Chester Woods

I’ve never been ice fishing on Chester Woods an I’d like to try it sometime in between Christmas and New Years. I’ve fished there from a canoe along some timber for panfish in the summer. Looking at a map of the lake it looks like in the Bear Creek area it gets to around 35 feet deep. Anyone know if that’s a decent area or just try and fish structure and dropoffs where I can? Also, if one were to fish around the south part of that pond, can you take county roads to that area or do you have to go in at the normal park entrance?

Dan,

In my experience there are fish scattered throughout the whole system. I have ice fished it the past three years and seem to do very well when I am out there and I usually fish around trees. I know several people are always in the SE arm right in the trees, there are always guys kind of in the middle of the lake and then always a couple scattered in the main arm coming from the access.
As far as access goes, to my knowledge you have to enter through the park (I could be wrong). With that being said, instead of parking at the access, when entering the park go past the campground to the stop sign and take a right, this will go past a playground area, and you will find an area with parking along the road and some picnic shelters. Assuming others have been down there, you will see where a lot of guys go down the hill and get onto the lake, this will put you kind of right in the middle portion of the lake. SIDE NOTE: This is all down hill so take your time and don’t let your sled get ahead of you and BIGGER SIDE NOTE: its all up hill coming back and can be a little bit of a struggle, take your time and stop for breath (you’ll need it depending how much weight your pulling with you). If I’m with a few people I pawn off some of the heavier items for them to carry so the sled is a bit lighter.

Thanks for the reply trev, lots of good info there. I’ll hopefully be fishing Chester with some time off around New Year’s.

I’ve only attempted cHester woods during a youth tourney. Still getting skunked. Let us know how you turn out dan.I’d like to give it another try. This time better equipped.

Right now Silver Creek is a whole lot more accessible and will probably hand you better fish.

Chesterwoods fish are not fond of a lot of noise on the ice. Fishing there during a youth tourney would be pretty noisy. Right now with the snow cover keeping it fairly quiet fishing should not be too bad, but the amount of deep water takes some time for the fish to adjust to areas of preference. Silver Creek has limited deep water spots and they are smaller in size which makes it a better early and late season body of water.

Thanks for the replies guys. Any spots on Silver Creek that are better than the others? Last year I just went along the south bank a little with OK results.

Jack and Dan, another note I’ve seen on Chester woods is that depending if you have a flasher, you will have a tough time with fish out there. The couple spots I usually go, the fish suspend out to about 15 ft when I’m in about 25-28.

Silver Creek reservoir however you can typically do well without a flasher. There are a lot of smaller perch in there though so if you set your bobber at least a couple feet off the bottom you can thin those out some.

This weekend was the first time I’ve fished silver creek in about 3 years and my wife and I did really well. I’ve set up a couple different places in the past, the first I go out maybe 50-60 yards and a little to the right (I know that is pretty vague) and I’ve also gone straight across from where you come on the lake to the far side. When I’ve gone to the far side I did not do nearly as well with panfish but there seemed to be a lot of northerns roaming around. This spot also seemed to be more of a sandy flat, again this was 3 years ago. The other spot that I mentioned, I seem so get a nice mix of fish, sunnies, crappies, northerns, this was true 3 years ago and true this weekend. One thing I noticed though, and maybe it was just my spot but the crappies were all small this year compared to a few years ago, the northerns however were all 30″+.

Thanks for the great info. How thick was the ice there last weekend? What were you using for bait for the panfish and also the northern?

I think I can picture where you’re talking about in relation to the path you have to walk in on. At least from what I remember the bank to the right would be south (?) and going across the water to the other bank you talked about would be the north side (I could also be wrong).

Indeed, great post trev. I’ve never fished for Northern so i would need to learn how to hold one. Dan, I need an excuse to get a flasher.

The really nice crappies found there a few years back have taken a hit in Silver Creek. Northerns the same, but its still maybe one of the best waters to fish.

The need for a flasher on Chesterwoods is spot on more to see those fish at mid-column than to see hits. One will always see fish on the bottom in the winter, but those are lethargic. With a flasher look for those that are at mid-column as they’re the ones that will hit. Find some coming in and out of the sight window at mid column and at the same depth and those are the ones you really want to focus on.

Jack, maybe do a Google or YouTube search, I’m guessing somewhere there’s an article with pictures or a video showing how to hold a northern. It’s basically up through the gills, but not too far to the teeth. To me one of the biggest things is a good solid grip. It’ll control the fish and I always have this gut feeling that if you can “show the fish who’s boss” per se it kind of stops fighthing so much and just waits to be released.

I swear there was a thread on here in the past year on how to hold northern properly, I’m gonna go find it……..

Here ya go. Pretty good instructions plus pictures.

Proper hold for Pike/Muskie

That looks funny, let me know if that link doesn’t work.

Awesome. Thanks again Dan. YouTube has been my personal training quarters for everything.

Dan wrote:

Thanks for the great info. How thick was the ice there last weekend? What were you using for bait for the <em class=”ido-tag-em”>panfish and also the northern?

Ice was 5″ where I was at but recent reports are up to 6.5″. For the panfish I was just using wax worms and a small tungsten jig. The last hour or so I tied a blue caviar jig onto my wife’s rod and the only fish she caught that last hour were keepers, seemed the smaller fish left that one alone. For the northerns, I tried using a jigging rap but they wouldn’t hit it, although a few sunfish did. We ended up catching the northerns on my small jig with a waxie.

Made it out to the Wabasha harbor today. Had about 3.5 to 4 inches of ice. Caught both perch and bluegill. Lot’s of little ones. Still fun to get out. Thanks for all the replies. Might have to hit up Chesterwoods. Hope this weekends rain doesn’t kill the ice.

Thanks for the ice report. Seems like with all this melting the snow we do have left is getting very heavy, hoping that doesn’t make things dangerous; I’m hoping to get out on Friday.

Glad you caught some fish!

I plan to hit up SC this weekend

Jack….You have my phone number. Give me a call sometime between now and Friday evening. I’ll give you a sample pack of two or different plastics to use.

The kindness and sharing on this thread is awesome! I started reading and posting on IDO in fall 2014 I believe and all the recent chatter seems like the most posting and sharing I’ve seen in that time. Great to see a revival of the Rochester area forums as our part of the state doesn’t always have as much activity.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Fished Chesterwoods Sunday evening and Monday morning (1/1 & 1/2). Ice was 9″ where I checked. Fishing was decent on Sunday night and kept a few bluegills and a couple crappies for dinner. Monday morning was better than Sunday night and the sunnies and crappies were more than willing to bite. I ended up fishing from 8-3pm and must have caught 70 fish total. Kept 5 sunnies that were 9.5 and 10″ for the pan and let the rest swim.
Unfortunately I will be in Texas this weekend, Webster SD next weekend and Florida the following weekend so I won’t have any reports for awhile but hopefully when I’m back a few of us can get out and find some fish!

Thanks for the post trev. I went out to Chester woods on Sunday. We were there from about 1:30 to 4:00. Lots of smaller bluegills early on but later in the day we were getting 9″+. Also, accidently caught a smallmouth. First bass I’ve ever caught in my life. We also had 9inches of ice.