Hudsonia Pond, Rockaway Township

There has been plenty of argument over the name of this little pond off of Greenpond Road. There seems to be quite a few places around that we call "Girlscout pond", including this one, but on a map it's called "Hudsonia Pond". Regardless of its true history, or what it's name really is, this pond across the street from the school bus garage on Greenpond Road, is a great place to find fish and few other anglers.
If you turn left into the second parking area for the fields across the street from KDM school and drive to the back of the small parking lot you'll see a dirt path down to the pond. To the right on this path the water along shore is shallow and thickly covered in lilly pads most of the year. Proceed with caution through the overgrowth of tall plants and weeds- there are very often snakes here and as most of the tall grass in New Jersey, it's loaded with ticks. There are a few clear pathways to the water that I suggest you stick to. Also be aware that at the end of the lake there is a large beaver house, and many areas that look like solid ground but are actually part of the large structure- something you don't want to step on and fall through for sure.
Besides fish, you're likely to see a ton of butterflies and birds, frogs, snakes, turtles,deer, bear (be careful, this is a high traffic area for bear - I've had 6 "too close" encounters now fishing at this lake) and sometimes even fox.
Early spring from the side of the lake with the dam is a good time to find pickerel with spinners and lipless crank baits or jerk baits if the weather is still very cool like this year had been. And of course, a live shiner under a bobber is a great method to introduce a beginner, kids (or even just someone who might otherwise not be very interested in laboring over catching a fish) to pickerel.
The deepest part of the lake is just to the left of the dam so shore fishing can be productive throughout the year right up until it's ice covered.
There's a healthy population of smallish perch in this lake and although they tend to be very picky, they'll occasionally be all over small spinners and trout magnet jigs with various trailers, you just have to experiment a bit to find them and gauge their appetite and interest from day to day.
The side of the lake that parallels Green pond road is shallow and covered in Lilly pads, and loaded with pickerel in the spring and early summer. There's a fair amount of bass in the lake and there are also perch but expect the catch pickerel here regardless of what bait you're using. I've even caught them on night crawlers. The turtles here are also particularly aggressive, often clipping live shiners in half and leaving you with just a minnow head on your hook. It's happened to us often on the lake and these turtles won't bugger off without a good deal of encouragement.
You can also find plenty of bass in the lake on almost any soft plastic, crank baits, spinners, topwater baits - it's a tricky spot actually, just because you've really got to change it up here. I haven't found one consistent producer for bass on this lake but caught many of them using many different baits and methods and scattered all over the lake. One thing I've noticed though is that the lake is often stained an orangey color in the warmer months and if your bait lacks visibility, you'll struggle to get any bites.

There are two beavers on the lake as well  that have built an expansive house and repeatedly dam up the spillway much to the annoyance of residents of the lake that this flows into just down the road. You may see one of those residents hanging over the back side of the dam with a rake taking matters into their own hands. He's a friendly guy. You can say hello.
I've not yet ice fished on this pond but I've seen people out there. I have no insight into safe and unsafe spots, hot spots, soft spots or anything of the sort so I won't personally recommend ice fishing on this lake at this time. I do hope to check it out, maybe this coming season.
Overall this is a fun little place, not well known or not well used anyway. You can catch a lot of fish here, but I'd say the major player in this pond is the pickerel. They put up a good fight, often jump out of the water, are eager to attack a bait and get to a good size. It's a place worth taking a few casts for sure.


-LAKE SURVEY MAP COMING SOON-

Lake Ames

Lakes Ames or "Big Pond" in Rockaway is typically fished from the shore with bright orange bobbers and bait holder hooks baited with summertime heat-softened night crawlers from a gas station spotted along the way to this googled "picnic" location. It can often be crowded with loud and rowdy, too-lazy-to-bring-their-grabage-to-the-provided-can out of towners as well as garbage picking bear.

Snakehill road where the lake is located, just off of Greenpond Road, is an unimproved road often traveled and enjoyed by locals for its scenery and just the fun of a dirt road in an area where there aren't many of them left. It does to require an off-road vehicle, just some careful driving around a few turns where rain and erosion can cause a "washboard" that will easily put your Prius into a 5 foot deep ditch running alongside the road.
The lake however is only a few hundred feet off of green pond road and loaded with "natural wonders" (which can really be enjoyed when it's not overrun with human visitors) especially in the late spring and early summer months when you will often see turtles, frogs, plentiful butterflies and birds, muskrats, beavers, sometimes deer and often black bear. We've also spotted fox, otter, and even a bobcat nearby. 

The lake itself can be difficult to fish from the heavily overgrown shoreline (the beach is clear but not a great place to fish) but if you get a small pram or a kayak on it, you're sure to find pickerel and bass along the lilly pad covered shorelines. The lake is loaded with sunfish and I've been told that it holds a good few heavy-weight largemouth if you know how and where to find them, though I've never gotten an impressive bass from this lake myself.
I have, however, caught quite a few fish and many more since getting my kayak onto the water there. The pickerel and bass don't seem to be "choosey" and eagerly bite at weightless, Texas rigged worms in various styles dragged overtop of the lilly pads or allowed to sink along the edges and in holes between dense weed beds.
The "beach" area where people used to be permitted to swim at the lake is now mostly overgrown and remains fairly shallow a good distance out. The corner of the lake between the waterfall and Greenpond road is the deepest area in the lake, and if you're brave enough (and the water is low enough) to walk across the top of the snake-infested slippery top of the falls to that bit of shoreline, it's a good place to throw in a line and sit back to catch some of the bullheads in the lake. Nightcrawlers on slip sinker rigs work well, as well as corn and stink bait.
Besides pickerel and bass there are sunfish and bullheads in the lake. The stream that flows from this lake, called Hibernia Brook, is also stocked with trout by the state, although with the disease that ran through Pequest this past year it wasn't stocked for this season. There is one deep hole where most of the stocked trout can be found and caught by tossing a pinched night crawler, meal worm, powerbait or gulp minnow into the tiny little waterfall above the pool and let to drift down through it.
Overall it's a nice little lake, and worth a visit for sure! Bring your bug spray, and be sure to leave before dark unless your desire is to meet the Rockaway Township police. Good luck! Hope somebody gets one of the big ones the old timers tell me reside here.



-LAKE SURVEY MAP TO FOLLOW IN NEAR FUTURE-

Mount Hope Pond in Rockaway

Lake Profile:
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.