Goose Pond is located outside of Pasadena,off the Buckingham Rd.,it is mentioned in quite a few periodicals for fishing in N.J.,my question is,has anyone been there,and is there an easy way to acess it,I have a general idea of its location and have been near it,but can't seem to actually get to it,the way its mentioned you would think its a pretty good fishing spot.
Goose Pond
- Thread starter suits
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Actually there are two Goose Ponds - does that make them "geese" 
? This is the one you're talking about
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.911069419933966&lng=-74.43964719772339&z=16&type=topo&gpx=
Then there's this one, near the Penn State Forest which I find a bit more interesting for some reason... it has a very remote and wild feeling
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.78060727215892&lng=-74.48258399963379&z=16&type=topo&gpx=
You can use either my Map of New Jersey or Landscape of New Jersey in your GPS to find both ponds:
http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/294/
http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/441/
I don't fish, so I can't help you there...
? This is the one you're talking abouthttp://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.911069419933966&lng=-74.43964719772339&z=16&type=topo&gpx=
Then there's this one, near the Penn State Forest which I find a bit more interesting for some reason... it has a very remote and wild feeling
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.78060727215892&lng=-74.48258399963379&z=16&type=topo&gpx=
You can use either my Map of New Jersey or Landscape of New Jersey in your GPS to find both ponds:
http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/294/
http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/441/
I don't fish, so I can't help you there...
Duck, Duck, Goose...
Hi Suits,
Mind if I translate a little Piney speak? There are numerous “goose ponds” throughout South Jersey, and the generic term often signified a relatively large waterbody. Smaller ponds were often called “duck ponds.” Most are naturally occurring features.
Figure 1 Excerpt, Peck’s Beach Somers’ Survey of 488 acres by Thos. Townsend (surveyor), September 28, 1873 showing a duck and a goose pond. Color has been added for contrast. Click to enlarge.
Actually there are two Goose Ponds - does that make them "geese"
Hi Suits,
Mind if I translate a little Piney speak? There are numerous “goose ponds” throughout South Jersey, and the generic term often signified a relatively large waterbody. Smaller ponds were often called “duck ponds.” Most are naturally occurring features.
Figure 1 Excerpt, Peck’s Beach Somers’ Survey of 488 acres by Thos. Townsend (surveyor), September 28, 1873 showing a duck and a goose pond. Color has been added for contrast. Click to enlarge.
Very cool, and of course it makes perfect sense - thanks. Now that you mention it, I saw a Goose pond somewhere in upstate New Jersey recently as well.
Suits,
I am very familar with the goose pond you are referrring to. As was pointed out, there are many goose ponds. The one you are thinking of is very nice, but the fishing is questionable. I've fished it twice only catching small pickerel. I believe you are confusing it with another goose pond as far as it having any kind of reputation with fishing. The water level varies considerably with the seasons and gets very choked up with sphagnum moss in the summer. There is no easy way there, you have to hike through the woods but it is a beautiful cedar swamp that leads to it. I'll see if I can find some pics for you.
Jeff
I am very familar with the goose pond you are referrring to. As was pointed out, there are many goose ponds. The one you are thinking of is very nice, but the fishing is questionable. I've fished it twice only catching small pickerel. I believe you are confusing it with another goose pond as far as it having any kind of reputation with fishing. The water level varies considerably with the seasons and gets very choked up with sphagnum moss in the summer. There is no easy way there, you have to hike through the woods but it is a beautiful cedar swamp that leads to it. I'll see if I can find some pics for you.
Jeff
Jeff I have been to both Goose ponds.the one you speak of only once and briefly.it is very near to a road that lies south of it and not hard to get to.the southern goose pond i have been to several times and it is also driveable or was a few years ago,by four wheel anyway,road was tight and a little soft in spots.the southern pond is beautiful with nice cedar swamp in back and looks like pickerel country to me.anything in particular you want to know?I know more about the southern one.
Al
Al
Here are some pics, as promised, of the goose pond near Pasadena. Note: my fishing rod tip in the last photo. It is beautiful there, but very shallow most of the year.
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff, I have also tried there a few times with very little luck. I guess it is the lack of any deep water. Very pretty area though!
Chris
Chris
Here's a couple other "geese" Southwest of Egg Harbor City that I find interesting.
The green lines are the property parcels that have been acquired by the State as part of the Makepeace Lake WMA. Interesting geometric layout for a development that I assume was never built....
(Screenshots from "Boyd's Map of New Jersey")
The green lines are the property parcels that have been acquired by the State as part of the Makepeace Lake WMA. Interesting geometric layout for a development that I assume was never built....
(Screenshots from "Boyd's Map of New Jersey")
Windows into Groundwater
Goose ponds are often shallow features with bottoms flat as a billiard table. These Ice Age blowouts deflated to a water-table levels, much like the playa out West that race cars run on. The above Big and Little Goose Ponds are shallow features, typically having 6- to 8-inches of water-fill. Roman and Good (1983: 48) indicated that a long-term wetland baseline drop of only 4 to 8 inches “could cause significant alteration in [vegetational] community structure and composition.” Using historical records and local knowledge I’ve drawn a reasonable conclusion that there has ever so slowly been a general trend of Pine Barrens groundwater-level drop over the last hundred years or more.
For example, Egg Harbor’s Little and Big Goose Ponds once had an analog near Millville called the “Hog Holes,” but is now land now dry enough to permit forest growth.
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.37254228960952&lng=-74.98145341873169&z=16&type=nj1930&gpx=
A charcoal community associated with Cumberland Furnace called Cossaboontown grew up along side the Hog Hole basins. A sister community, Hesstown, still exists today a couple miles to the East on Route 49. It doesn’t take much water loss to dry up Pinelands basins, and many basins are going or are now gone. Just two days of USGS test pumping in wetlands near Lake Fred on the Richard Stockton campus unexpectedly dropped shallow groundwater levels to Roman and Good’s critical threshold, and work abruptly stopped.
Click to enlarge for a 1931 aerial photomosaic view of Cossaboontown’s Hog Holes.
Goose ponds are often shallow features with bottoms flat as a billiard table. These Ice Age blowouts deflated to a water-table levels, much like the playa out West that race cars run on. The above Big and Little Goose Ponds are shallow features, typically having 6- to 8-inches of water-fill. Roman and Good (1983: 48) indicated that a long-term wetland baseline drop of only 4 to 8 inches “could cause significant alteration in [vegetational] community structure and composition.” Using historical records and local knowledge I’ve drawn a reasonable conclusion that there has ever so slowly been a general trend of Pine Barrens groundwater-level drop over the last hundred years or more.
For example, Egg Harbor’s Little and Big Goose Ponds once had an analog near Millville called the “Hog Holes,” but is now land now dry enough to permit forest growth.
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.37254228960952&lng=-74.98145341873169&z=16&type=nj1930&gpx=
A charcoal community associated with Cumberland Furnace called Cossaboontown grew up along side the Hog Hole basins. A sister community, Hesstown, still exists today a couple miles to the East on Route 49. It doesn’t take much water loss to dry up Pinelands basins, and many basins are going or are now gone. Just two days of USGS test pumping in wetlands near Lake Fred on the Richard Stockton campus unexpectedly dropped shallow groundwater levels to Roman and Good’s critical threshold, and work abruptly stopped.
Click to enlarge for a 1931 aerial photomosaic view of Cossaboontown’s Hog Holes.
Above Reference
Roman CT, Good RE. 1983. Wetlands of the New Jersey Pinelands: Values, Functions, and Impacts. Division of Pinelands Research, Center for Coastal and Environmental Studies. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University. 82 pp.
Roman CT, Good RE. 1983. Wetlands of the New Jersey Pinelands: Values, Functions, and Impacts. Division of Pinelands Research, Center for Coastal and Environmental Studies. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University. 82 pp.
I have to agree on the groundwater levels falling. When I first started exploring the Pines over 10 years ago, things were much wetter. Places and bogs that I visited back then had deeper water than they do now.
I really hope somehow that it's cyclical and that the water table will rise.
I'm guessing that if the water table drops a lot we'd lose most of the cedars and a lot of the pines, right? Would the oaks be able to come in and make a go of it?
I really hope somehow that it's cyclical and that the water table will rise.
I'm guessing that if the water table drops a lot we'd lose most of the cedars and a lot of the pines, right? Would the oaks be able to come in and make a go of it?
I don't think the pines would be much affected Ben. They are not a wetland species. In fact, they would probably expand their range. I don't think the oaks would be able to make a go of it just because it is drier, because the soil itself will not change. In my unstudied opinion, we would not readily lose most of the cedars, as they are mainly in constant stream corridors anyway.
Groundwater & Pinelands Tree Health
Bob,
A lowered shallow groundwater-table can stress oaks and pines, and adversely impact upland tree health. Attached is a photograph of typical Pine Barrens pine/oak forest. The boxed area between the red horizontal lines is a wooded parcel that contained no oak trees, only brown-leafed dead-crowned pines. The patch grew on a sand-filled gully, which contained coarser fast-draining sediments than adjacent land. Its buried channel ran perpendicular to the wood-line.
Because of localized lowered soil-moisture levels, a condition specific to the boxed feature, fire survivability of pine trees on the drier ground had substantially decreased. During a recent prescribed burn, fire consumed the crowns of drought-stressed pines within the sand-filled gully’s trace, yet adjacent less moisture-stressed pines fared well. Oaks simply did not grow within the feature’s parched footprint.
Additionally, with the lowering groundwater wetlands will remain dryer for longer periods. Swamps and stream corridors act as firebreaks during forest fires. If wetlands desiccate, wildfires can spread across the landscape with greater ease. Organics-rich wetlands deposits burn hot if dry, further aggravating the situation. Lowering of shallow groundwater is, or at least should be, a forester’s concern.
Spung-Man
Figure 1. Photo showing moisture-stressed pitch pines are more susceptible to forest-fire damage than none moisture-stressed pitch pines. Click to enlarge.
Bob,
A lowered shallow groundwater-table can stress oaks and pines, and adversely impact upland tree health. Attached is a photograph of typical Pine Barrens pine/oak forest. The boxed area between the red horizontal lines is a wooded parcel that contained no oak trees, only brown-leafed dead-crowned pines. The patch grew on a sand-filled gully, which contained coarser fast-draining sediments than adjacent land. Its buried channel ran perpendicular to the wood-line.
Because of localized lowered soil-moisture levels, a condition specific to the boxed feature, fire survivability of pine trees on the drier ground had substantially decreased. During a recent prescribed burn, fire consumed the crowns of drought-stressed pines within the sand-filled gully’s trace, yet adjacent less moisture-stressed pines fared well. Oaks simply did not grow within the feature’s parched footprint.
Additionally, with the lowering groundwater wetlands will remain dryer for longer periods. Swamps and stream corridors act as firebreaks during forest fires. If wetlands desiccate, wildfires can spread across the landscape with greater ease. Organics-rich wetlands deposits burn hot if dry, further aggravating the situation. Lowering of shallow groundwater is, or at least should be, a forester’s concern.
Spung-Man
Figure 1. Photo showing moisture-stressed pitch pines are more susceptible to forest-fire damage than none moisture-stressed pitch pines. Click to enlarge.
Those hog holes are still swamp.until the ace recently blocked up their road from menantico you could drive out to the rr grade and up the grade almost to 49 and the swamp still had water in it last time i drove through. noticed a few days agop the barricades along menantico road (massive piles of stumps for a hundred yards) is now being circumvented by vehicles.All their efforts do is create eyesores and stop no one who wants to go around.
That whole area is ace property with at least one real nice stone
It is still being fought over I believe between environmental groups and developers.That will be a big loss if those woods go to development.There are pb treefrogs there as well as pine snakes but those things don't matter when it comes to the short term profit of the few and mighty.Al