Anyone fish Manasquan lately, curious on the water level and if the bite is on. Got the day off of work tomorrow and trying to decide where to fish.

Thanks

 

37 minutes ago, bigbearstroop122 said:

Anyone fish Manasquan lately, curious on the water level and if the bite is on. Got the day off of work tomorrow and trying to decide where to fish.

Thanks

 

Better check the weather reports may be pretty windy out there.

Doesn’t look to bad and there are enough places to duck out of the wind.

 

I don’t know Manasquan.  The lakes further north that have downstream aquatic plans, i.e. forced released through the summer, are pretty low.  Spruce is almost 20’ down now.  Wanaque (not fishable, but has outflow plus water reserve) is the same.  The other lakes are about 2’ low.  I’d expect at least that much at Manasquan.  I was out tonight at one of the natural lakes around and it was 18-24” from normal full pool.  

35 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

I don’t know Manasquan.  The lakes further north that have downstream aquatic plans, i.e. forced released through the summer, are pretty low.  Spruce is almost 20’ down now.  Wanaque (not fishable, but has outflow plus water reserve) is the same.  The other lakes are about 2’ low.  I’d expect at least that much at Manasquan.  I was out tonight at one of the natural lakes around and it was 18-24” from normal full pool.  

Thanks for the update, if I decide to go I will report back.

So got out for about 4 hours caught a couple of dinks really couldn’t find any fish schooled up and then the wind picked up around 11:30-12. The water was down about 8’, on my map it I was supposed to be following the 15’ contour but it was actually 7’.

I went to the valley today and it was 2-3’ low at least.  A lot of other boats out.  Managed one good one, missed a couple more.  

I hope it was a little nicer there then it was up where I live, it was a light rain most of the day here.

Valley is at 92% capacity, still a lot  better then 3 yrs ago when it was at 55% capacity. 

@herder- it was glorious weather.  I launched before sun up and was across the lake casting before the sun was thinking of breaking.  The wind was 2-3 mph at the time on one side of the lake and zero/glass on the other side due to being in the lee of the mountain.  I never caught any rain on the water and it just started to mist as I was backing into the garage.

 

I believe the 92% number, though with the lake so deep in the middle you can lose a lot of height without losing a tons of area or volume.  It was a solid 2-3' low based on the more vertical banks/rocks that show the old water line.  I don't expect they will fill it back up now, rather they will wait for high water in the spring and pump some more back in.

 

I really want to figure this lake out but it's a tough one.  The one thing I haven't done yet is to pitch all of the standing timber.  I'm sure there are largemouth in it, but I really don't want to do that.  There is more milfoil in the lake that I thought would be there though.  I found another grassbed saturday that I didn't know was there and was the size of a basketball court.  Given the location there should be fish in it, I just wasn't in the mood to pick it apart saturday.  

Wow, I'm surprised the weather was that nice.

Yeah, that can be a tough place to figure out sometimes, I've had 40 fish days and 1 fish days there.

I'm kinda at a disadvantage as there is just the one launch area for fishing and being in a paddle kayak limits my ability to search out the whole reservoir.

I'm always a little cautious there as the wind can pick up at anytime, and it has the nickname of death valley, due to the 6 people who have been lost there and never found.

Here's a link for the water levels;

https://www.njwsa.org/uploads/1/0/8/0/108064771/data.pdf

 

 

There was even a bit of sun when it first popped over the horizon but hadn't risen above the clouds yet.