Who's Fishing Hopatcong?

[jimmythegreek]

theres no pattern at all to the fish in LH, there are so many variables its ridiculous. Between the boat traffic, the fishing pressure, and the abuncance of bait its a tuff nut to crack for the inexperienced. The draw for me is the predators that lurk, no other lake has every species avail to you in one place, plus the ability to run and gun and find fish, all my trophy fish come outta LH, plus im 5 min away. My advice is try to not overthink it, the fish tend to hang in certain areas, go check them all one by one til you see what you like. I have witnessed a dozen boats on a point a few weeks ago w 2 fish caught all morning, but they were there thick the week before there. Last year I spent 3 weekends in the early fall hammering wipers beyond belief, another member and I went thru dozens of herring on drop and hook fishing, nowhere near any structure or anything, just a large flat. That school sat there for 3 weeks in a row, with no bait nearby or for any reason. The bait runs in school classes, the open water holds the mature larger herring, the edges of deep water gets mix size, and the shallow weed edges hold the juveniles. Thats why theres no herring avail in NJ, they cant place their traps in deeper than 20fow and its not enuff to get the large adults in, the gamefish want a good meal if they are gonna make the effort to eat