Sunday Monmouth County Pond Hopping

[tautog]

Went out again today. First pond, fish were all on beds and I could see they were all 10"-12" cookie cutters, so I left them alone. Next small pond is an ace in the hole. Got 2 12" bank cruisers on a weightless 4" worm and then shook off a 3lber that smacked my topwater, i.e. I hooked him from a spot that was very hard to get down to the water so I kept shaking him once the fight was over, hoping that I wouldn't have to go into the water through pricker bushes to get my rapala back.

Next set of three ponds were all public in the Colts Neck park system. Internet says they are stocked. Caught nothing, only saw sunnies, turtles and frogs. Maybe they only stock catfish and sunnies because bass are just about to bed. I should have been able to see a few even if they weren't biting.

Final spot was the Swimming River Reservoir at Dorbrook, technically illegal but not one posted or no tresspassing sign here. Did have to walk at least 1/2 mile to get to the water and got strange looks walking on a jogging path with a fishing rod. Hit various spots with small soft plastics, had a 12"er, a 3 1/2lber and a nice white perch. Why is it that my two favorite Monmouth County waters, Swimming River and Glendola are closed to the public. Funny how the workers get to fish there though.

[AndyS]

Is there no one you can write to to get Swimming River Reservoir open again. What, someone drowned there 30 years ago

I say write letters, get the skinny, ask the questions that need to be asked.

[DDDman]

I used to fish the Swimming river res years ago when they were more lenient to trespassers. I would enter on the college campus. Many bass were caught along with some very large crappie and bluegill. I have seen many bass that were over 6lbs cruisiing the shallows but could never entice one to bite. I would love to fish from a boat there as I am sure many fish there have never seen a lure.

[tautog]

I saw two boats out there today. You see lots of canoes and row boats behind houses on it. They see some lures, especially spinner baits and topwater. When we fished it by boat, we did really well on 3-4lb fish with finesse baits like lightly weighted 4" worms and 1/16 oz jigs with twister tails. I'm sure senkos and dropshots would work well, but we didn't have them them. Also many nice sized bluegills and crappie along with white perch.

I used to love fishing off the Phalanx bridge back in the day, a crappie bite per cast, 1 out of 5 over 10". Once had an 18" crappie there and there were white perch in the middle of the span down deep, quite a few 11"-12" models. We have really no good panfishing this way other than Swimming River. As for opening it, they cracked down after 9/11 even though you would need a tanker truck to poison an entire reservoir.

Glendola is even better, big smallmouth, nice sized yellow perch, largemouth and pickerel. We used to fish from shore in late March as regular security patrols didn't start until April 1st. Even fishing only 100 feet of shoreline where we could quickly hide and fishing a month too early, we caught loads of perch, 1 or 2 2lb plus smallmouth per man and about a pickerel per man each trip. Can't imagine what you would do in a boat or even walking a good portion of the shoreline. Not too many places you have a fair of catching a 4lb plus smallie in Central NJ.

[Almaink]

I had friends that owned houses on the Swimming River and we used to fish, and swim from their back yards when I was a kid. We also used to fish for crappies under the few bridges that crossed the river, and down by the spillway. I remember that F&G used to dump tons of small trout at that spillway. To bad they closed it to the public as it was a great place to go.

[DDDman]

I did not know there were smallies in Glendola. When I was a kid I would have definitely tried my luck there. F&G were pretty lenient to me and my brother the few times they found us at Swimming River. Just a check of our liscenses and a how are they biting? I won't dare try that 30yrs later. Although I am tempted every time I see that water.