• Caught a few on the jugs

    Threw out 12 jugs and caught a mess. Water had cooled to 66 degrees. Dropped the jugs in at dark. Kept 7 was off the water by 11:30 for some reason the photo will not upload.



    Tturk posted:
    What hooks are you running? I lost 7 fish Sunday. Somehow the hooks kept coming out. I recently switched to octopus hooks after hearing they are more successful. I beg to differ after the past 3 trips.

    Micanopy Posted:
    I do not know anything about jug fishing….but I have a solid knowledge about circle hooks. Used them for decades while surf fishing. Exclusively too.

    The hook became popular with long line fishermen because it caught the fish in the lips and they could remain alive until the fishermen retrieved their lines. J hooks would go down into their gut and the fish would die and then begin to, well decompose. This meant that they had to retrieve their lines sooner. Perhaps before all the hooks had a fish attached.

    There is a video on YouTube showing Cod fish in Norway reacting to a long line. I watched it with enthusiasm. You could see fish approaching the bait, swallowing the bait, and spitting it back out or starting to thrash because the hook struck meat. The diver swam above it all and filmed it.

    There are three really good ways to tie onto a circle hook. One is using a Loop knot, another is a Snell, and finally a loop knot that gets inserted into the eye and slipped over the hook and drawn tight. I conducted experiments to see which knot performed best and that was what I came up with.

    I had a section of PVC pipe standing straight up. I would fashion up a knot, drop the hook inside, and then pull it to see what happened. Those three knots would catch the lip of the pipe every time. Other knots missed and the hook came free. Now I know that sounds really dumb, but it recreates what is occurring when a fish takes the bait into his mouth.

    For Snell knots you want the hook to finish in a cocked fashion. As if the hook is completing a circle. Octopus hooks have a bend at the eye to defeat this cocking as people thinks that is best. It is not best it is flat out horrible. You want the hook to be cocked. When you tie a loop into a leader and then insert the loop through the eye of the hook, bring it over top and then cinch the hook down, you also produce a cocked hook. Both styles produce great results.

    The Loop knot allows the hook to flop, and pivot and that allows the tip to stick. Tricky deal for a fish to just spit back out. I caught a lot of fish using loop knots, however when I was going for bigger fish I always chose the Snell as it is an extremely strong knot. Very old design from back before hooks even had eyes. The wraps would coil tight and bind the shaft and it worked.

    The catfish does not need to dive. At least not at first. All he needs to do is turn away/swim away from the jug and that will move the hook from going down the gut back out towards the lips. There it will stick flesh. After that the fish will react and his thrashing will drive the tip home. If he dives that too would drive it home. I can see Jack’s point, but still if it gains any sort of stick, eventually he will drive the barb through.

    I imagine the jug does not do a great job of setting the hook so make sure your hooks are really sharp. Testing sharpness is easy enough. If you drag the tip across your fingernail, and it slides across leaving no scratch mark, your hook is dull. If it scratches as it goes the hook is sharp. If it sticks in one spot and doesn’t want to slide at all, that hook is extremely sharp. The sharpest hooks I ever encountered were Owner Mosquito hooks. Just handling them my fingers would bleed like crazy. They however come only is small sizes. Too small for catfish. Be a fabulous hook for baiting up bluegill. In fact it would be my first choice, and I would fashion them using loop knots. That combination would be very tricky for a little fish to deal with.

    So they made Octopus circle hooks to allow fishermen to snell their hooks and leave them dangling straight down off the line. Horrible plan as it lowers the percentages that the fish will actually get hooked. Octopus beak hooks in a J style are OK I guess, but with a circle tip no good at all. It is why you were missing fish I guarantee that.

    I might keep the next catfish I manage on my dumb jigs. We had what I estimated to be a 10 pounder on the other day. Line snapped boat side. I would have tossed him back anyways, but would have enjoyed a quick picture of her and her “trophy”. Good luck out there.
    This article was originally published in forum thread: Caught a few on the jugs started by DockShootinJack View original post
    Comments 5 Comments
    1. BuckeyeCrappie's Avatar
      BuckeyeCrappie -
      Nice job Jack. Thanks for the write up!
    1. Redge's Avatar
      Redge -
      Cool write up.


      Sent from my iPhone using Crappie.com
    1. Barnacle Bill's Avatar
      Barnacle Bill -
      Good info here
    1. Speck Detector's Avatar
      Speck Detector -
      It's fun to change things up every once & a while, WTG!
    1. Anchor Man's Avatar
      Anchor Man -
      Good for you.
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