Chesdin is a very productive lake that offers excellent largemouth bass fishing, good crappie fishing (both black and white) in spring and fall, and a great channel catfish fishery.

Lake Chesdin has been known in the past for its crappie fishery. But, the average size of crappie appeared to have been declining in recent years.

Historically, Lake Chesdin has been considered an excellent bass fishing lake. According to some anglers the bass fishing has gotten tougher recently.

Bluegill have been very abundant in Lake Chesdin recently. Unfortunately, their average size remains relatively small; we did not collect any over 7 inches. Given the abundance of potentially competitive species such as gizzard shad, pumpkinseed sunfish, white perch, and others in this lake, very little improvement in growth and size is expected in the future.

Due to production constraints in recent years, walleye were only stocked in Chesdin when surplus fish were available. However, walleye survival has been good enough to produce numerous fish in the 4-7-pound range in gill net samples.

Lake Chesdin currently has an awesome population of channel catfish. They were very abundant and excellent eating-size fish from 2-4 pounds were common. Numerous fish in the 4-6-pound range were also collected. These fish were typically very fat and healthy looking. Anglers are encouraged to take advantage of this under-utilized resource.

White perch is another under-utilized species. They have become more abundant in Lake Chesdin during the last ten years, probably at the expense of the bluegill and crappie populations