The water temperature on the surface in Lake Conroe is reaching the low 90's now. I have learned from past experience that catfish die quickly on the line with this hot of water when jug fishing and trotlining. I say that this is the time to put away those jugs and trotlines and go back to rod and reel fishing. Even checking lines every hour, you find dead fish. I hate waste of good fish.

****Bumper Sticker****

"I will give up my trotline when some bass fisherman pries it from my Cold, Dead F'angers!"

(Most popular bumper sticker...down to the Shady Palms Trailer Park!)

I check my lines every twelve hours, and they are alive and well.

good one

I only use my jugs in January and Feburary when they are slow to bite and I want to stock up. I caught 41 keeper channels the other day in one shady spot and we had to ice them down because they were dying on a stringer.

you can keep trotlining this time of year but you have to suspend your line within about 5 ft from the surface ... that's where all the catfish will be anyhow but just tie about a 5 ft drop every 10 hooks or so and then tie it to a jug ... usually 4 or 5 jugs holding your line up is enough and if you catch them within 5 ft of the surface there's enough oxygen up there that they'll stay alive.

Fished at Lake Whitney this weekend and caught 5 fish on juglines up to 11.5 lbs. All fish were dead and realized we were fishing in about 20ft of water. Started driving the channel and noticed all of the fish in about 10-15ft of water, im assuming this was the thermocline. The surface temp was 87-90 degrees. All I can figure is that the cats smelled the bait in 20ft of water and went down to get it but there wasn't any oxygen. Had a good time, but wished I had started fishing shallower earlier in the weekend.

fish can go below the thermocline to pick up baits but when they start to get smothered they'll return upward until they can breath ... if they get caught below the thermocline and struggle they'll die almost instantly. seen that happen a bunch but the way to solve it is to suspend your hooks near the surface but not so high that boats will run into your line. it's manditory that lines be submerged at least 3 ft below the surface in oklahoma ... this is the law because of boat traffic ... it's dangerous to boaters if ya don't submerge them at least 4 ft ... 5 ft should be the minimum because lots of boats skegs run deeper than 4 ft.

you can see the thermocline by turning up the sensitivity some on a decent fish finder ... like a 500 series lowrance ... turn the sensitivity up to about 80% and it'll show a clutter looking zone and right at the top of that clutter you'll see the occasional fish and every once in a great while you'll see a fish below where the clutter starts but not very often. this helps to establish where to look for fish a lot of times also ... when you figure out where the thermocline is you can then pick out points at that depth and other structure to predict where fish are holding. this is handy when fishing for hybrids and what not. knowledge as to where the thermocline is plus a good gps unit with a contour map and that will narrow down the areas that a person should be searching for fish and help out quite a bit because it gives us a great starting point on where to look and eliminates a lot of the open water that's deeper than the thermocline, most of the time it does anyhow.

In the years past, I would remove the bottom two hooks on my juglines since yes,I knew of the oxygen depletion problem. Although that did help a great deal, I would still have dead fish on in shallow zones after one hour. Again, I am talking about when the surface temperature was above 92 up to 95 or so degrees. I am specifically talking about the north end of Lake Conroe which has very little current during the dry summertime. Of course,not all fish were dead, only some. However, the dead fish would looked like they had been dropped in boiling water they were so white. I decided that even a few wasted fish were too many.

i think the title of this thread is a little misleading ... there is a way to use set lines in any kind of weather without losing fish as tiny pointed out ... the fish are surviving just fine somewhere ... it's all about hook placement

Good point albert!

But then there is another alternative. We could trade in all those nasty chum buckets, trot lines, jug lines, limb lines, throw lines, set hooks, punch bait, dip bait, range cubes, soured grain and especially that nasty Old Mil!!

And then.....and then....and then.....we could take up being a ....a.....a.....(I can't hardly say it..)

.....a.....a.....HRUUUmph! Hrruuumph! ...(throat clogging up, excuse me.).....a ......a.....

..........BASS FISHERMAN!

There! I said it!

OOPs how did i do that? That has some possibilitys! Hummmmmmmmmmm

no need when YOU ARE awready a basserized catman

I take tiny's post as fact. My topic should have been " It is time I stop jug fishing and trotlining for the summer". I did not intend to suggest others should do the same. I do own a temperature plus oxygen device that works well, although it took me a while to really learn how to convert the readings to useful information. I have discovered that the thermocline depth is not constant in the lake. Tiny explained how to use a sonar to establish this for each location. Now, just call me lazy because I do not want to take the time, and effort, for each jug I place to make certain that no hooks are in the low oxygen zone. Another thing, the thermocline can change in a given location in a short period of time. Those of you that scuba dive know that this is true. I know that it takes water quite a while to change temperature. However, I would think that flow from creeks or the opening and closing of dam gates would alter the thermocline location. I spent several hours "playing" with my temperature plus oxygen device and found that there must be many factors that determine the location of the thermoclines in a lake. I guess my point is, it is easier to rod and reel fish this time of year rather than jug fishing and avoiding killing of fish.