Mt Hope Pond
You may have seen it featured in The Fisherman Magazine - Mt Hope Pond in Rockaway Township is an underestimated fishing hole for sure.
Tell a local you're headed to the pond and their response will likely be a big eye roll and a "Why?" that they don't expect you to try to answer. But, I've had some great days at Mt Hope and know plenty of others who say the same. If you fish it right, you can too.
The lake has trout, largemouth bass, perch, crappies, pickerel, bullheads, a mess of sunfish and some channel catfish too. I know personally of largemouth up to 8 pounds (yes, EIGHT POUNDS) pulled out of this lake, and catfish up to 17. This being said, many a fisherman will leave Mt Hope with nothing at all. It can be a tricky lake to fish. The water stays very clear for good parts of the year and the fish see a lot of action (all kinds of lures and baits been thrown at them every day) around the most popular areas.
Mt Hope Pond does not allow any form of boating, so all fishing is from shore. (There are a few spots you could wait out a little ways, however the lake drops off pretty quickly in most places and has some areas with very mucky bottom). It took me a year, but I was finally able to track down a copy of a semi-accurate lake survey map from an old out of print book, an updated and annotated version of which I'll share with you here.
The maximum depth is 15' and on average is 12' with a fairly large (about a third the size of the overall lake) deep hole at 14' along the northern shore, closer to the beach than the far shore and closest to the first few roadside pull-offs along Mt Hope Road. These areas are the most commonly fished, for ease of access, but the far shore is worth the short walk from the beach parking area. I've had luck really all around the lake but two of my favorite spots are the north shore's last pull off and the area on the south shore, just where you start to see boulders under the water.
WARNING: There is a cabin across the lake from the beach. This cabin, and it's shore on the lake, are PRIVATE. DO NOT Trespass. It will not be worth the risk, I promise. It's control is by a local sportsmans club made up of many protective police officers and also by the local boy scouts. Trespassing will not make you any friends. (And will very likely catch you no fish anyway)
For trout I like the back corners of the lake, farthest from the beach off of Mt Hope Road (obviously not on the shore that I just described to you) but casting back towards the beach and to the middle, generally. (I tend to find these trout hanging in a 7-10 foot range around the lake, occassionally being deeper and RARELY in less than 6 feet of water. I've had plenty of luck with these state-stocked trout, mainly rainbows but with some browns and brooks mixed in, using a slip sinker rig and floating powerbait on a small size 10 or 12 hook. Be prepared though, if you plan to catch and release you may want to use a barbless hook or circle hook because the trout will swallow this bait 9 times out of 10 and will not revive well afterward. (If you're new to fishing - you can take the barb off of your hook simply by filing it off or even crushing it down with pliers- and circle hooks are designed to not gut hook fish). On the south shore of the lake (to the left of the beach if you are standing on it facing the lake) there is a boulder strewn area where the depth drops off fairly quickly with good cover for all sorts of fish in the lake. I've caught plenty of trout here on powerbait and on spinners, including one 6 pound brown trout two springs ago. I favor a size 6 panther martin in an "original" color. I've done fine with other spinners, but this is my go-to for its consistent spinning and durability.
The bass at Mt Hope are notoriously finicky, to the point where there are some that don't even believe they're there. I've heard plenty of people complain about it, but I've also seen fishermen walk away with (or at least with pictures of) some real NJ trophies. If you stand along any shore when the water has warmed just right, just about this time of year in May, you can see plenty of them on spawning beds up and down the shores, the trick though, is getting them to bite. I've had most of my luck with small baits, like twitch baits from Rapala that were intended more for trout and the sort. I've heard good things about smallish 6-7" black worms thrown weightless, texas rigged, near cover and also hyper-realistic swim baits in perch and sunfish patterns such as the Storm WildEye collections. I've also personally had good luck with them throwing topwater lures, mainly hula poppers, after dark in the warmer summer months from about June on while we were catfishing.
Speaking of catfishing- the elusive channel cat will, when you find them, eat just about anything. Night crawlers, hot dogs, chicken livers, dead shiners, live shiners, corn, dough bait, we've gotten them on just about everything HOWEVER, finding them can be tough. There is no fishing from the beach at night, which limits your space and your visibility, and it seems that there is no really consistent spot to find fish. We've had nights that we caught 5 right away and then nothing for the rest of the night. Plenty of nights we got skunked. And some nights that monstrous fish stole fishing rods and other nights the bust heavy braided lines on us. (We've yet to haul in any NJ giants but we'll be well prepared this year) I know plenty of people who talk about dozens and dozens of fish in a night, with just dead shiners off the north shore, but we've never had such a night. But it's worth a shot for sure! I recommend the same slip-sinker setup that I described for trout, or a light up bobber suspending the bait about a foot above bottom. We love our light up bobbers, but don't spend too much time staring at them or when you close your eyes to go to sleep you'll be seeing them on the back of your eyelids all night.
The pickerel are pickerel. They get pretty big here and are often caught through the ice on shiners as well as on live bait all other months of the year and on spinners, crankbaits, swim baits and the sort.
The sunfish are relentless and populous, this is definitely a great lake to take kids if it's just any old fish you're after. They'll eat just about anything and it can be a lot of fun to catch them on small spinners or tiny poppers.
The panfishing is best in the winter ice fishing when you can reach areas of the lake you just couldn't get to from the shore. I've actually never seen anyone pull a crappie out of the lake other than ice fishing. The perch pick up in the colder months, even just before ice fishing and will hit small shiners without much hesitation. You can also get a good deal of trout through the ice - jigging pole tip ups are great for this, with a size ten or twelve hook baited with powerbait and held low with a small splitshot about 2 feet off the bottom in the 6-10 foot depth ranges. Jigging for perch and trout is also effective - I really like trout magnet for this and any time of year. BEWARE though, as anyone who ice fishes here will tell you, the lake can be treacherous and freeze very irregularly due to different springs and runoff areas and warm spots around the lake.
