By Jeremy Pyle
Fishing reporter
For almost 60 years, Lake Thunderbird in Norman has been a great spot in Central Oklahoma to go camping, boating, skiing, or even to walk or ride a bike on the many trails that surround the lake. When I go, I like to fish for big cats on jug lines, and this last weekend didn’t disappoint.
Jug-fishing is simple. You take a large flotation device, like a gallon jug or a 2-foot section of a pool noodle. You then attach around 40 feet to 50 feet of heavy cord with a couple hooks running down the line and an anchor on the bottom to hold the jug in place. Throw bait on the hooks, drop them into your chosen spots on the lake, then wait.
We put them out Saturday night around midnight and then went and anchored for the night, put a couple poles in the water and relaxed the evening away. The shad were running, so I went ahead and cast the net several times to load up with bait. Fresh shad is always the best bait, in my opinion.
We started out Saturday morning to check the jugs we had put out the night before. It was unusually warm at 5:30 a.m. It was about 70 degrees, hardly any wind. The water temperature was 68. Calm. Quiet. You could hear fish jumping all around us. It was still dark and it was in the middle of the Eta Aquariids meteor shower, so occasionally we got to watch a meteor trail from one end of the sky to the other. It was amazing.
Now, it’s called “fishing” not “catching” but sometimes, all you are doing is catching. When you’re catching it’s always a lot more fun. And if I have learned just one thing about jug-line fishing, when you put out jug lines, be ready to catch some fish.
Fish on! It’s the words you want to hear. And this last weekend I heard those words a lot. The biggest fish of the trip was a good-sized flathead catfish, close to 30 pounds. When he smacked the boat with his tail, you would have thought he put a hole in it.
We also got several blues, a channel cat and even about a 3-pound largemouth bass. On rod and reel, between checking jugs, we pulled in a 15-pound blue cat and close to 50 crappie. Successful trip under the belt.
Now, keep in mind, if you wanna go jug-fishing, you will need a boat, and be ready to get wet. Big fish don’t come out of the water dry. But if you do go, send us some pictures of your trip. Check out our web page at www.yukonprogress.com. Or you can even follow us on Facebook!
I will be going fishing next week again, and you will get to hear about it and until then, thank you for reading the Oklahoma Catfish Report.
