2 Liter Jugs vs Pool Noodle "jug"

Hey guys,

New here. My question is a simple one. Has anyone tested which one of these has more buoyancy?

Assuming a 2L, foam-filled soda bottle vs a 12in pool noodle on PVC pipe.


I know on both sides people will say that they have pulled in massive fish on both. My question is more around how much consistent weight it takes to hold one down vs the other.

I am currently using the 2L bottle, and I have zero concerns about one staying submerged and being unable to locate it. But, obviously, they are cumbersome to transport. So I am considering a more streamlined design

The pool noodle on the other hand, I have concerns about the pipe coming through the noodle, or the noodle eventually tearing. But my biggest concern is a big cat keeping it under water and me not locating it. I have found more than one noodle on the lake with fish on the other end.

I welcome all thoughts here of course, but the main question is, which one is actually more buoyant?

Im not sure about one vs the other, But I will say that we had some old air plane gas tanks that we were going to fill with foam to make toons out of them. An engineer friend of mine said that there is no added bouyancy benefit by filling them with foam as long as there is no leaks. It would have been just wasted money. Now adding foam would prevent less water from being able to get into it should it develope a leak. So if your bottles aint leaking would be cheaper to not fill them with foam. My intention was not to hijack your thread. I apologize if it appears that way. Just trying to save you some money if you were planning on filling alot of bottle with foam. My grandpa always told me, "It aint what ya make boy.....its what ya keep." good fishing to ya my friend!

Also if I had to guess I would think the bottle would win vs just a 12" section of pool foam. The bottle is longer than 12" i believe and the diameter is MUCH larger than the pool float.

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Originally Posted by LowePro

Also if I had to guess I would think the bottle would win vs just a 12" section of pool foam. The bottle is longer than 12" i believe and the diameter is MUCH larger than the pool float.

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Thanks for the response. I actually already have the 2L jugs and they are already fillled with foam. The purpose there was not to increase the buoyancy, but to increase the rigidity in case they were to get pulled into deep water. The other concern was that I did not want to clutter the lake with trash if one of them were to sink. I figure the foam would keep the jug afloat even if it had a hole in it.

The biggest pain is that its hard to carry 12 2L bottles, and I have mobility issues on top of it. So I found this. Its a 110L Scuba gear mesh backpack. It just arrived in the mail, so I am hopeful that it has enough room. But the goal here is to be able to carry my jugs, maybe a fishing rod, and a small Plano 3600 while keeping my hands free. The mesh will keep everything dry. I picked one up from a guy on ebay for 15 bucks

Amazon.com

I got ya! The mesh bag sounds like a good plan!

I know this is an old thread but I'll share anyway. My uncle uses small inner tubes. Stores and carries them deflated and flat. Inflates them again at the river. Been doing that around 30 years.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

An easy way to carry a lot of jugs is to get a duck decoy mesh bag. They have shoulder straps like a back pack and weigh nothing.


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I have two Red head decoy bags from Bass Pro. They work awesome

I make mine using 22" 3/4 PVC and order the oversized Yellow pool noodles off Amazon. They are more expensive but float better and last longer. Mine are used 30-40 times a year and have lasted 3 years and have many more to go. I like the laundry bags from Dollar General. They hold 10 noodles perfectly and are $1.00 each.

I use gorilla glue to make the pipe stay in the noodle. Store them in milk crates.

Never noticed a difference switching from jugs to noodles.

I use approx 30" of 3/4" PVC pipe slid thru an approx 5" diameter noodle, then glue on the caps after placing a 12" piece of3/8" rebar inside. I screw in an eye screw into 1 of the caps to clip a locking snap swivel which is attached to my dropper line. The purpose of the rebar is, when properly balanced on the noodle, to be a strike indicator when the jug has a hit thereby standing up. It saves you time checking all the jugs, you just see which one is standing and go get your fish. I also make up different length of dropper lines with swivels so i can custom set the jugs at the appropriate depth of the fish. I measure the length of the assembled line,roll it up and tape it with blue painters tape and mark the length of line and toss in a gallon zip lock bag. I hope this is not too complicated to understand. It is very efficient.

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Originally Posted by cricket george

I use approx 30" of 3/4" PVC pipe slid thru an approx 5" diameter noodle, then glue on the caps after placing a 12" piece of3/8" rebar inside. I screw in an eye screw into 1 of the caps to clip a locking snap swivel which is attached to my dropper line. The purpose of the rebar is, when properly balanced on the noodle, to be a strike indicator when the jug has a hit thereby standing up. It saves you time checking all the jugs, you just see which one is standing and go get your fish. I also make up different length of dropper lines with swivels so i can custom set the jugs at the appropriate depth of the fish. I measure the length of the assembled line,roll it up and tape it with blue painters tape and mark the length of line and toss in a gallon zip lock bag. I hope this is not too complicated to understand. It is very efficient.

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That is a lot like I build mine. I like the weighted tip up stay up design

I built 12 noodle floats with a tell-tale. I used 12" pieces of Pool Noodles and 24" pieces of PVC pipe Leaving 12" of the pipe exposed. Into each pipe I put a 10" piece of rebar. Then I drilled one of the endcaps to insert an eye bolt to attach my line. When deploying the noodle, I made sure the rebar was inside the noodle and would put the noodle flat on the water. It would float flat on the surface of the water. When Mr Whiskers took the bait (mostly chicken gizzards) he would pull the long end of the PVC down, which caused the rebar to slide to the end of the PVC and the noodle would stand up on the surface of the water. Sitting waiting where I could see my noodles I would then motor over to the upright noodle and retrieve it and its fish. I used them a few times and they really worked the way I thought. Unfortunately they were in my boat when I sold it and I let the fellow have them.

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Originally Posted by Clint

I built 12 noodle floats with a tell-tale. I used 12" pieces of Pool Noodles and 24" pieces of PVC pipe Leaving 12" of the pipe exposed. Into each pipe I put a 10" piece of rebar. Then I drilled one of the endcaps to insert an eye bolt to attach my line. When deploying the noodle, I made sure the rebar was inside the noodle and would put the noodle flat on the water. It would float flat on the surface of the water. When Mr Whiskers took the bait (mostly chicken gizzards) he would pull the long end of the PVC down, which caused the rebar to slide to the end of the PVC and the noodle would stand up on the surface of the water. Sitting waiting where I could see my noodles I would then motor over to the upright noodle and retrieve it and its fish. I used them a few times and they really worked the way I thought. Unfortunately they were in my boat when I sold it and I let the fellow have them.

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They sure make it easier to know when you need to collect a fish or rebait a hook

Clint - Mine are similar to yours except for the lengths. It is a no brainer to know when you have a fish on. There is more work to build these but the efficiency is well worth it.