blazerrick

Fish Devil hit a couple good ones. There are three lakes in the Assunpink set (Assunpink, Stone Tavern and Rising Sun). Manasquan is a good lake if you have a boat (trolling motors only) and want a chance at many different kinds of fish. They have white bass, smallmouth (only place in the area), largemouth as well as muskies, pickerel, perch, bluegill and crappie. Be careful with the wind out there, though. There are also a couple other lakes around the Lakewood area just south of Manasquan. Don't know much about the northern section of the county.

NJ is good if you like fishing smaller waters for medium size bass. I have no interest in fishing a 1000+ acre lake. Manasquan Res, Assunpink and Mercer are plenty big for me and my kayak. The state record didn't come from a huge lake. The lakes do get a lot of pressure, but luckily most people catch and release, so there are usually fish around.

While CA has bigger fish in the big lakes that grow while eating all of the stocked trout, Oregon has the John Day and Columbia rivers for good smallies. Quite a few in the Willamette, too. Well, at least there are until people pull every last one of them out thanks to the ODFW removing the bag limits. Oregon isn't nearly as bad as CA in the amount of annual AND daily fees just to be able to get on the water.