Rainbows Of Late November

I had planned on the day being cool. I had insured that my gear bag had all the warm goodies for this time of year. Warm hat, gloves, socks, fleece hoodies, and waterproof boots were loaded for a day in the November elements. What I didn’t expect was the fresh snow as I looked out my window. That is fresh snow and snowing currently. Oh well, we had planned for this day so some snow wasn’t going to keep us from our destination.

Carefully I steered my ol’ jeep over and picked up my son at his house, and, met my son-in-law and grandson in their truck there also. We were offer to challenge the Rainbow Trout of Chesterfield Reservoir one last time before the lake began to ice up. The interstate highway wasn’t to bad and eventually we made our destination.

Chesterfield Reservoir is a fine trout fishery located out of Bancroft, Idaho. It’s history provides many stories of some fast growing Rainbow Trout and even a decent Brown Trout on occasion. When Chesterfield has a good water year and not effected by draw down the fishing can be very good. When we don’t have a good water year and the reservoir is effected by severe drawn down by the farmers, then the fishing can be more difficult. Chesterfield has also had a history of the need to be eradicated when the chub and other unwanted fish population becomes a problem. When it is right and Chesterfield is “on”, this lake may be one of the very best trout fisheries in all of Idaho.

Most of my fishing experience on Chesterfield has been from a boat. Today, however, because of the expected cooler weather we had chosen not to bring the boat. Actually, the hunter’s in my group had left a camp trailer at deer camp and we needed to bring the trailer home with us. So we had planned for a day of bank fishing thinking some good trout could be found near shore.

We started off fishing off the face of the dam. Cold wind blew in our face making comfort a problem, but, remember we had all prepared for the cold elements. Nothing was happening near the dam as a lot of debris was being blown directly into the face of the dam making retrieving lures or bait troublesome. We decided to move over to the bays on one side of the reservoir hoping to get out of the wind, or, at least as much wind as we had near the dam. We found a nice protected area along the shore that had a high brush line that protected us from the wind.

I spent some time casting Rapala lures and jigs, but, to no avail. I finally decided I might as well try something else and set up my rod with a Salmon Egg power bait, slip sinker, and some shot. Today wasn’t to be my day, but, I sure enjoyed being outdoors and on the water again before ice fishing season starts.

My grandson, Kaleb, and my son, Matt, were the lucky anglers for the day. Two big wonderful Rainbow Trout had visited their baited lines. Unfortunately, one of the big ‘bows came off just as we were reaching for the net. Sorry no pictures for that one, but, it was a splendid Rainbow. Not long after this beautiful Rainbow Trout was hooked and this time netted with pleasure. This is my grandson, Kaleb, with the prize of the day.