Anchored Juglines

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We use only anchored jugs. This means that the weight is on the bottom and it should
be where it was set out when you return. If not, the chances are a large fish has taken
your bait and headed cross country.Even a really big fish can't take it too far
unless he pulls it into deeper water and the whole rig becomes free floating.

I use two sizes of nylon cord. A lighter "leader" that the weights and hooks
are attached to. Above the hooks, a heavier thick nylon cord, almost a rope.
Securely tie the end of the heavier line to something on the jug. The lower, lighter line
is a braided line, just larger than a pencil lead (if you can find it). If anything gets
hung on the bottom, just tie the heavy line to a boat cleat and put it in gear.
It will either break or pull out.

Jugline	Weight

For weights, you can use anything. A half a brick, a chunk of rebar.
Anything that will keep your line anchored. I use a 20 ounce water bottle.
The top is cut out and filled with concrete and a heavy galvanized wire loop is
inserted while the concrete is still plastic. Leave the concrete about 3/4 to 1 inch
low in the bottle and after the concrete has set up, hold the end of the bottle near a
heat source and it will shrink back just like shrink tubing. This will save the finish
on your boat because the plastic bottles will not mar your gelcoat.

A one gallon antifreeze bottle is used for a float. In Texas, the float is required to be
white and nonmetallic. If you aren't from Texas, you better check local laws.
Whatever you use should be clean inside. I keep a box of monster rubberbands
in the boat and when the hooks are baited, let the line play out off the jug and then
secure the extra line by sliding the rubberband around the extra line and jug.
This allows you to fish water of any depth with only one set of jugs and also keeps
the extra line on the jug and the bait off the bottom. Unless the wind is strong and
the lake is really rough, the extra line will still be wound around the jug when you return.
Jugs that have been spooled get checked first because they most likely have been bitten.
If a fish pulls the line into deeper water the line will spool out and the jug will not float away. 
These monster rubberbands are hard to find. I have them for sale on
the page where I am selling stinkbait and they are priced reasonably.
Once you try this little trick, you will never use anchored jugs without them.
Like any rubberband, the sun takes a toll on these bands.
Keep the bands out of the sun when not in use and you will get a lot of life from them.

Click here if you are interested in ordering a few of the bands to try on your jugs.

I don't use swivels, just a loop in the line because swivels only seemed to make
tangles harder to get out. Try to use a braided line for your staging and a hook to
fit the fish. When the big ones are biting hard, I might upgrade to a 5/0 but if
smaller fish are the norm, a 2/0 is about it. Also, never use more than two
hooks on any line and if you have a big fish on the bottom hook, take a knife and
cut the top hook off before you get too serious about boating the fish.

Free Floating Juglines

I really don't have too much experience with this type of rig but it sounds
like a lot of fun. Several folks have shared secrets for building and using
free floaters.  Once again, check the local laws for materials used in constructing
and if the water you will be fishing has any special restrictions concerning jugfishing.

Free floaters are just what the name says. The weight is not on the bottom and when
they are set, the wind decides where the jugs go. One of the advantages that is
clear with free floating jugs is you can fish different depths of water without
a total rerigging of your equipment. I think you would need to spend much
more time with floating jugs and it would work much better in a river than in
some of the lakes we fish where the bottom is such variable depths.

The floating jug that most people use has one hook and it is at the very
bottom of the rig. The hook is attached to a two to three foot staging
which is connected to a large swivel, the main line above the swivel and
the float on the top. A large slip sinker is on the main line. Bait the hooks,
throw the jugs in the water and keep an eye on the floats. Most people use
various depths until they get a feel for what is working best. I had a tip
from a fellow (I have lost the email or I would give him credit because it is
a very good idea) who uses colored electrical tape to keep track of the rigging
and baits on his jugs. This is the way it works. He has jugs rigged to fish at 5, 7.5
and 10 feet deep. The jugs with 5 feet of line get a band of blue tape, the
7.5s get a red band and the 10 footers get a green. Next, he uses three
different baits, shad, worms and shrimp. He uses a different bait on one-third
of each depth jug. All have a different colored band beneath the depth color band.
He says when they show a trend to one bait or depth, he switches over the rest of
the jugs to this rig. The three depths are for example as well as the baits.
have heard that it is a good idea to have a heavyduty rod and reel in the boat with a
loop in the end of the line to lasso a jug with a large fish so it can be played before boating.  
Grabbing a 5 foot line that has a forty pound blue catfish who is in a foul mood,
might not work out too well.

Landing Your Fish

There are two ways of landing a large catfish other than lifting it out by the line.
Netting and gaffing. Gaffing is using a large hook attached to a handle or a rope
and handle rig (flying gaff). Unless you are sure that you are keeping it,
never gaff a fish. If a fish is big enough to require gaffing it probably wouldn't be
great eating so there are very few fish that I would consider using the gaff to land.
 In a case that you feel that you need the gaff and intend to release the fish,
use it only on the lower jaw and be sure the fish is fought out before boating.
A gaff will do a great deal of damage to a fish if it is in the body and the fish is fighting.
A big catfish is incredibly strong and there is little you can do to hold one that has
a lot of fight left in him. A fifty pound catfish that is full of fight is not something
you would like to have in the floor of your boat. A catfishes tail can slap so fast
and hard that you can get hurt before you know it.
A monster net is a much better choice for landing big fish.
There is one little trick to landing a catfish in a net. Make sure the fish is
tired before attempting to net the fish and use the line to lead the fish
into the net headfirst. If a fish feels the net, it is going to make a lunge
forward and if it is already headed into the net, you have it.
A fish in a net is also much easier to handle once in the boat.
In April '04 I tried to land a big fish (75-80 pounder) alone.
It's a long story but everything mostly healed up and I don't think
I will try to land another fish that large unless I have some help.
A catfish can live for a long time out of the water but not forever.
If you are releasing the fish, take your pictures, do some ohing and ahing
and return the fish to the water as soon as possible.

Bait

Every area of the country has different baits available so all
I can tell you about is what we use locally.

Shad
Shad is the best bait available in these parts by a country mile. Try and catch only
enough shad for baiting one run of your lines. The fresher, the better is
the rule. Larger shad are cut into pieces and smaller ones (2 inches or less)
are threaded on hooks whole. Place fresh bait on the hooks every time you
run the lines. I have never been able to catch shad in a trap
so a cast net is the best way to get enough for juglines. If you have never
thrown a cast net, have someone show you the basics and then practice, practice, practice.
My dad showed me how to throw a net in the yard and I thought I was pretty good
at it until I tried throwing from a dock or a boat. I can throw a net pretty
good now unless someone is watching and then I throw it around my head every
time. Make sure you look at all the fish before you put them in a baitwell or bucket.
Gamewardens frown on finding baby crappie or black bass in a baitwell.
In the lakes we fish there are two types of shad. Threadfin and Gizzard shad.

Cutbait
Just about any type of fish will work for cutbait. Carp, bluegills, freshwater drum,
buffalo, and skipjacks will all work when cut into strips and threaded onto a hook.
Leave the skin attached to the bait and it will stay on the hook better. Gamefish
cannot be used for bait in Texas. That means no part of a gamefish. It would
make sense to me to use the discarded parts of gamefish for cutbait
but the law will not allow it.

Grasshoppers and Crickets
My juglining is limited to the colder months and these baits are unavailable for me
but if you use jugs during the warmer months, grasshoppers are a cheap
plentiful bait. Get a quart fruitjar and cover the top with a piece of innertube
and wire it in place. Cut a slit in the innertube across the mouth of the jar and
you have a fine grasshopper collecting jar. Use a flashlight and locate the grasshoppers
in tall weeds, on fences or on the trunks of certain trees and it's like picking cotton.
The way the grasshopper population has been in Texas the last few years,
you should be able to collect enough in a short period of time.
The same applies to black crickets.

Bluegills and other small fish
Bluegills are a great choice if you are after flathead catfish. They need not be
too large. One and a half to two and a half inch fish will work just fine. Hook them
through the back, just below the dorsal fin so they will be able to swim freely
and use a smaller hook when using livebait.

Worms
Worms will work in a pinch but it seems that the carp and drum like them better
than the catfish. If you can dig worms, they are better than nothing but if
you must buy them by the box, the price gets a little more than I care to spend
for a marginal bait. Fishing with a rod and reel is a different situation
and worms work pretty good.

Shrimp
Shrimp is another bait that works well for drift fishing and tight lining but not for juglines.
I have purchased shrimp when no other bait was available but it will stay on
the hook until it rots off in the colder months.

Soap
Catfish soap has been around for a while for jugliners and trotliners.
I never tried it until a short time ago and plan on having a bar in my boat
from now on. It is a little tricky putting it on the hookwhen you first try
it but once you get the hang it is a really good bait. I am
amazed how well it stays on the hook and sure smells better
than some of the other baits. A source for the bait is
Redneck's Catfish Baits and it can be ordered from
http://www.catfishbaitsoap.com/.
He also sells some ready made juglines for folks who
don't have materials to rig the jugs themselves.

Wieners
This sounded crazy to me at first and I even tried it several times without much luck but on
a recent trip when other bait was unavailable, we bought a cheap package of wieners.
The wieners were cut into three fourths inch lengths and threaded on the hooks.
The next morning we had lost all but two out of fifty baits and had a nice stringer of
blues and channel cats. Shad is still a much better bait but I will have a package of
cheap wieners in my icechest when I go back to the lake.

Live Boxes

A live box is a good thing to have if you are not cleaning fish every time you run
your lines. I have one about 2'deep, 3' tall and 4' wide. The lid is on the top to
enable placing fish in it without removing it from the water. It is made of
heavy wire mesh and has styrofoam floats in the top so it will float in the boat stall.
A fish basket isn't hard to build yourself but make sure it is built heavy enough
to prevent turtles from destroying it trying to get at your fish. I have had the
round floating baskets torn to pieces by a big snapping turtle.

Hot Weather Juglining

Fishing with jugs in hot weather poses a few problems. This is the way it was
explained to me but if you know different, please clear it up for me. In the
hotter months, the water settles into layers and some of the deeper water
does not contain enough oxygen to keep fish alive for extended periods
of time. This is called the thermocline.

(HyperDictionary  Definition: Zone of water in a stratified lake in which temperature
and oxygen concentration drop precipitously with depth.)

The fish will still feed in the deeper water but must return to
areas with higher oxygen content. I would set jugs in water 15 to 25 feet
deep and would catch fish but they would be dead when I ran the lines.  I started
running the lines every two hours but was still finding dead fish. I moved
the lines to shallow water but never caught any fish. This is the reason that I only
fish in cold weather. Well, that and the fact that the lake was full of ski boats,
jet-skis and about a million people who were helping me run my juglines.
If you are not able to stay with your lines, avoid warm weather juglining.
The same applies for trotlining.

All this makes perfect sense to me but getting married also made perfect sense to me.
If there is something that needs a little more explanation, drop me a line.

Contact me at   Jackfish7@aol.com