BrianSnat

Usually when I'm fishing out of my canoe it's because I'm canoe camping, so there is limited room for fishing gear. I usually bring two 2 piece rods (1 ML and 1 MH) and they aren't my really good rods because they are going to get banged around in the canoe. I also take a small tackle box with the basics. It's a far cry from when I fish out of my boat, when I could have 6-10 rods along and a tackle box that is big enough that it could use wheels. I always have a camera along in the canoe and sometimes a video camera. I keep them in a good dry bag (my wallet, cell phone, car keys and iPod also go inside) and make sure I'm extra careful when the dry bag is open.

If I have questions about bass fishing I come here for the fishing expertise. If I have questions about paddling, I go where the paddling experts hang out http://www.paddling.net/message/

Check out my post about places to fish in the Northeast forum. This link should also be helpful http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/pdf/2003/plcpnds03.pdf

Sounds a lot like me. Original floating Rapala and the purple Creme worm. Everyone used purple so we called them "purple worms", not plastic worms. I remember using a lot of the pre-rigged ones with two hooks and a small spinner in front. The Lazy Ike was also a good producer. I've been a Senko convert ever since I discovered this website. I never head out for bass without a weightless T rigged Senko on one of my rods and probably do 80 percent of my bass fishing with that rig. Some other all time favorites include that original Rapala, Shad Raps, Heddon Torpedoes and Jitterbugs. I used to like the Hula Popper too, but the last time I bought a few the quality of the lures was horrible.

I like Strike King because they are fairly well made and inexpensive. A local tackle shop also sells a brand obviously made by a mom and pop outfit and they are pretty cheap too so I snap those up.

It is one of my favorite plastics. I fish it Carolina rigged, T rigged with a pegged weight, and weightless.

Welcome to a fellow north NJ angler. There is plenty of great bass fishing in NJ. A boat helps, but there is excellent shore fishing as well.

I'm gonna go against the grain, I've fished from kayaks and canoes and much prefer the canoe. In kayaks you're pretty much stuck in one position the whole time. In a canoe I can stand, sit, kneel, move around and turn around without turning the whole boat around. I can carry a lot more stuff and it's way easier to access. As far as kayaks being faster, that's not necessarily true. There are slow canoes designed for stability, fast ones meant for paddling long distances and some in between. same for kayaks. A fast canoe will be faster than rec kayaks. Even a middle of the road canoe can also be faster. My canoe is in the middle of the pack speed wise, yet when I paddle with people in rec kayaks, most can't keep up with me, then again I can't keep up with the long touring kayaks either, but touring kayaks are poor choices for fishing. Most kayaks designed for fishing are even slower than rec boats use they are primarily designed for stability, not speed. The only major advantage I ever saw in a kayak was that they fare a lot better in the wind and SINKs are dryer in a chop.

For spinning, it's all Shimano and Pfleuger for me, I think they are best for the buck at each price level (though I did just buy a Okuna for surf casting, the price was too good to pass up).

Black Senkos are my number one choice. Oddly enough I have trouble finding plain black Senkos. It seems that green pumpkin, watermelon and junebug are the most popular around here so that is what the stores stock most of.

I usually keep a snap swivel on one rod and use that for spoons, spinners and spinnerbaits. All the rest of my rods are straight to line.

Got a 4 lb smallmouth at Cannistear Reservoir Saturday. That and pickerel and a rock bass, but the huge smallie made it worthwhile. My partner boated 4 smallies and a rock bass, but his were all about a pound or less and he got his on live bait. I prefer not to use live bait. Before that my last two times out last week on my local lake I got 1 small bass each outing. I was recently going through a Facebook photo album from 2011 where the caption under a photo of me with a bass said it was 1 of 16 bass we caught that evening on the local lake. It was the 2nd week of Sept in 2011. I don't think I've caught 16 bass in total this year. Well maybe a few over that but not by many.

My three trips to Round Valley this year produced 2 rock bass total. Not a trout or largemouth or smallmouth bass to be had. Come to think of it I've never done well on Round Valley. I was 0 fer on Merrill Creek this summer too.

OK if you want first hand experience. Green Turtle Pond in Hewitt is pretty good. You can fish from shore there. Trout and bass fishing is good at GTP. Pompton Lake has limited shore fishing but if you can find a legal spot, it can be good for bass and pike I never fished Budd Lake but I know a few people who say it's good. The Newark Watershed reservoirs require a special permit (available at their office on Echo Lake Rd in Newfoundland), but have some good shore fishing for walleye, small and largemouth bass and trout. They are Echo Lake, Cannistear Reservoir, Oak Ridge Reservoir, Clinton Reservoir and Charlotteburg Reservoir I've never done well at Monksville Reservoir, but there are a lot of big fish in it. Just a matter of convincing them to hit your line. Round Valley and Spruce Run Reservoirs further south are very good. Split Rock Reservoir is excellent if you can borrow or buy yourself a canoe or kayak, but unfortunately shore fishing there is illegal. Most of the area rivers are trout stocked but trout die off by summer. In the spring and early summer try the Pequannock, Pompton, Rockaway and Ramapo rivers. The Pequannock holds trout year round in the northern section. Going further west and The Muscnetcong, Pequest, Flat Brook and Wallkill rivers hold trout all year, but it's best to leave them alone when water temps are high. While I don't like it due to the insane weekend and weeknight boat traffic and all the weeds, Lake Hopatcong has good fishing for quite a few species and plenty of spots to fish from shore. The Passaic River has a good rep for Northern Pike, particularly the stretch through Fairfield, Pine Brook, West Caldwell and Little Falls but you can catch them right into Paterson (I wouldn't eat them though). Also some huge carp in it.

So far this has been the worst season of fishing I've ever encountered in my 45+ years of bass fishing. Normally bass are practically jumping in the boat in late spring and I can do OK throughout the summer. This year spring was slow and summer has left me wondering if there are any fish out there. I think the weather has affected things. The wild temp fluctuations in late spring with a few days of unseasonably cold weather followed by a few days of very hot weather. Then it went right to very hot for most of the summer and now it's chilly again. My catches the last 10 times out: 0 0 1 small sunfish 1 perch, one 9" bass and one 12" pickerel 0 1 8" bass, one small sunfish 0 0 1 14" bass 0 I don't recall getting skunked so many times, ever. I've tried everything, shallows, deeper water, night fishing, on the water before sunrise. Plastics (unweighted, C rig, dropshot), surface lures, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, jigs, you name it. Even my go to spots on my home lake aren't producing. There was one spot where I could practically guarantee a bass or two even if the rest of the lake wasn't producing, Now even that spot is dead. I even switched species and tried nearby impoundments famous for their trout fishing, bought lead core line to get my lures down and still nothing. If it was just me I'd think maybe I was doing something wrong, but the other fishermen I speak with on the water seem to be doing just as poorly. Has it been a tough year where you are or is fishing pretty much normal?

You don't say whether you have a boat available, or what kind of fish you are interested in. Anyway I started to type a long response and realized I was basically duplicating something the state already provides. This is a very good resource http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/pdf/2003/plcpnds03.pdf Print it out and use it to explore.

Absolutely. And I think the Albright knot is the best method of doing so http://www.animatedknots.com/albright/

If you mean for just for bass, a 5" Senko in Junebug or Watermelon. If you mean all fish, probably a Rapala Shad Rap

I don't care for the taste of most freshwater fish, so generally won't eat it. Farm raised catfish, that's about it. I enjoy many kinds of saltwater fish though.

I almost always bring my iPod and a small battery operated speaker and listen to music while I fish. I'm usually fishing in NJ so it's not as if I'm among the sounds of nature. The FAA sees fit to route flights over the lake region so it's the sound jets overhead and the distant sounds of automobiles, or my music. I'll take the latter. If I was on a remote Adirondack lake it would be a different story. About the only time I'm not listening to music is at night if I'm using topwater. Hearing the sounds around me is important when using topwater. The sound of the lure working properly, the sound of fish feeding on the surface, the sound of something hitting my plug. So then the music is off.

I had a Safari. Got it free from Lowrance and even at that price I didn't think it was worth it. Worst GPS unit I ever used. I really wanted to like it because I loved their previous GPS line that the Endura line replaced, but the Endura was just plain awful. If the OP can find a used Garmin 76CSX or 60CSX, jump on it. A lot of handheld GPS enthusiasts still think those were the best units made as far as accuracy and reception. I had for the most part retired my 60CSX but this week I had to break it out because my wife went away for a few days with my DeLorme PN40 in her car. I immediately remembered why I liked that unit so much. I think I'm going to keep it in the boat from now on. As far what is available today the Garmin 78SC is the replacement for the 76CSX and the Garmin 62SC is the replacement for the 60CSX. Both have a pretty good rep. The 78 and 62 are essentially the same unit guts and firmware wise (as was the 76 and 60), but the 78 (and 76) has some marine specific features and it floats. The new Garmin eTrex line is supposed to be pretty good. It had a rough start, but Garmin is pretty good with firmware updates, so the issues have been fixed and a lot of people I know like them. Another unit to look at is the DeLorme PN60. It is the updated version of the PN40, which I like, except for its tendency to eat batteries like potato chips. One of the upgrades in the PN60 is much better battery life. A nice thing about DeLorme is that it comes with Topo 10 software for free and you can load the maps to your unit. Garmin charges an arm and a leg for every map package, though you can find some free maps for Garmin units online these days. I don't have much to say about Magellan. Their units are OK but their customer service is absolutely abysmal. I wouldn't buy a Magellan no matter how good it was until they do something about their customer service. I assure you your buddy's Garmin has that function. He may not know how to use it, but can't think of a Garmin handheld made since 2000 that did not have that function.

Same here, other than topwater. I have very little success with deep diving cranks.

I'd say 80-90 percent of my hits with soft plastics are on the fall. I rarely have a bass hit on the retrieve. So I watch the line closely as the lure falls for hint of a tap. If I see even the slightest jerk I set. Similarly, if I go to begin the retrieve and feel the slightest bit of resistance, I set. Sometimes it's a false alarm, but more often than not it's fish on. On the retrieve its swim, hop, drag, whatever seems to be working, but these days I mostly work all plastics the way I work a Senko. Cast, fall, lift, let fall, reel in slack, repeat.

I'm pretty sure I've been catching the same bass over and over again on my local lake, probably half a dozen times in the past three years. First it's pretty large, over 4 1/2 lbs. Caught it (or them) in the same area and it (or they) has the same malformed mouth so I'm fairly certain it was the same bass. Obviously it was caught when younger and the angler removed part of the mouth with when removing the hook. The thin membrane had healed, and outside of the lip had healed though part of it was missing. It's a small lake that gets consistent fishing pressure, so I'm sure most of the adult bass have been caught at least several times, but only sometimes do I catch one with a hole the thin membrane other than the one my bait caused. So I'm inclined to believe that it does heal eventually.

That was what I was doing last year (Binsky blade bait). The drift sock is a good idea though. It should help keep the jig vertical if the wind isn't too strong. A lot of the fishermen here also drift live herring on a 1 oz slip sinker. Tried that too to no avail.