Fast Bass action at Chester Woods - read for a colorful account.

[carlcmc]

I braved the cold and took my boat out on Chester Woods on Sunday. Imagine this: Air temp of 45, cloudy skies, deserted shore lines and fishing dock, no other beings in site and up I pull and put my 20 foot pontoon boat onto poor Chester Woods Lake. It must have risen at least an inch when I put in :-).

I caught one bass trolling with a shallow crank bait and one on a 10 foot diver while getting the rest of my rods rigged up. I tried wacky rigged senkos, spinner baits, deep divers etc without any luck. I then picked up one on a fat bass bait that ran less than a foot deep while casting in 4 foot of water amidst some trees in the back arm of the reservoir.

Trolling back towards the main lake i picked up another on it at the same location I had when I was trolling into that arm. I finally put 2 and 2 together and decided to hold in that area and fan cast. Was it ever worth it!

I fished a 50-75 yard stretch that ran from shore out to around 10 foot depth. Most of the action was in 4-8 depth with some submerged weeds. Many a bass caught when my lure would foul into a lone standing weed and then spring free. I kept my speed fairly slow maintaining a wobble without burning it. Cranking a shallow (less than 2 foot and most times less than 1 foot) fat crank bait I picked up no less than 12 bass in the space of 1/2 hour ranging from a dink 1/2 lber to the biggest of the day being a 1 1/2 lber. So nothing huge, but THEY WERE BASS DARNIT! I also caught one on a lipless crank bait bleeding silver/green shad pattern (Rat L Trap) but it caught in the weeds to much and I went back to my crank. Black top, Red bottom plus redhooks (somewhat crayfish pattern) seemed to be the ticket as I tried other baits exactly alike but in different color schemes with no bites (white shad pattern and bluegill pattern).

My only companion was a lone yearling duck who looked like he couldn't have got his feathers more than a week ago. He swam around from 20-30 feet away from me. Unfortunately, he was a better fisher than I. When I would reel in one bass, he would have got 2-3 minnows in that amount of time. When I got back to back bass, he got 5-6 minnows. He would dive under and come up with big minnows sticking out of his mouth and then slurp them down. He looked lonely and reminded me of myself--the only fisher out there. He and I were the last of our kind to face the lake.

As I cast and reeled in bass with a wide grin on my face-my hands getting colder and colder from the 55 degree water and 45 degree air- I remarked to no one in particular beside my duck companionthat this was great bass fishing. Not a single other person on the lake and I found the spot where I could catch some fish.

As I probably won't fish there again till next year. */begin hint*It was right off an area with sandy bottom */end hint* Sorry, no pictures, just memories. There was nothing really worthy taking a picture of. I have never caught anything large out of there (larger than 2 -2.5 lbs). I know someone caught a 7-8 lber out there a couple of years ago but have not mastered the technique. Hope you enjoyed my write up.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Fun stuff carl...Traps are producing in a lot of places... Congrats on the fish!

[senkoskipper]

hey my gf brother lives in rochester, can u take me out to chesterwood one of these times. I remember you posting a thread about this lake b4 and i've been dieing to fish it ever since.!! maybe i can show u the technique to catch those 7-8 pounders

[carlcmc]

sure. not a problem. probably have to be next year. not many opportunities this fall left. catch up with me next summer perhaps?

[senkoskipper]

Yea, ill still be around.