Hey all! First time I'm posting here, and I'm hoping to figure out some of the issues I've been having lately with my bassin' experiences...

First off, I'm from northern NJ, and I live in a small lake community called Glenwood Lake, which is small enough to disallow gas motors, and is usually my favorite site year to year. I've been fishing here for a good 10+ years, and over the past 2-3 years, the fishing seems to have gotten worse and worse.. so this year, I decided I was going to spend as much time as possible on the lake, with as many different techniques as possible to really find the big ones.

When I say "big ones", I'd like to note, the biggest I've caught from this lake is 6-7lbs at best. But, this year, so far the biggest I've caught was a 2lb largemouth... and a LOT of babies under a pound.

I've been experimenting with all different lure types, all different colors, all different places, etc... and I'm not having ANY success with them. I'm only catching fish with large /med shiners. I'd also like to note that I've been very used to using only live bait over the past years, and it's quite possible I'm not using the lures correctly as well, but the fact live bait is only catching me majority small ones confuses me.

Just for instance, I went fishing last Friday morning from 9-2pm and caught babies until around 1pm when I caught a couple bigger ones on shore... and I went yesterday evening (75 degrees out) and only caught babies.

So, here's the big question... around this time of year (early July), what would be "prime time" and place for catching the bigger bass? How can I tell if the bass are spawning these couple of weeks? And, if they are, how do I russle em out to get some bass attention!?

Anyway, sorry for the long post, I'm just looking for some advice! Hopefully some of you guys might be able to help... Thanks!

I assume your talking about upper-greenwood because of the no-gas motor thing.  I've never fished it cause it's private, so I can't speak from experience.  But what I can tell you is that the spawn is over here in NJ.  Now where the big ones are is a tough call right now.  Usually I would say look for deep structure like a hump or a drop off this time of year, but with all this rain shallower structure has been producing fish for me in other lakes in the area your talking about.  So if I were you I would try to work some deep water structure and some of those shallower stumps and lay downs that I know are around in Upper Greenwood.  I like to use senkos when trying to locate fish depth wise because they can cover the whole water column.  For just finding where they are in the lake just cruise around with spinnerbaits.  I know I've given you a lot of general advice, that anyone could have told you but it's the best I got.    

I live in Highland Lakes and have been going to all the lakes in the area.  I'm probably 5 minutes from you lol.  But the fish are in deeper water.  You can still catch small ones near the shore, but the bigger ones have been out in deep water pretty much at the bottom of the lake.  Got 2 nice ones deep today, had a ton of hits but couldn't hook them up.  The babies tend to keep more near shore.  The problem I have with live bait is that like you said, it attracts lots of fish, and most of what I have ever caught with live bait is small.  Either sunny, perch, or tiny bass.  Using plastics or spinnerbaits will really cut down on the tiny fish.