Lakewood

Lake Shenandoah is part of Ocean County Park in Lakewood, NJ. I've been to this lake many times in my past and haven't visited in over 4 years. This lake makes a claim to have residents of lake trout, brown trout, largemouth bass, crappie, perch, and an occasional snakehead. Snakeheads are an invasive species and this is the first place i ever ran into one in real life. Shenandoah is not a solid producing lake for shore fishing, it's a disappointment most of the time. There is a spillway with a shad ladder preventing you from fishing in a 100ft radius of the ladder. Shenandoah was made in part of the Metedeconk river and fishing seems better in the river sections behind the spillway and further down. This trip was no exception to the non-producing aspects, perhaps a boat would be better.

After the disappointment at Shenandoah we hastily moved to the lesser known Lake Carasaljo. Less than 2 miles away and upstream of the Metedeconk this lake was a major surprise. On small homemade jigs we were landing perch hand over fist. Also landing quite a few bluegill and a slab of a crappie. This is a dark cedar water lake and brighter orange colors seem to pull them out from the deep. After only fishing the south side of the lake we scouted the north side with a pavillion and a childrens play park. The pavillion over the water looks like a great habitat for anything from crappie depending on the depth, to largemouth and bluegill. This lake certainly deserves a more serious trip.

Color

Fishing south and central New Jersey is mostly unfiltered cedar and marshy murk waters and this has provoked me to really start considering colors of lures. After a lot of research and looking around at what both pros and amateurs alike use for colors the famous Fire Tiger combination has really been proving well. I picked up a Strike King Fire Tiger tiny shad crank. This crank served me well, even picking up a bluegill which is often a bit tougher on a treble hook due to the small mouth. It's a suspending shad body crankbait that I am finding can be worked in a variety of ways. I can jerk the bait, slash the bait, twitch the bait like a jig, and I can even slow or fast retrieve and let it slowly pop to the surface. This particular color combination seems to drive almost any fish nuts. I've been catching Perch, Bluegill, Pickerel, Bass, and Crappie. It's high time I throw this in trout waters and see what comes out.

Catfish Feeding Frenzy.

After a slow afternoon of chasing fish up and down a familiar basin, a friend and I decided to stop and check some water with standing timbers and a clear channel. It was after 9pm now and really dark. Lots of bugs and almost no wind. We hear the fish kissing the surface, thinking they were bluegills. This particular water looked like a bass made habitat and threw out some surface plugs. We started getting bites and realized it was Catfish! Bullhead Catfish to be exact! What an unexpected surprise.

Fringe Tossing

I've been wanting to begin a blog for some time now but couldn't figure what i had to share that i actually cared to write about. With the advent of summer, here in new jersey, i chose fishing. I love fishing from the shore of freshwater lakes and ponds flipping and jigging through the fringes. Fringe tossing is for those who enjoy freshwater lure fishing be it from shore or even small boat. I hope that someone learns something or is at least entertained.