We took advantage of the free fishing day saturday and decided on Chesterfield in stead of Willard. My inlaws live in Id and we are just across the border in Ut so we flipped a coin and Chesterfield it was. We got there about 830 and started trolling from the dam down the east side and caught fish or had a hit atleast every 5 min until 10 we used spoons in all colors red/white daredevel being the best caught lots of fish three nice ones 3-4# . We left at 4 took home 8 fish ,most were caught on downriggers at 10-20 feet we did get a few on top just longlining great day on the pond!!! M.H.
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We were also there at the pond. Sounds like you did the same as we did. We caught three really nice ones and a ton of small planters. We couldnt keep the small one off to get to the bigger ones. It was a great day fishing. Perfect weather. Hopefuly those smaller fish will grow fast and chesterfield will be back.
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I hope you are right but I fear that come late summer there will be nothing but a puddle of water left.
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I was really surprised at how much water was in ther for how hot and dry it has been lately. i hope they do keep the water in there and make a good fishery again.
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It would be nice if the IDFG owned some of the water in Chesterfield but I think all of it is for irrigation. The irrigators want to keep it full as much as the fisherman but when push comes to shove it will get used.
The only way for Chesterfield to keep a decent pool going into the winter is for mother nature to lend a hand or the fisherman to purchase some of the water right.
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I might be incorrect here but I think some of the water is owned by the farmers and some is owned by the Indian reservation.
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You may be correct about the Indians owning some of the water in Chesterfield. The headwaters of the Portneuf (which feeds Chesterfield) originates on the reservation and the back 1/3 or so of Chesterfield is also on the res. The tribe has some really strong water rights.
However, all that water is also used for the large irrigated farming operations which are also on Indian land. The portneuf river winds its way back onto the reservation by Pocatello and there is a huge pumping station that feeds all the farms in Michaud and Bannock Creek areas.
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