We have moved our wakeboard and wakesurf boats from our old location on the ocean in Avalon, South Jersey to our new locations on the lakes of Northern New Jersey, in Sussex County NJ.

We are now offering all our wakeboard and wake surf lessons at the following locations. The lakes are conveniently located just about one hour drive from NYC. They are 15 mins from Interstate 80 in New Jersey NJ and 20 mins from the Delaware Water Gap. The variety of lakes available offer riders an excellent wakeboard and wakesurf experience.

For The 2024 Season We Are Operating Our Wakeboard and Wakesurf Boats Out of the Following Northern New Jersey Lakes:

• Greenwood Lake
• Lake Hopatcong
• Budd Lake
• Lake Denmark
• Green Pond
• The Oak Ridge Reservoir
• Greenwood Lake
• Indian Lake

Lake Denmark, NJ

This is a small lake located in Rockaway Township in Morris County, New Jersey. It is located close to the army base at Picatinny Arsenal and is a great wakeboard location. People need special access to this lake and it offers flat water and secluded wakeboarding. Special access includes home owners and members. Close by is the smaller Picatinny Lake that is not suitable for wakeboarding due to its shallow nature. Lake Denmark is about 1 mile long and 10-15 feet deep. It offers wake boarders and water skiers a very private experience on this lake. It is a lake hat has long-been-forgotten in a quiet backwater of New Jersey.

Amenities at this lake are practically zero. Flat water and complete privacy are the order of the day at this lake. Boat drivers have to haul in their own boat and gas. The swampy area at the North End of the lake can often clog up the propellers of inboard ski boats. Water sports enthusiasts put up with the small setbacks for the reward of flat water and little wind. This can often last all day long making this an ideal New Jersey wakeboard destination.

Green Pond, NJ

This 2.5 mile long, spring-fed lake is often much chillier than its other New Jersey counterparts. This is due to its elevation and lack of warm-water river and stream tributaries. Green Pond is located within Rockaway Township in Morris County, New Jersey. It operates on a private membership model that seeks to keep out undesirables. This os achieved by having high property taxes and high membership fees. This strategy makes the lake clearly suffer from a conspicuous lack of diversity. Green Pond was originally incorporated as a private lakeside residential community in Newfoundland, NJ in 1920. Green Pond Corporation and Lake End Corporation operates the lake.

The lake allows boating throughout the summer months. In addition to having world class Bass fishing, it has become a mecca for many water sports enthusiasts. This includes wakeboarders and water skiers. This is another exclusive New Jersey lake that requires boaters to be a homeowners (or landowners). This lake is however, very family friendly, due to its smorgasbord of family centric activities. These are available during Summer months. and it is also a very good wakeboard location.

FUN FACT: Despite its name, Green Pond is actually a lake, not a pond.

Green Pond is often referred to as “NJ’s Best Kept Secret” as it is not really a pond at all. Given its size and location of 2.5 miles long and 0.5 miles wide, the ‘pond’ is clearly the size of a small lake. Homeowners prefer to keep its moniker of a “pond” to keep it off the map and keep out the riff-raff. This strategy has clearly been working, as it is very rarely listed as a good lake for anything watersports related. The reality is that it is an excellent New Jersey wakeboarding location.

Wakeboarding and water skiing at this lake are excellent and flat water can often be found in the middle of the day. This is often a rarity among New Jersey lakes. Due to its relatively small size, when wakeboarders do experience some boat chop, there is nowhere else to try on this lake. This means that wake board boat drivers have to work together to keep the size of the boat wakes down. Boaters can often be seen driving in fixed boat line to allow each of their riders to get some flat water.

Due to the lake’s elevation and spring-fed freezing cold water, this lake has a much shorter wakeboard season than other local New Jersey lakes, with late May through early September being a typical regimen.

The Oak Ridge Reservoir, NJ

A locals-only opportunity to wakeboard in a secluded New Jersey lake. Only people in the know can get access to this with a boat. This reservoir is one mile long and does not officially allow any power boats of any kind. Wakeboard boats will often poach this flat water nirvana whenever they can, much to the chagrin of the local fishermen who are trolling around the lake looking for their next big catch. Early morning and sunset rides are the best times to get on this lake. Wakeboard riders and water skiers will find less trouble launching boats at those times. As with other smaller New Jersey lakes, boaters have to ship in their own power, gas and drinks. There are zero amenities locally available, not even bathrooms.

Budd Lake, NJ

A relatively small New Jersey lake that provides flat water and great wakeboarding all season long. At just 1 mile long and half a mile wide, Budd Lake is a bit of a diamond-in-the-rough. The lake is not overly built up, but what this public New Jersey lake lacks in amenities due to its size, it more than makes up with fun. Budd Lake is quite shallow at just 7–12 feet deep, which keeps it from getting too rough during busy times. The shallow water gives Budd Lake a quick turnaround from boat chop back to flat water.

Budd lake can be ideal for wakesurfing, as the size of this type of wake is amplified by the shallow water. On the downside, Budd lake can often have large toxic algae blooms. This makes it less-than-ideal wakeboard location for beginner wakeboarders who may spend time in the water. Despite it being situated at less than 1000 feet above sea level, Budd Lake has a relatively shorter season than other lakes. It is often too cold for wakeboarding by early October, even with a wet suit. All the boats on this lake are long gone by November 1st and will then reappear in May the following year.

Greenwood Lake, NY/NJ Wakeboard Location

With half of this lake located in the state of New Jersey and the other half in New York State, this lake may suffer from a bit of an identity crisis. What is true is that the lake does offer 7.4 miles of water to play in. The water may not often be smooth, depending on the time of day. Water skiers like to get out on this lake at 6 AM and wakeboarders soon follow at 7:30 AM. After 10 AM this lake is much the same as Lake Hopatcong and becomes a white cap mess. The New York State side is often flatter water for longer than the New Jersey side. This is due to increased boat traffic and more wind chop. Midweek wakeboard sessions can be the order of the day here. During Monday through Thursday sessions, wakeboarders can expect decent water with just a little bit of wind chop.

FUN FACT: Derek Jeter loved this lake so much he built a castle on it

With a vast variety or marinas and homes, this public wakeboard location lake welcomes all people. This means that it can often be a total mess on any given weekend. With a variety of boats and jet skis sloshing around the lake with great abandon. Wakeboard riders need to watch out for out-of-control Jet Ski jerks trying to jump the boat wake. They even try to do this when there may be a wakeboarder in tow.. These advanced jet ski riders should really be on the ocean, not the lake, and it may be time they graduated.

Lake Mohawk, NJ

A man-made, private lake about 3 miles long located in Sparta, New Jersey. This private and exclusive lake is well known for its private beaches and flat water. The Alpine village styling of the homes around the lake also add to its mystique. Access to this private lake is not possible unless boaters are already Lake Mohawk homeowners or landowners. Boat owners must be paid-up members of the private Lake Mohawk Country Club to be able to use the lake. This means that this private lake is never overrun with boaters. Good flat water can often be found late into the day for both wakeboarding and water skiing.

Wake surfing, Jet Skiers and other progressive watercraft are banned at this New Jersey lake. This keeps the harmony of this water skiers and wakeboarders paradise intact. Given the family focus of this lake, boats pulling tubers can be the only fly in the ointment, as they create a mess if things.

The small Alpine town offers great food and entertainment post wakeboarding and is a favorite spot for New Jersey weddings. Many couples from NYC tie the knot here and have their photographs taken in the beautiful gardens and lake frontage.

FUN FACT: Tubers Can Cause Mayhem During Busy Times On This Lake

Boat drivers with Tubers can often be seen at this lake driving erratically to increase the fun for their children (and adolescent) tube riders. The riders will often demand faster and faster rides from the driver causing huge erratic wakes to fly all over the lake. This can cause trouble for the wakeboard and water ski boat drivers. Those drivers are usually looking for long clean flat lines for their riders and tube wakes are an annoyance. In the grand scheme of things, this lake is the still best wakeboard location lake on the North East coast. This lake is great for water skiing, wakeboarding, sailing and kayaking due to its restrictions on the number of boat users allowed. Its ban on anti-social water craft also helps keep the waves down,

Lake Hopatcong, NJ Wakeboard Location

Lake Hopatcong is a monster size public lake that lies in both New Jersey towns of Hopatcong and Arlington. The lake was originally formed by the damming and flooding of two ponds and a river. These were known as Great Pond, Little Pond and the Musconetcong River. This lake is the most popular lake in the NY/NJ/CT tri-state area and can get very busy on weekends with wakeboard, ski and party boats all blasting along. This lake also allows jet skiers, which have become the bane of many of the more popular lakes on the East Coast. Lake Hopatcong is 9 miles long and about half a mile wide and covers four square miles.

For wakeboarders, the lake has many coves and inlets that wakeboard boat drivers will often seek out to get flat water for their riders. Many of the sea walls at Lake Hopatcong are vertical concrete barriers and will often reflect any boat wake and chop straight back in the lake, making it take quite a long time for the boat wake to dissipate and the lake to recover from any excessive boat chop.

On Weekends and Holidays Lake Hopatcong Can Become Overcrowded

Lake Hopatcong can become crowded on weekends and holidays and the water can get very rough, with white caps being a common sight. This makes it less ideal as a wakeboard location. During the busy times, this lake is often only good for wake surfing due to the heavy chop and the fact that wake surfing is not really affected by the huge rollers bouncing around the lake. On the downside, wake surfing itself further destroys any flat water that might have existed for any other boaters. Early mornings, often beginning as early as 6AM, is often the only way for wakeboarders to use this lake to its fullest potential. This lake is good for the full wakeboarding season from March until November.

This lake has suffered from toxic algae blooms in the past. The toxic algae alert has not only kept people away from this New Jersey lake, but has devastated many local businesses. During the time of a toxic algae bloom, the two state beaches customarily close and then the whole lake community becomes very quiet.

FUN FACT: Huge Snake Reportedly Spotted in Lake Hopatcong Wakeboard Area in 2014

Lake Hopatcong has received unverified news reports of a 15 foot snake roaming around the lake. The animal has been described as either a boa constrictor or an anaconda. It has been determined by animal control that the animal was an abandoned pet that grew too large for the original owners enclosure. The pet may have escaped or was set free. To back up these claims, no video or photographic evidence has been produced. Locals are still convinced that this snake does exist. Some view the giant snake stories in Lake Hopatcong being just a myth. This would be akin to the Loch Ness Monster story, albeit on a smaller scale. If the former pet anaconda (or Boa Constrictor) did exist in the lake at one time, there is no way to know if it could survive the bleak, frozen New Jersey Winter.

Indian Lake, NJ Wakeboard Location

Indian Lake is another man-made private lake in New jersey, but this one is tiny at just about half a mile long and a few hundred feet wide. It is located in the Indian lake community in New Jersey, which was another Crane development dating back to the early 1920’s. The lake features the Indian Lake clubhouse and Lenape Island, named after the lake’s original name, Lake Lenape. This tiny lake is located close to Denville, NJ and is popular with families, although the water can get quite cut up for wakeboarding and water skiing. The latter sport runs out of space very quickly as water skiers want upwards of 30 mph and the lake is very short.

Wakeboarders find flat water early in the morning and later in the day. Being a private lake, only registered/approved boats and boaters can take people out here for rides. At this wakeboard location all boats must follow a counter clockwise route around the lake around pre-marked buoys, which often forces boat drivers into curved lines, which is the bane of all water skiing and wakeboard participants, who need straight lines for their sport. Wakeboarding is banned on Sunday afternoons, Mondays and Wednesdays. This makes this boating lake quite unfriendly to most motor boat sports.

The roads to get to access to the lake are very narrow, and often only one car can pass at a time, making parking and navigating to the boat slip and boats docks somewhat tricky.

Map of All The Wakeboarding Lakes in New Jersey