[briansnat]

I think you will be hard pressed to find a lake or river in NJ without a healthy population of catfish. In addition to the previously mentioned spots, also consider Scarlet Oak Pond in Mahwah, Verona Park Lake in Verona (go figure, what are the chances of that?), Pompton/Potash Lakes, Pompton River, Barbours Pond (Woodland Park), Green Turtle Pond in Hewitt, Furnace Lake in Oxford. If you are planning on keeping a few for the table, you will need to pay a little more attention to where you catch them. I don't think I'd eat anything out of the Passaic, unless it was caught well upstream.

I've had good luck with chicken livers (if I can get them to stay on the hook), night crawlers and have done really well with hot dogs of all things. Always use Kosher dogs because you don't want to lose out on a giant channel cat because it was the wrong religion.