How deep do you set hooks on jugs . My uncle used to set all his at 2 ft . was curious if any do this . He ran his in the tenn-tombigbee when it was just the Tombigbee .It was pretty shallow except in spots .
Printable View
How deep do you set hooks on jugs . My uncle used to set all his at 2 ft . was curious if any do this . He ran his in the tenn-tombigbee when it was just the Tombigbee .It was pretty shallow except in spots .
I used trot line clips on mine so I can switch different lengths an swap them pretty fast
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Attachment 240909
Most of mine are in the 2 - 3 foot range and I fish the tallahatchie river.
The funny thing is when catfish decide to come up to feed they will come all the way up sometimes.Have caught catfish with two or three ft dropper in the Mississippi and some lakes over deep water. It's good to always try different depths,but it is tricky to fish deep with a jug if you are in current and the bottom depth varies and if there are a lot of snags. You have to experiment some to figure out each body of water and what you can do. There are times in mid summer when the cats come up to chase the baitfish and are vulnerable to short drops. You can catch a 40lb plus blue cat on a two ft dropper on any body of water at times.Especially the major rivers.
I have always set mine from 2 foot to probably 12 foot or more. Sometimes you will see a prefered depth, but if they are really feeding, I don't think it makes much difference.
We run noodles often during the summer. All of mine have about a 3 foot line, with a 1 oz weight at the bottom of the line and hook about 6 inches above that. We throw them in water anywhere from 5-6 ft deep to about 17 ft deep and catch them anywhere in between. We usually start just before dark once all the skiers leave the lake and run them til about 1 or 2 am.
This is the start of a box full we caught last Saturday night... by time we were done around 2am, there was little room for ice!
Attachment 241186
Nice catch. Group set out some Friday night on Lake Hickory in nc and caught enough to dress to about 25 lbs of filets. They were using bream cut in half. I have never tried that for bait. I have always used shad. Bet the bream stay on the hook better.
The funny thing about jug lining is a lot of folks always consider them bottom feeders. If the baitfish are in 25 FOW and suspended at 8 ft that's where the catfish are gonna be. In the summer months we catch more big blues in 20 to 30 fow on our top hooks set 4 and 8 ft below the surface. As the water temp increases during the summer and a thermocline develops, we only bait hooks above the thermocline or we have a lot of dead fish on our lines due to no oxygen below the thermocline. All the baitfish will be above it to because of no oxygen below it. If you run jugs every hour or so you may be okay but any longer you end up with a bunch of dead fish. We use the biggest shad we can find and nose hook them whole not cut. In 20 to 35 fow we usually run 4 hooks set 4 feet apart with the top hook about 6 ft below the surface.
My home lake averages about 8'. i used to fish noodles with no weight but ss hooks baited with big perch / bream. We set lines 5 to 8' most times and have seen them 2' still catching fish .
Nimrod I have been on your home lake a lot crappie fishin and it is shallow. Where we fish in Oklahoma the average depth is 25 ft or so. We set our lines along the river channel ledges in 20 to 35 fow baited with 5 to 10 in whole shad. Don't keep any we catch on jugs but have a lot of fun seeing what we can catch. What works well for us is if we are in 25 fow we make our main lines around 40 ft long so the main line sets at a 30 to 40 degree angle in the water. This way the drops are not hanging straight down the main line. Kinda like the trot line effect. We also run full sized old style window weights on bottom. Don't know how many folks I've seen put a small weight on bottom only to find their lines gone the next morning. First thing they do is accuse somebody of stealing them. Once that big catfish twist's up an gets the weight off bottom they can take them anywhere. We run big barrel swivels on the main line about 2 ft below the jug and on our drops. They don't get them twisted up near as bad. I've seen big blues take a jug line a mile with a full window weight on it. Been our experience blues head to the bank and channel cat goes to the open water.
I've found a place on our lake where two old creek channels intersect the main channel. Set my jugs at 18' along the edges of the channels, and have a hard time getting them all baited before the ones on the other end start standing up. Cut crappie being the preferred bait. We have access to a pond that is full of stunted crappie. Not hard to catch a limit of 6" fish and make baits.