Catfish Jugging with noodles

Deeply seated within my nature is a love of passive things that generate value.  I love the concept of trapping, be it for furbearing animals, or bait fish, there is just something about setting up a system that hunts for you while you are doing other things.  In this spirit I have gotten into jug fishing for catfish.  I have the good fortune to be on the water quite often and after a good storm it is very easy to find pool noodles strewn all over the place where they have been blown away by the wind or washed away by the rain.  I also have the good fortune to work in construction and have access to quite a lot of scrap PVC.  I also collect lead weights etc and make my own sinkers.  I decided years ago to begin making my own catfish jugs, and found that with a combination of all my aforementioned treasures that I have found that I had to simply pay for fishing line and for swivels in order to make jugs out of pool noodle floats and PVC.  

While making my fishing jugs I decided to experiment with some other materials and found that bamboo actually makes a very good substitute for the PVC and pool noodles.  It floats well, its readily available, not nearly as much work goes into its construction, and it actually seems to catch fish better.  I attribute this ability to catch more to its less noticeable colors.  I do wrap each one with some visible tape and according to NC laws with my pertinent information, but the bamboo still doesn't have the conspicuous colors that the noodles do.  I have quite enjoyed trying it out though and have had great success in jug fishing through the past summer and fall.  

There are lots of different methods for constructing these noodles, mine is not the most complicated by far, but has been very successful for me.  I simply attach a swivel to each jug, and tie a length of line onto each.  I put an egg sinker in the middle a few feet above the hook at the end and I bait each up and simply toss them out a few yards away from each other out in one cove or one area, then go and fish somewhere for a few hours then come back and run down each noodle with a fish on it.  

Catfish make wonderful table fare and can be caught on the scraps and junk of other fishing forays or hunting forays.  I have caught them on dove hearts and livers as well as rabbit innards, and I have also used the heads and pieces of smaller fish I filleted.  I save all these and freeze them.  Catfish seem to be the ultimate "something for nothing" fish in freshwater.  I plan to catch as many as possible this year and in years to come.  Its tough to beat a catfish fillet or catfish sandwich.  I'm thankful for discovering how fun these fish can be.  Chasing down jugs at the end of a day of fishing adds that much more flavor to the experience as a whole.  

John 16:33

Yellow Perch

Yellow Perch

Yellow perch have to be some of the most aggressive and "user friendly" fish that there are out there in the freshwater realm of fishing.  I have recently found them as a target species and they have more than exceeded any expectations for them that I might previously have held.  

Yellow perch do not have very discerning tastes when it comes to the baits they will hit.  I have had a great deal of luck with them hitting similar colors to themselves in the areas I fish.  They seem to have cannibalistic tendencies, but they seem to be voracious and are very fun to fight.

Yellow perch have a lot more meat on them than I thought they might, but are not so easy to fillet as some other fish.  I have found that scaling them first and then filleting them seems to keep the edge on a fillet knife much more easily.  They have quite a bit of meat over top of their ribs and have a very firm fillet.  Even the small fish have a good fillet on them.  

I have had more fun catching these little orange and green warriors than most anything and they have been very consistent throughout the year regardless of the season.  They seem to be more consistently caught at very slow speeds or even sitting still, but I have caught quite a few on crank baits at certain times of year and they hit them at a pretty fast clip.  These are fast moving up the ladder of popularity with me and I hope to enjoy many years to come fishing them.  I am thankful that these little orange titans are out there and have been certainly blessed to do battle with them.  

Matthew 13:45-50

Rabbits

Rabbits

At a very early age I learned to appreciate rabbits.  My papaw raised rabbits and I did not know it at the time, but they were some of the most prolific and easiest to keep and raise of all the critters he had on his farm.  He would keep great quantities of them and sell or eat them.  They were much quieter than his chickens and much smaller and easier to house than his larger critters like hogs and goats. 

Getting old enough to start hunting I learned a new appreciation for them as table fare and as very apt quarry in the field.  I learned to love the development of beagles who would pursue them and learned the importance of habitat to keep them safe from their natural predators which have since decimated the populations locally.  I fondly remember the rabbit hunts I used to go on with my dad and my uncles and my cousins. 

Rabbits seem to be a great indicator species for the health of a habitat in an area.  I notice they seem to require just a bit more than other more adaptable animals such as squirrels or even deer.  Though I might have strayed in my interests into waterfowl hunting, or other upland and wingshooting quarry, my heart always brings me back to my love of the pursuit of rabbits.  There’s something special about watching a beagle work a brush pile or hearing and seeing a pack of beagles burn up a rabbit trail.  I hope that the rabbits make a come back around my area and I appreciate them all the more now that they are not as common as they used to be.  The farmers have begun cleaning their fields down into the ditch lines and leave nowhere for the rabbits to hide and escape their predators. 

Rabbits are one of God’s most efficient creations that can eat nearly any vegetation and survive on nearly nothing.  They can even re-process their own waste if need be.  They live in the roughest and nastiest thickets and brush and they repopulate an area quickly when allowed to be left alone.  I’ve heard it said that the rabbit doesn’t have a friend in the world, the coyotes and the house cats and hawks have really worked on them here and the owls have taken a toll at night, but still my nature seems to be naturally drawn to this efficiency.  I for one am glad and thankful that they are out there.  I hope that our farming practices can in the future allow for them to return to their former numbers and that my children and grandchildren can enjoy pursuing rabbits in the future.

Proverbs 30-26