"Cranford West" - Silver Lake in Hope NJ

[logs22]

Originally Posted by Suntzu

Except for a couple of hundred yards above the parkway dam canoeing on the mighty Rahway on the south side of Cranford is a challenge better to drop it in on the other side of the parkway in Winfield park
You do have 6 trout stocking pints within walking distance of your house

Speaking of the Rahway east of the Parkway, has anyone ever had luck catching fish in Bloodgood pond, which is essentially just another dammed portion of the Rahway. I hear a lot about Jackson pond further downstream but nothing about Bloodgood. I have fished there twice and never got so much as a bite. An old timer walking by told me he hasn't seen anyone pull bass out of that pond since they started using herbacide on it a few years ago. It's too bad because it 'looks' like it should be great for bass, lots of lilies but not too many, shoreline structures, some depth near the dam....

[FASTEDDIE29]

There used to be Smallmouth in the Rahway as well as Perch and Pickerel. I grew up on Elizabeth ave and Madison Hill rd in Rahway. We used to bail Channel cats off the Madison Hill bridge after a nice rain storm! I'm 39 years old and can tell you that this river has gotten shallower in the last 30 years or so. Too many floods and such. Are there fish to catch? Of course! Would Pike survive in certain stretches? Yes! Yes they would. I'm all about the Rahway and still fish there when I'm short on time. The Smallies used to be in the Robinson's branch below Milton lake. They're all gone now. The biggest Smallie I caught out of this river was under the Madison Hill rd bridge, fish was 4 lbs. Too much grime, shallow water and slime for the BRONZEBACKS to do well in my opinion. Throw some Pike in Winfield and upstream of the Waterworks and see what happens!

[Suntzu]

Eddie accept for various times at various schools I have lived in Cranford since 1970. I can say growing up I fished the mighty Rahway or local ponds nearly every day from March through November. Caught yellow and white perch, even small stripers in Rahway; caught tiger musky (8" but a tiger musky for sure) and pickerel. Of course lots of LMB, crappie, carp, catfish, suckers and eels
Never caught a SMB in there
It is totally silted up especially in Cranford but help us on the way as they will be doing dredging over the next two years in Cranford and Springfield. After it would great to get some pike stocked to control the carp and sucker populations
From the dam by Gray's down to the parkway, SMB would thrive
Also, hopefully some day they will introduce some more species into Clark Res, Union Counties biggest body of water

[TheDreamCatchers]

Just get rid of the million and a half carp in there. The trout and green sunfish will make a good meal for pike. Smallmouth bass would not survive in there. But the pike would do fine.

[phil]

Originally Posted by logs22

Speaking of the Rahway east of the Parkway, has anyone ever had luck catching fish in Bloodgood pond, which is essentially just another dammed portion of the Rahway. I hear a lot about Jackson pond further downstream but nothing about Bloodgood. I have fished there twice and never got so much as a bite. An old timer walking by told me he hasn't seen anyone pull bass out of that pond since they started using herbacide on it a few years ago. It's too bad because it 'looks' like it should be great for bass, lots of lilies but not too many, shoreline structures, some depth near the dam....

I dropped my yak in there last year and caught a few bass but couldn't believe how many carp are in there. the whole lake isn't more than a few feet deep anywhere.