1. Get the Right Catfish Jugging Gear

So if you want to go catfish jugging like me, go out and get you some one quart, square jugs from your local outdoor store. While you’re there, pick up some heavy twine, some large barrel swivels, and some 9/0 hooks. I know that sounds like a large hook, and it is, but you are going to be going after the larger fish (just wait a minute and I’ll explain).

2. Get the Right Catfish Jugging Bait

The best catfish bait for getting the large fish is shad or perch. I have had success with both. But I tend to lean more toward perch, as I have just seen some great results fishing with this bait. So I’ll go out and catch the perch alive, take a fillet knife, and cut 2/3 of a fillet down only one side of the perch.

This will get the bait bleeding, but yet it is still alive. Sometimes I will leave a fresh, live perch on the line, after I have done the 2/3 fillet on some of them. This combines scent with live bait in the water. And let me tell you, when you have a dozen or two lines out there, with some blood and live perch, you are setting yourself up for success.

3. Find the Right Catfish Jugging Locations

Along with getting the right gear, and the right bait, you need to find the right locations. The best locations are within a set of stumps, along the edge of a drop off point or an old river bed within a lake. Catfish tend to like soft, sandy or muddy bottoms as opposed to rock bottoms, but they do like to scavenge around cover areas or large rocks, etc.

One other thing you can do is consult a topographical map of the area you are fishing and look for spots that are known to be good catfishing spots.

4. Go Catfish Jugging

Once you have the right gear, bait, and scoped out your locations, it’s time to go get ‘em. Get out there in a good aluminum or flat bottom boat that you don’t mind getting beat up a bit, troll through the stump areas, set your jug lines, and tie them off to the stumps.

Get your jug lines set in order, so you can easily come back through and check them later. Then go back to shore, wait a couple of hours, and come back and check / re-bait the lines. Trust me, it works!

Using the Right Catfish Bait

So once you have located the fish, now it is time to bait them up. Selecting the right catfish bait is really not that difficult. If you are fishing for larger catfish, use shad or perch. If you really want to go after large flathead (yellow) catfish, then use live perch, and drift fish or setup on the bottom. If you want to catch the big blue catfish, use live shad wherever possible.

I’ll note that live shad and live perch are difficult to keep alive for long periods of time, so you’ll be changing out your bait frequently. But no problem, just keep the bait that dies, you can re-use it later as cut bait, or just slice it open and let the blood and guts put the scent in the water to draw in the big fish.

Now, if you are looking for fast action, or don’t mind pulling in the smaller fish, use the other catfish baits. The two baits that I have found to be extremely effective are chicken livers and blood bait. They are soft baits, and provide a lot of scent in the water. As they sit on the bottom, the blood and perhaps small pieces of the bait will break off, and provide a sort of “trail” in the water that catfish can follow to draw them to your hook.

Some Gear Suggestions for How to Catch Catfish

No fishing guide is complete without gear recommendations. My recommendations are simple, get you a good medium to heavy weight rod, get a spinning or bait casting reel with a large spool that is capable of handling a lot of line, say 250-300 yards at least. If you do find yourself fighting a huge catfish, you don’t want him to pull you down to the knot, and snap the line. Reels that can hold 500 yards or more of line are great to have on board.

Lastly are hooks. Probably the best hooks to use are larger circle hooks, and treble hooks. I prefer the circle hook myself, just because it does a great job of hooking the fish, and you don’t have to deal with getting 2 or 3 barbs out of the fish. But treble hooks have a purpose, especially if you are fishing with chicken livers, blood baits, or dip baits, they can really help to keep the bait on the hook, and they will hook a catfish.

Until next time, go out there, catch some fish, then come back here and post your comments and feed back on how this website has helped you to catch more and bigger fish!

How to Rig Up for Jug Fishing

The basic components to jug fishing are a large jug or float, some twine, a hook, and some weights. What we do is take a one quart square jug and attach about 6 feet of rope to it. We use the rope to secure the jug to a stump or other fix object in the water. Then we take about 2 to 3 feet of heavy twine and attach it to the jug. After this, we attach a large barrel swivel to the end of the twine.

Next we attach another one foot of twine to the barrel swivel, and finally attach the hook to the end of that twine. The hooks we use are large circle hooks, which work very well to automatically set the hook on a fish, and keep them hooked.

Lastly, the catfish bait. We typically use 5 to 6 inch dead shad or a live perch for catching catfish. Shad are the primary food source for blue catfish, while yellow catfish tend to like perch better. However, blue catfish will hit perch as well. Most of catch usually consists of blue catfish, but I like yellow catfish to eat better.

When we prepare the live perch, often we will do a 2/3 fillet of one side of the perch, just to get some blood and scent in the water. This helps to bring in the fish, and still keeps the perch alive for a while.

Another method for jug fishing is to prepare the deep line. In this instance, you can use a heavy leader line, and tie off a large 1 or 2 pound weight to the bottom. Then attach a hook about 2 to 3 feet up from the bottom, and tie on your hook. This will keep the bait from being right on the bottom, but will still be in easy reach of a hungry catfish.

So that’s jug fishing for you. What it is, some of its methods, and most importantly, how to rig up for jug fishing. So drop me a comment at the bottom if you have any questions or ideas…

What is Jug Fishing?

Jug fishing is method of fishing geared toward folks that really want to catch a lot of fish. The typical jug fisherman will set many jugs, and therefore has many hooks and baits in the water at one time. When we go jug fishing, we typical set about 24 jug lines in the water. This means we have 24 pieces of bait and hooks in the water to catch fish.

A jug line is simply a large float with a piece of fishing line or twine attached to it with a hook (and potentially other gear) that runs below it. When a fish hits the bait and gets hooked, the float will bob or bounce, indicating that there is a fish on the line.

Most of the time, when fisherman use this style of fishing, they are going catfish jug fishing. Catfish is what they’re after, and if they do it right, they’ll get just what they came for.

Jug Fishing Methods

There are two basics methods to fishing with jugs. The first is my preferred method, which is the anchored (or secured) jug line. In this scenario, the jug is fixed to a position in the water, either by being tied off to a stump, branch or other fixed object in the water, or by including a large, 1 to 2 pound or greater weight to the bottom of the rig.

The second is called “free floating jugs”. This method is used for folks wanted to do some drift fishing, to wit they will forgo tying off to any fixed object, and will not use any large weights, but will simply attach a line and hook rig to a jug, set the jug somewhere out in the middle of the water, and let the current take it, thus canvasing an area to find fish.

These two methods do a good job of keeping currents, wind, and fish from moving the jugs very far from their original location. This will help you to keep your sanity when fishing a lot of jugs…

Within the two basic methods of jug fishing, you also have some variations. For example, we like to fish my jugs shallow most of the time. We will secure a jug to a stump, and only run about 3 feet of line underneath it with my bait. You may think this is crazy, but we will typically average somewhere between 20 and 50 pounds of catfish each day when fishing 24 jugs. And the added advantage to this method is that the fish will still have a good supply of oxygen, and will be fresh when you come by to pull them off the hook.

Probably the more popular jug fishing method is running your lines deep. Many juggers like to place their catfish bait right on the bottom. This does work well, but the disadvantage is that there is a lot of line, and thus a lot of room for the fish to play and possible get off the hook, as well as a lower supply of oxygen, which will often kill the fish if you aren’t on top of checking your jug lines every couple of hours.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’ post, where I go into how to rig up for jug fishing…

So let’s review the main components that make up the buzzbait. There are four main components to this fishing lure, and they include:

1. A jig head on a bent shaft
2. A two winged aluminum blade (perhaps two of these aluminum blades on a double buzzer)
3. An aluminum rivet per each blade present
4. Skirting, or a worm, or a minnow shaped spoon on the hook

The key component that separates the buzzbait from other fishing lures is the blade. The blade is made to spin viciously through the water, and to screech in the process. This creates a lot of vibration and sound in the water, much more so than spoons or spinnerbaits.

The Buzzbait Retrieve

But the retrieve is extremely important when bass fishing with this type of lure. The pros will cast the lure out, and stop the line just before the lure hits the top of the water. This will ensure that the line tightens up, and that the buzzbait will hit the water in the ideal position to retrieve. Often, the strike will occur when the lure hits the water, because the buzzbait will already be in motion, and the splash, combined with the churning and screeching in the water will not be missed by many fish in the area.

But if you don’t get the strike during splashdown, the you’ll need to go back to bass basics, try to canvas the cover areas that are near the lure’s location. You may have to extend your rod in a weird direction in order to pass the buzzbait very near the cover, but it’s worth it. Bass love hanging out under sticks, bulrushes, lilly pads and the like, and the closer you get to them, the better. But be careful not to cross into the cover areas, unless you have a weedless hook, otherwise tangles and impairments to the action of the lure will occur.

And as always, when you are considering which colors to fish, stick to natural colors in clear water, and more vibrant colors in murky water. Also remember that bass tend to enjoy black and purple regardless of conditions. So that’s buzzbaits in a nutshell. So get out there, and catch those fish!

The Step by Step Texas Rig Guide

1. The first thing you need to do is to trim the end of your line. Do this to ensure that you don’t have any frays or other impairments in your fishing line.

2. Find a cone shaped weight. Now the size of the cone shaped weight will depend on the depth of the water you will be fishing. If you are fishing waters that are shallow (6 ft or less) use a 1/16 or 1/8 ounce weight. From 6 ft to 12 ft deep, use a 1/8 or 1/4 ounce, from 12 ft to 18 ft, use 1/4 to 3/8 ounce, and for deeper waters, use a 3/8 or 1/2 ounce weight. Once you have determined the cone shaped weight size you need, slip it point first over the end of the line, and let it fall.

3. Attach the hook (currently I am using VMC with offset shank style hooks). I like to use a palomar knot to attached my hooks, as they are super strong, and have served me better than improved clinched knots. I have found that the improved clinch knot may have the tendency to slip when a large fish grabs on and pulls you for the ride of your life.

4. Bury 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the hook into the top of the worm. Push the barb through the worm at this point. Then push the worm all the way up to the top of the hook, allow the offset shank to use the 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the worm at the top.

5. Drape the hook over the side of the worm, just to get an idea of where the hook should enter, and exit the worm. Then push the hook through the worm at that entry point. Push the hook right to the edge of the worm near the exit point you estimated. Be sure that the worm hasn’t been twisted in any way.

At this point, you should be ready for action. Your new Texas Rig should have a cone shaped weight at the top, with a worm that has been hooked at the top, the hook then comes out of the worm, and circles back to hook the worm once again at the appropriate lower spot, but the barb is buried inside or right at the outside edge of the worm. Make sure that the worm lies straight from the eye of the hook, all the way down to its tail. If there are any twists or bends in the worm, re-set the hook accordingly.

Your new Texas Rig is ready to go! Set get out there are go get those bass! If you have any thoughts, please leave them for me at the bottom of this page in the comment section…

Personally, I think bass fishing with plastic worms tends to yield better fish than with other baits, the problem is that you’ll generally be working the plastic worms slower than other baits, and thus you’ll have to be more patient, and more selective with the spots that you fish. With other baits, you can work them faster and easier, and be able to cover more water, looking for fish.

The Ideal Scenario When Bass Fishing With Worms

The very best situation when working worms is during the spring, summer, and early fall when the water temperatures are warm. Look for heavy cover and drop your worm right in the thick of it. This is another advantage of worms, they are almost always rigged to be weedless, and you can work your worm right through the bass’ most favorite habitat. If you are working deep water, drag the worm right along the bottom with a slow retrieve, and wait for the tap. Give the fish a moment to take the worm, then set the hook hard, to make sure to penetrate through the worm body and the bass’ mouth.

Some Different Types of Worms

Generally, worms range from about 4 to 12 inches in length. Mostly, I like to use 6 to 7 inch worms, and they will work in most cases. If you use a worm that is too short, you may not get enough tail action to attract the bass. But if too long, you may end up losing fish due to bass hitting the tail of the bait, and not getting the hook.

The color of the worm will vary based on conditions. However, generally the use of a purple, black, or motor oil color is going to work to attract the bass. Do some experimentation. In dark or murky water, you may want to use a chartreuse, pumpkin, or red color instead. But in clear water, translucent colors like blue, grape, white and red will probably work better.

The shape of worms can also vary greatly. There are a tremendous assortment of worms, eels, salamanders, lizards, and perhaps even small snakes to choose from. If you are just starting out, I would recommend sticking to a 7 inch, motor oil or purple regular worm, perhaps with a firetail (a different colored tail end of the worm).

Stay tuned for next week, when I take you through the bass worm rig, a couple of the styles that are very popular, and that I recommend for bass fishing with worms.