Jug Fishing

This past weekend was a BLAST!! My dad, my Matt and I went jug fishing on Richland Chambers and it was so fun! We went Friday afternoon and set out our jug lines, and we ran them a few times. We hand fished and ran our little "noodle" jugs a couple of times also. It was a successful trip! Here's what we caught:

Dad with a 'lil guy.

Matt with another 'lil guy.

Dad weighing our 23 lb. Op, caught on a jug...what a thrill!

Friday nights catch...13 fish!

That's not bad for going up there to set jugs out to prepare for the next day! We came back to town, stopped for a pizza and spent the night at Lake Mary with Mom and Dad. We got up early Saturday morning and were headed out of the driveway before 5 a.m. Of course, we had to stop by Kim's Box Car Deli for a Big Daddy Burrito, YUMMY! Then we were on our way. We were the first ones to the boat ramp, got our gear ready and the crowd started appearing. Hank, my brother-in-law and Craig showed up with a boat and Steve, Hank's dad showed up with his boat and crew. We all went our own ways, but it was fun knowing people on the lake with you. We decided first to run our jugs. It was still dark, but we slowly made our way across the lake to the first jug, we had some nice fish that run, and one jug that started tugging back...it was this guy:

Love me some catfish slime!

You can't keep blue's between 30"-45", so he got to go back in the water...until we meet again! We baited the lines again as we checked them and then went to our shallow area to pole fish and set out our little jugs...there were a few boats there already, so we decided to try another little cove that dad's friend Joe had told him he had luck with. So, we set out our little noodle jugs and went to the shallow area to see if we could see some carp or gar, that we could shoot with our bow fishing rig.

You could see them flipping and swirling near the banks.

I got close enough to one flippin' and swirlin' and took a shot!

I actually hit it!!! WOO HOO!

I've been bow fishing a handful of times, but don't have much luck with hitting the fish...no sights, the water, there are a lot of variables. BUT, not this time! I shot and the arrow stayed for a second, and then started swimming off! I was like a little girl at Christmas, squealing and just giddy! I reeled him in and this is my trophy:

Can you tell I was excited?

That was so much fun, I'll always remember that...I'm pretty sure my guys got a kick out of my actions! Haha! After that, it was time to check our jugs again, and then it was back to the cove. We were checking our little jugs and one of them started to go under the water:

Sorry, you can't read the text - the green circle is normal....the blue circle is the one going under water.

We circled around and tried to get it again and what did we find...a 14" blue catfish, that was being eaten by this guy:

A 42 lb. Op! Pure excitement!

Here's the video of it, pardon my squealing...it was exciting!

How do you top that high? Wow! We caught a lot more fish on the jugs, but that was seriously the catch of the day!

A 21 lb. blue we had to put back because it was over 30".

Our total catch for day 2.

59 fish total, minus the 2 we had to put back...I call that a successful fishing trip! The memories made will last a lifetime, and we're all hooked and ready to go back!

Me 'n my guys! =) Love them both!

For giggles!

P.S: Those fish tasted YUMMY!