03-14-2009, 09:00 AM
I had a slow afternoon jugging around the river bridge on Saturday. I took all the jugs in and dropped 6 in a spot among the islands. There was still no activity after a couple more hours. Some friends were anchoring nearby for the night so I decided to leave them in until Sunday morning. The results: a 5ish lber that I lost getting into the boat. A 20lber that put up a good fight, and then a 50lber that was a true monster to hand fight and then get into the boat. I kept the 20 and released the 50. 2 of the remaining 3 jugs didn't have bait when I got to them in the morning. The digital scale maxes out at 50 and was having trouble giving a good number. It never would settle and fluctuated from 48-52lbs. I'll call it a 50. My bait was my old standby for jug fishing that I've been using for years. I have tried many things and always came back. A pack of the cheapest hotdogs you can find cut into 1/3s or 1/4s. 3 heaping tablespoons of oily minced garlic. Put that in a jar and then submerge with about a half a can of beer and then water. I usually let it all spoil in the sun, but the bait that I caught these on was only a couple hours old and hadn't seen any heat. These were caught about 8ft down in about 12ft of water.