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!

I have personally seen a jug a line where a large catfish straightened an Eagle Claw 9/0 circle hook (that’s a pretty big hook). It was our estimation that the fish was at least 40 to 50 pounds to be able to straighten a hook of that size. How did we do it? Let’s take a look at some of these catfishing tips.

Jug Fishing

Probably the premier way to go catfishing, when you set a couple of dozen jug lines out for catfish, you stand a very good chance of catching fish. Use live or dead shad or perch when you are fishing this method, as the larger catfish tend to hit this bait a lot more often.

In general, the larger the bait the better. We often use shad that in the 5 to 6 inch long range, and perch that are about that same size. And trust me when I say that a 10 pound catfish can take a 6 inch perch without any problems at all.

Drift Fishing

This is another good way to go when you are seeking the larger catfish. In this scenario, I recommend that you use live bait wherever possible. Live shad tend to die quickly, and if you are fishing with shad, just make sure to change them out often. A good live perch will do well in this type of environment.

Get you a good, solid, heavy weight and secure it to the end of your line. The tie on a hook about 2 to 3 feet above the weight. This will keep the live perch or shad off the bottom, but close enough to the bottom to be swimming right in front of the face of the catfish.

Try to drift across bottom structure changes like drop off points and old river beds. Anywhere the habitat changes considerably is a good potential spot to find fish.

Set It and Forget It

The traditional way to rod and reel for catfish. In this case you will find a good spot to throw your line in, and you will setup in one spot, and let your bait sit on the bottom, or under a cork until something comes through to grab it. If you are really want to catch fish quickly, use catfish bait like chicken livers or blood bait to stir up the catfish quickly.

These types of bait will tend to yield smaller fish than using shad or perch, but the action will be faster. For the most part, any area that is populated with fish will have more smaller fish than it will big fish. But don’t think you’ll only catch fry sized catfish on livers and blood bait. I was on a retreat recently and caught a nice 3 pound catfish on a chicken liver. It put up 4 or 5 runs on me before I got it in. It was an exciting fight.

Good areas to setup include stump filled areas, drop off points, edges of bulrushes, underneath or beside fallen tree limbs, rocks, and other places where the bottom structure changes or where currents break. Set your bait on the bottom, and wait for the fish to come in.

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…

Now, Lake Limestone has a name in a Texas for some good catfishing, and I can tell you from first hand experience that this lake produces some very nice catfish. Nearly every time we come out here, we’ll catch anywhere from 50-200 pounds of catfish, and we don’t stay more than 3 days at a time. But you might be wondering, how do we do so well on jug lines?

The “Hidden” Secrets to Catfish Jug Fishing

One of the secrets to using jug lines when going after catfish is the depth. Many fisherman fish their jug lines deep. We don’t. We fish our jug lines at approximately 3 feet deep. We do this for many reasons, to include the ease of pulling in the fish, less tangles and lost lines, and most importantly, when the fish are held close to the surface, they’ll stay alive. So when we are fishing, we’ll generally leave the jugs out in the water for several hours, and often overnight. So if you are fishing deep, the fish don’t have as much oxygen, and if they get pinned to the bottom, they’ll die quickly. Then you have a bloated catfish carcase to deal with. Sound like fun? Not to me.

The second secret is the catfish bait. The best bait we have found for catfish jugging is perch. We’ll catch the perch with a rod and reel on worms, then fillet 2/3 of one side of the perch, and attach it to the line. This will put some blood and scent in the water, and will bring in the catfish.

Last, if you have ever been jug fishing for catfish, you may have been frustrated by dry hooks. Catfish are crafty enough to twist off of a lot of hooks. The secret is in using circle hooks. Put a circle hook on the end of some heavy weight string with a large barrel swivel, and the catfish will set the hook on themselves! Many, many fish that we have brought in have been hooked so well, that we have to exert some real effort into getting the hook loose from the fish.

So to bring it all together, here’s what we do. We find an area full of submerged stumps, we use a quarter gallon square jug, we tie it off the exposed stump with 3 feet of heavy string, a barrel swivel, and circle hook equipped with a bleeding perch. We let it sit for several hours, then we come back through, pull off the fish, and re-bait for more action. And I am telling you, we catch fish! This morning was slow with only 5 fish, and we are looking for a much better catch this afternoon…