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Chester Woods Largemouths/ A word on trout too


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I fished from shore (not from a fishing pier) at Chester Woods lake today for a couple hours and brought 6 largemouths to hand. Biggest was 16", smallest was 10". I had two others that threw the hook on the way in, two more that were solid hits but missed the hookset and about four other times where I felt a tug. That's a total of 14 fish (presumably all bigmouths) that I made contact with today. I was satisified, having never been to CW before today and being shorebound.

Most of the hits and 3 of the catches came on a 3" Green Pumpkin w/copper fleck Trick Stick (Gander Mtn version of the Senko) Carolina rigged with a chartreuse and white floating jig head about 18" behind the swivel. I cast out as far as I could and retrieved slowly with an uneven stop-go and a little jigging motion. The other hits and catches (including the 16-incher) came on a CD-5 Rapala in Hot Mustard Muddler color. Same technique retrieving that as I used on the Trick Stick.

I thought about setting up the float tube and taking the fly rod out after some panfish when I got tired of casting/retrieving, but I ran out of ambition and came home instead.

All that submerged timber at CW looks great, and I'll definitely be going back there after pannies, most likely with the float tube and fly rod.

I've been having good luck on the trout streams lately too, getting good action on terrestrials. #14-16 ants, both black and cinnamon, seem to be the favorite, with hoppers/crickets a close second and a few caught on a #18 black foam beetle. Haven't been nymphing at all the last week or so (except when the dry fly gets waterlogged - I've had a couple hits on a dry ant turned wet fly), since they're liking the surface flies well enough.

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sodajerk,

Thanks for the report and sharing of techniques. I love fishing Chesterwoods and it can pretty much always be counted on to provide action of some kind.

Pulling a 16" out of there is good to hear. Funny, but that's probably a "trophy" for those waters.

Andy

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There are some pics on the CW web page of some pretty good sized bass that are supposed to have come out of there, but I was surprised by it just the same. It was the biggest one I've caught in years, so I'm not complainin'! cool.gif

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16 that is a nice bass for chester and solid for anywhere really. I have caught one 3lb bass out there a handful of 2's and everything else a pound or less. i commend you on that fish. here are some of the big fish at chester

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the pictures from the link above are funny (sad).....guess we know what happened to the trophies. 2 of the fish are pictured in the parking lot and a third is on a stringer. MMMMMMM MMMMMM pan fried 20" largemouth.

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maybe they were getting mounted either way any fish that has aged around 10 years i don't think is going to be that good eaten i personally think there are better eating fish than bass period. ike

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Nice fish indeed, it is sad though since CW is young fishery and those bass are more than likely some of the origional stocked fish in there. It is a good size fishery though and should be able to sustain the keeping of a few fish of that caliber. No dought that there are fish that size in there as I had one on this year along the dam that jumped a spit my crankbait. Just my two pennies. grin.gif

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