public launches here.
Portage Creek - the nearby stream draining this part of the county.

Seasons

Spring: the lake warms early and starts fishing before deeper lakes nearby, with strong bluegill and bass action.
Summer: heavy weed growth, with bass and pike on the edges and crappie deeper.
Fall: weeds thin out, water cools and the best big bass and pike fishing of the year arrives.
Winter: a reliable ice fishery for panfish and pike once ice is safe.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Austin Lake?

Anglers target Black Crappie, Bluegill, Channel Catfish, Largemouth Bass, Northern Pike, Smallmouth Bass, Walleye, Yellow Perch on the Austin Lake in Michigan.

Where can you access the Austin Lake?

Austin Lake public boat launch - the main public access on the lake. Portage - the city on the north shore, with full services and tackle. Kalamazoo - the larger city just north, with everything else. Kalamazoo County lakes - the dense cluster of similar lakes nearby. U.S. Highway 131 - the main highway serving this part of the county. Michigan DNR boating access listings - the authority on public launches here. Portage Creek - the nearby stream draining this part of the county.

When is the best time to fish the Austin Lake?

Spring: the lake warms early and starts fishing before deeper lakes nearby, with strong bluegill and bass action. Summer: heavy weed growth, with bass and pike on the edges and crappie deeper. Fall: weeds thin out, water cools and the best big bass and pike fishing of the year arrives. Winter: a reliable ice fishery for panfish and pike once ice is safe.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Austin Lake?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Michigan agency site: https://www.michigan.gov/dnr/things-to-do/fishing/fishing-regulations