# HEY Juggers



## mudd_catt (May 22, 2004)

I would like to get an opinion on how everyone else fishes their jugs. i.e., how deep, how much weight, what size hooks, size line, etc. I have no problem catching fish during the day, over the channel, but think that the fish may be moving shallower that I am fishing (12-16 ft over 30-50 ft of water) later in the night, as I usually stop catching fish on jugs after 11:00 or so. after that, it usually is very slow. Any ideas anyone, I ain't ashamed to admit dat I can learn something new


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## Catfish (May 21, 2004)

It has been a while since I ran jugs , however I fished them with live bream - 4 - 6' with a 1 - 2oz weight -- Usually on flats close to drop offs - 10' or less -- Always worked well for me ..


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## Hawkeye (May 21, 2004)

Well, I've only fished jugs once with NightTrain, so I can only tell you what he showed me that night. We had two basic depths... about 7' and about 10'... I say "about" because I didn't measure the string, and that's the length Bill told me the strings were... The bigger fish we caught were all caught on the shorter lengths of string. The weights used were 2-3 oz weights, except on a couple of jugs where NightTrain's friend David had slightly lighter weights... we teased him that next time he should put a weight on his jugs LOL... The hooks were all Gamakatsu 7/0 or 8/0 circle hooks. We used whole shad cut basically in half and I put the entire bait on the hooks... sometimes two shad if the shad were little...
The fish all seemed to like the oily shad.. I think they were gizzard shad.... anyway, one of them was much more oily when you cut into them than the bluebacks were... the oily ones had a spot behind the gill plate on the body... I hope they weren't an endangered species.....

I'd like to be able to tell you exactly what we were doing, but I'm not 100% sure on the details... I believe we were directly over the old river bed, in about 35' of water, fishing the 7-10' depth previously mentioned.... the hooks were 18-30" from the weights, "trailing" the weights... I mean the weight was between the hook and the jug, tied right on the string...

I'll leave it to Bill to correct any errors I've made, or to add any details I left out. I do remember the bite was dramatic... nothing one minute and wham, bam the next... so I guess you've got to get 'em while you can out there.... 

I fully intend to experiment with bobbers and cut bait, floating baits out and behind the boat all the while I'm fishing baits on the bottom behind the boat as well... I think this is an effective way to cover the entire water column... we striper-trollers are always trying to do that when we fish for them in the bays and the ocean. The more water column you cover while trolling, the better you're chances are for success.... 
I'd suggest setting up jug lines in several depths... a few deep, some at moderate depths and some shallower, to experiment in your area as to which ones produce best at what time of the night.. you might find you can vary depths and be even more successful than if you fish all the jugs at the same depth... I don't know, but it sounded good when I wrote it....


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## Bigcat (Jul 11, 2004)

I fish deferent depths between 5 and 20 feet. I try to use live shad mostly. I have a couple of holes where I fish them. For weights I use bricks for some jugs and very little to no weight on my shorter free floaters. I just let the big live shad swim the jug around. These work best for bigger flatheads but can go a long ways away if not watched closely. I catch some bigger (#10 - 15#) blues on the longer lines with heavy weights.


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## mudd_catt (May 22, 2004)

we did try running some of our lines shorter one night (5ft) in front of the dam, and started catching the slew out of big channels ( 5-10#). It was amazing how you could tell when we had a blue vs a channel. The channel would usually head toward the dam and shallower water, while the blue would head away to deeper water. I have also found that most of the blues I catch usually head upstream. Anyone notice this also?


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## redneck (Jun 5, 2004)

*This may help......*

Try reading these:

http://www.whiskerkitty.com/jugline_knots.html

http://www.whiskerkitty.com/rigging_juglines_2.html

http://www.whiskerkitty.com/jug-fishing-building-jugs.html


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## NightTrain (May 21, 2004)

Daggone,Hawk....you WAS payin' attention!:wink:

P.s.....It's illegal in Va. to use live bait on trotlines and jugs.


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## mudd_catt (May 22, 2004)

I might just have to shorten my lines up the closer it gets to dark next time. hwell:

I believe that may be my problem after midnite, with the fish moving up shallower in the water column, ABOVE my bait.


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## Hawkeye (May 21, 2004)

NightTrain said:


> Daggone,Hawk....you WAS payin' attention!:wink:
> 
> P.s.....It's illegal in Va. to use live bait on trotlines and jugs.


Yes I was. I did know it was illegal (except you can fish a live nightcrawler under a jug) to use live bait on jugs. I didn't know about trot lines. I don't have any plans on running trotlines anytime soon.

I figure that if a jug fished at 7-10 works, a bobber on free-spool fished with my choice of bait 7-10 deep might work as well... then if I catch a big fish even Warren will credit me with it LOL..... it'll be on rod-n-reel


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## mudd_catt (May 22, 2004)

Hawkeye, you might try an old trick of mine, set a rod in a holder and freeline a bait either in the current with a light weight to drift around at the approximate depth, or drop straight off the side of the boat to a specific depth. It doesn't work as well as jugs, because obviously you aren't covering as much water, but you blind hog, acorns, and such.


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## Hawkeye (May 21, 2004)

That was pretty well what I had in my mind to experiement with... once the boat gets quiet, I figure the fish will be confident around it enough to take a bait... I might even toss some sahd guts overboard for a little fishy attractant...

Hey... should the flywheel on top of my motor "wiggle" when I grab it? I didn't think it should, but when I was goofing with the motor this evening I grabbed it and it sort of is free to wobble a bit... does that mean my crankshaft is broke?


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## mudd_catt (May 22, 2004)

NO! The flywheel should NOT repeat NOT "wiggle" when you shake it. it MAY have a little "circular"play back and forth, but NO side to side, or up and down. I hate to voice an opinion, but I believe a road trip is in order. As far as what your mechanic said the other day about hitting something, I have a friend who hit a rock pile at about 30 mph a few years ago, and sheared his crank, but you have to take a SOLID hit for something like that to happen. That is something that , like, stops the boat. I hate to sound like the grim reaper of bad news, but you may have problems.


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## Hawkeye (May 21, 2004)

I knew I had problems LOL... now I'm beginning to see how bad they are.


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## mudd_catt (May 22, 2004)

Just a thought, maybe just the bearings? have to ask an expert, but on some of the machinery we operate, bearing failure shows up under a torque CHANGE, such as slowing down, or speeding, but at a constant steady midrange torque, it won't show. You will have to ask someone who knows, I know enough to give an almost educated guess.


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## Hawkeye (May 21, 2004)

I've decided to take the boat back to the guy I had work on it. It might not happen until next Saturday, with all I have to do tomorrow to get ready for one mor storm... Charley is going to bring RAIN and WIND, big time.... so I've got to batten down the hatches tomorrow morning, which makes for a lot of work. I'm not much of a two-stroke gas motor guy, but I've worked on enough mechanical stuff to know that the more I goof around, the less likely I am to get the guy to make this right. I put gear lube back in the lower unit and had planned to start the motor with the shift cable (which IS out of adjustment FYI) off the shift linkage to see if it will manually shift okay... when I put it in reverse by hand, I can't turn the prop in either direction without rotating the flywheel... it's stiff both ways. In forward (which is about 1/4" more motion than I can get using the shift cable and controls) I can turn the prop freely in "reverse" but it had resistance like it should in forward. I'm not saying the crank's broke, but it seemed odd to me that the flywheel would have freedom of movement in it. I thought it might have some sort of vibration dampening device built in to allow for minor misalignment in the starter or something like that... I'm no outboard mechanic, for sure... but I do get suspicious when things don't add up. I never did start it, as I had to run out to the store to pick up a few things... I'm going to run it tomorrow, rain or shine, and if it acts okay in the yard, I might dunk it in the river to see if all that is wrong with it is the shifter controls out of whack. I can't imagine a broken crankshaft running sweet at 2200 rpms and making noise at lower speeds... the engine ran too well, in my opinion for this to be a serious engine problem, but I have been fooled before. I'm shopping for a new one (engine) in case this one is trashed and I can't get my money back. I think I have a good case for a refund if the engine's garbage. He advertised it as a "rebuilt" engine with "less than 40 hours" on it... and he also stated to me that the "lower unit had been checked out" by the mechanic and was fine.... they ran it on the dyno, and it ran good... I ran it on the water and it ran better... I'm prying it's just the shifter. I've been too dern busy to even fool with the thing with work and all the other stuff I have to do here at home... then I get sicker than a dog with food poisoning or whatever it was I had last night... Friday may as well have not existed this week as far as how little work I got done around the place....
Whatever happens, everything is going to be all right. I'll either fix the motor and have a good boat... or I'll replace the motor and have a good boat... or I'll get a refund and buy a different boat. The diappointing thing is that I spent months looking for a decent deal and thought I had found one... maybe I did and I'm just too scared to try the cable adjustment... LOL... maybe I got screwed... if I did, the guy didn't get no cherry...

Good night


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## NightTrain (May 21, 2004)

*Hawkeye....*

....It'll work out,bro.When I first moved to the lake,I had my boat "out of commission from April til October,to gut it,and totally "refurbish" her....Man,you talk about frustration!It was worth the wait and all,knowin' that she was sittin' dead on ready when I put her back in.Be patient and trust that the Lord has a plan for ya,hoss.
And,yeah, I toss out a coupla them ''baseball bobbers" with live shad/or cut and let 'em drift downstream away from the boat aways.


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## Hawkeye (May 21, 2004)

Well... the PLAN for today was work on the well. Somehow, the water line burst and we didn't have any water. The farmer was bush-hogging the field out back when it happened. The door to the pump house was open, and it's possible he hit a rock and the rock broke the PVC pipe... it was a mess. The pipe looked like shrapnel all over the inside of the pumphouse and I had to redo the whole thing... of course, the first thing I had to do was go buy pipe... there isn't a decent hardware within 15 miles of me... just now got back from town (again) where I bought a new phone wire... it seems the Lab decided that the telephone wire from the computer to the jack looked like it would be good to eat... the more I do, it seems, the more there is to do. Who has time to fish?


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## NightTrain (May 21, 2004)

*Dude...*

...if you could write country music,you'd make a killin'!!:headknock :wink:


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## Hawkeye (May 21, 2004)

I guess... the only part I forgot was the train (saw one in town) and somethin' about Momma... oh, and although I drove to town in the station wagon, I could change that to driving my pickup truck in the rain... I think that just about does it.. oops... there's nothing there about getting outa prison....


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## mudd_catt (May 22, 2004)

Like my best friend likes to say "if it is meant to happen it will, good things come to those who wait, and the best things in life are not free."

Of course, I always want to slap here when she says it too.  :biggrin:


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## Hawkeye (May 21, 2004)

I was going to run the motor on the hose... My wife told me Pete (my neighbor) had "fixed" the piping in the pumphouse for me while I was at work yesterday... when I got out back, I found that Pete had run a water hose from his well on the farm to my water system... whereby providing us with water (He's the MAN), but from his well, not mine... so I parked the boat and went to work fixing my water pipes... I could have fished today, as long as I didn't mind heavy rains and wind LOL... I got SOAKED walking back and forth to the pumphouse. It was really raining here.... the National Weather Service said we got 0.2" (two tenths inch)... I don't think so... more like 4" from what I've seen... it rained steady and hard for three or four hours this morning... and again this evening...

I'm not that worried about the motor. Time has a way of putting things into perspective and my perspective on it is that it's just a boat... I'll either get a refund, get it fixed or I'll buy another motor... those are about the only choices I see that I have... no worries


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## mudd_catt (May 22, 2004)

Hakuna Ma'Tata. :biggrin:

dem fish don't mind a little rain. went ridin 4-wheeler with pops yesterday, scoutin, saw 6 deers, but only one wid horns. I love being away from all that rough weather.


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