# All night catfish jugging - Sunday May 30th



## Jeff G (May 18, 2010)

I enjoy chasing the whites and trying to catch stripers on Lake Livingston but what I really enjoy doing the most is going all night jug fishing for catfish. I spent most of 2008 and 2009 jugging Lake Houston but since last November I have become almost obsessed with jugging Lake Conroe because of its high population of hungry trophey blue catfish . 

Since my main jugging buddy John had to work , I took a couple of good friends Russell and Marcus with me . Russell has been on a couple of trips with me before and he was on the one trip with me and John when we caught a 60 and 74 pounder back in March.

Russ and I had the boat launched and ready by the time marcus got to the 830 ramp . It was around 7:30 and there was a ton of boats out there around the launch and parking lot. We head out to a cove across the lake and started setting jugs . We had all of the jugs out by 10:00. We noticed a nasty looking storm south of us around 8:00 . The skies got really dark and we could see lots of lightening far away. Our game plan was to throw all of the jugs out and then wait it out under a nearby bridge if the storm should hit us. 

Fortunatley , the storm never hit but the wind did pick up and it changed wind directions which caused some problems for us. We spent a good couple of hours picking up our jugs and re postitioning them on the other side of the cove. Many got beached in 2 feet of water and some got under peoples bulk heads before we could get to them. We gps'd any jugs that we could not get and went back and got them later. 

The full moon came out around 1;00 am and was nice and bright for the rest of the morning. I noticed very little bait in this cove. Back in April , when we were here , there was swarms of millions of huge gizzard shad and fish and bass chasing them everywhere. It was fun to watch with our spot lights but not this time. This may have been why we only caught about half as many fish too. 

We started catching a good number of fish after 12:00 and it got really good around 3:00-4:00 am. We caught several catfish in the 24"-28 " range and several nice channel cats. We released a gar and any catfish over 10 pounds so that they can grow bigger. Marcus pulled in a 14 pounder and 17.5 pounder and we let Russell pull in the biggest one which was a fish over 30 pounds . ( My scale bottomed out at 30 ). I videod us chasing the big fish on the jug and Russell trying to grab it . We chased it for over 10 minutes and we missed it by over 7 grabs because the fish kept totally pulling the jug under as we would draw near to it ! For me this is the most fun part of the jug trip that I look forward to !! 

We ended up with four ice chests of around 50 fish and finished up around 9:00. We would have gotten done earlier but I ran out of gas about two miles from the ramp at 4:00 in the morning. We thank the guy in the boat that towed us. New addition to my boat for next time ....TWO GALLON GAS CAN !!! Enjoy the pics.


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## Jeff G (May 18, 2010)

Here is a few more pics . Boy , the game wardens and lake patrols were sure out in full force . Great to see them out there !


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## 7th9thplace (May 23, 2009)

Great pics Jeff, hope to hook up with you soon !!!


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## Corey270 (May 18, 2009)

Awesome pics and story...thanks for sharing


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## Sunbeam (Feb 24, 2009)

Great story and pics. Thanks for the CPR of the big cats. I never fish Conroe but I am sure their offspring will make other fishermen happy.


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## firedog4$ (Aug 24, 2004)

Jeff has to be a hard core fisherman. Your buddies are all smiles, thats more important then a limit each. Glad you missed the heavy weather that night. It did claim one life at the 1097 bridge sad to say.


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## Shotgun Slim (Jun 9, 2009)

Dang I'd love to be able to catch big cats like that. Great pics and story. At what depths would a man target to get a monster kitty like that??


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## Jeff G (May 18, 2010)

Shotgun Slim said:


> Dang I'd love to be able to catch big cats like that. Great pics and story. At what depths would a man target to get a monster kitty like that??


SGS, I can't really answer that right now . I am going out with my jugging buddy John tonight on Conroe. John targets large catfish and I have never not caught one under 23 pounds or better while with him . I have a feeling that we will be around alot of structure (unlike this trip because I was in my boat) .

Winter time when no one is on the lake is the easiest to catch huge blues . Just go 32-55 feet around humps or channels . The fish just lay there because they are cold and you can just ease them into the net . John has several videos on YouTube of some fish 57,60, 65, and a 74 that I videod with him earlier this year .

He says summertime is the best time to catch the big ones from June -July are his favorite months . I can give a little more info once I get out on the lake and try a few spots. The catfish move around to different depths and they feed at different depths as the water temp warms up . I think you wil see them feeding shallower and at mid depth or under the surface so we will see .

Good luck and please post pics !! I love seeing people holding big catfish !!


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## Caboman (Aug 12, 2009)

firedog, I've had the pleasure of jugging with Jeff out on Conroe on an allnighter last year and he is definately hard core at jugging.


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## DMANCAN (Apr 7, 2009)

Man that is awesome. I am jealous.


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