Small Weed Chocked Ponds

[Gerry Zagorski]

Back in the day when fresh water fishing was all I did, I couldn't wait for ice out... I'd jump in the car and fish all those little ponds and drainage ditches I saw along the road close to home which were normally choked over with weeds in the summer months and no one bothered to fish. They were game on with big nasty hungry Pickerel this time of year....

These were nasty little ponds that no one would ever believe held fish, but every year we'd pull a few out... I'm taking on the side of the road in the middle of an industrial park or alongside an exit ramp....

The best place which we dubbed COWBUNGA was right next to some sort of nasty industrial power plant looking place. We fished there for a few years and did great but sadly, they fenced it off.... Man did we pull some fish out of there...

Wondering if there are any others doing the same and if you have any theories on how the fish got in these places...


Ahhh the good old days when life and fishing were so carefree...

[AndyS]

Had some industrial park ponds near me when I lived near Parsippany. Amazed at some of the nice bass that were in there. Look at Logs22 posts !

[Lard Almighty]

There was a little one-acre mud-hole park pond in the town where I grew up. I got laughed at a lot for fishing there, but the 4 lb. bass and 50 crappie days kept me coming back. I would go there on Saturdays after watching the fishing shows on TNN to try out the new techniques I learned from Orlando Wilson, Roland Martin, Bill Dance, and the Lindner brothers. I would catch my first fish of just about every year from that pond. I made a lot of good memories there.

[logs22]

I was just about to reply to this thread when I noticed Andy had already kindly called me out for my affinity for industrial retention basins, office park decorative ponds, and lots of other less than ideal fishing spots. All I can say is when you live in Union County, have a young son and a baby on the way, you make Due with what is at hand. Frankly, I have had much more success at a nearby retention pond filled with shopping carts behind a Target store than I have had at Spruce Run where I store my boat (at least in terms of quantity). I also work in Fort Lee so I have exploited many industrial bodies of water in Bergen and Passaic Counties as well. It might not be pretty, but it’s always an adventure! Just be sure to bring gloves to use when removing the often disgusting biohazard detritus snagged off the bottom.

[icebadger]

where i grew up there was a bunch of those types of ponds they were unfishable by june and they had alot of slime darts and decent bass to catch. some of them i had to fish at night so they would not see me and riding a bmx bike allowed me to go unnoticed. dixons pond and the rockaway river is where i would fish when those places got to weedy to fish. also those places had big catfish as well.

[Rickhem]

This thread hits on a lot of personal favorites for me. Getting out on those weeded-over ponds before the weeds take it over is a good way to find out what's swimming in them. And watching where the last bits of open water are once the weeds grow can sometimes tell you where the deeper water is too. Makes it seem more scientific when you get back there in the summer and drag some frogs or other surface stuff through the weeds and pads.
And I really enjoy when I can find a otherwise-unknown body of water in an industrial park, or an oxbow kinda pond by scanning through google maps, then going there and catching something from it. Lots don't show up until you go to the satellite view, and some aren't easy to get to, but the satisfaction of doing it successfully is worth it.
Found a little pond in the back of the industrial complex where I worked in Pine Brook that turned out to be loaded with bass. Caught them up to about 4 pounds from there, and it was a frequent lunchtime visit for me. Also explored branches of the Rockaway that flowed around a landfill, and there were largemouth, smallmouth, and pike and pickerel to be had in there.
Gotta love small waters!

[Ken Lyons]

There was I think an irrigation pond between 46 and the Rockaway River in Pine Brook. There were three of us in high school who somehow found it. That was a long time before Google. It was loaded with panfish and we had some great times. Interesting though it slowly stopped producing. We just pressured it too much.

[Drossi]

Bowlby's pond behind Dover HS fits the bill completely weed choked most of the year but loaded with small pickerel. When I was a kid we used to hammer them on size 1 mepps spinners right about now, especially with trout season closed.

Diamond Spring pond in Denville was the same except that it had lmb and some good ones too.

[Hookmanski]

I grew up in hunterdon county and used to fish a pond with my dad that was only accesible by hiking through the woods. The pond now has a walking trail and a parking lot and has become much more accessible. I remember pulling some big panfish and bass out there with him.

The pond still has tons of reeds all around it and is full of vegetation. Despite that, I have gone back many times since then and haven't caught a bass over 10 inches since they made the pond more accessible. Panfish are still there in numbers though, i brought my girlfriend along to try some tenkara once and caught well over 70 sunnies. Basically a fish on every cast. Its a catch and release pond now as well, but I don't think people release everything. Can't wait to get back up there for some fresh air! Moving from hunterdon to passaic county was quite the change of scenery!

[youngdumbandfulloffish]

Originally Posted by logs22

I have had much more success at a nearby retention pond filled with shopping carts behind a Target store.

My boy scout leader introduced me to that cesspool 20 years ago. It makes running errands for my wife on that road beneficial......Sorry I'm late hunny you should've seen the lines at Target