Quote Originally Posted by cricket george View Post
G3 - I was pulling your leg. Yes, you were quite clear. I suspect a cat may have dragged your jug until it hung up on a limb or something. I use the same set up as you do. I put a 12" piece of 3/8th rebar in the pvc which when the jug is set and I get a hit the rebar slides down and the noodle sits at a 45 deg angle. This tells me I have a fish or a hit. I know instantly which jug needs to be checked first. I use 4/0 circle hooks and I rarely lose a fish. The biggest problem I have is finding the largest noodles that accept the 3/4 " pipe.
I had a heck of hard time finding noodles that would work with 3/4" pipe as well, in fact I didn't, the noodles I used have the standard 1/2" hole. What I did was, after cutting the PVC I sanded one end smooth then forced them through the noodle with a twisting action, worked fine. The fit is tight enough that I don't worry about the noodle slipping off if a big cat hits it hard, plus the PVC end caps add a little more stopping power.

I searched everywhere in Claremore for 5/8th's smooth sided metal rod to use inside the PVC as a hit weight but couldn't find any here, so I'm using 1/2 inch that I found at Attwoods. I cut the PVC 2 foot long, the noodle is 1 foot long. With a large (heavy) enough weight inside the PVC tube the jug will stand straight up when it takes a hit. You can see in the photo that I put reflective tape around the top, the idea being that I would be able to see them better, standing up or laying down. Didn't work out so well, should have used bright white tape. Noticed that I could see white birds on the water from very far away, so I'm changing the tape to white.

I'm using 90# test cord for line and L197 circle hooks. Have you tried any of the TeamCatfish double action circle hooks?