Catfish Jugging help please...

I don't do much of this but I will be hosting some teens and thier partents at our lake house on Rough River this weekend. I made some jusgs with the pool noodles and PVC in the center with caps..... my questions really are how long do you make the lines, do you put the hood on the bottom or the weight, baits used and do you usually put them out in a pocket/cove or down like a main lake bank?

I just want the kids to have fun as we will put them out before dark and hang out in the area and check them every 1 or 2 hours and let the kids swim in between... probably stay out till 1 or 2.

[QUOTE=bassanine;517928]I don't do much of this but I will be hosting some teens and thier partents at our lake house on Rough River this weekend. I made some jusgs with the pool noodles and PVC in the center with caps..... my questions really are how long do you make the lines, do you put the hood on the bottom or the weight, baits used and do you usually put them out in a pocket/cove or down like a main lake bank?

I just want the kids to have fun as we will put them out before dark and hang out in the area and check them every 1 or 2 hours and let the kids swim in between... probably stay out till 1 or 2.[/QUOTE]

The depth all depends on how deep of water you fish in. I would recommend either putting the jugs in a deep cove or down a channel bank. And when we use jigs we just let the bait free fall, we don't use weights.

If you have a fish finder drive around for a little and set the line around the depth you see baitfish. It is easy and doesn't take long. I use rubber bands around my jugline/jug do control depth. I never have more that 20 feet of line on my jug.

If no fish finder I would say whatever you feel like on that day.

I use about 5-8 feet of line with my hook tied on at the end and a single split shot weight above it. I always use hotdogs but shrimp is also supposed to work well. I would place them in the back of a cove where the water is 8-15 feet. Try to keep them out of others way but let them sit as long as you can. How this helped!

I typically jug in 6-9 foot of water and my lines are 5 ft to cover that range

Ky afield just had a show on this past weekend, juggin for cats on Taylorsville lake. Check it out.

I fish in open water 25-50' deep, and my lines are maximum 10'. I am jugging for blues, and they are open water fish. Jugging in shallow water will get you channels most of the time. We use cut shad that we use a throw net to catch.

I built my jugs with easily adjustable lines. I put the PVC through the noodle but left about 8 inches sticking out one end. Then I drilled a hole towards the end of the PVC pipe and ran a cotter pin through it. Bend the ends of the pin and trim them. That gives you a loop on one end to tie your line to, you can wrap extra line around the PVC pipe, and when it is at the depth you want you loop the line over the bent over pin ends. This will hold your line in place and since the PVC is sticking out from the noodle when a catfish pulls on the line it acts like a lever and stands the noodle up for a brief second. It is very easy to spot when their is a fish on.

I don't have any end caps on my PVC. Some people use weighted PVC pipes so that when a fish bites the noodle the will stand up permanently. I didn't see the need for all that. Any movement of a fish on the noodle is very obvious.