I bought six of the Walmart Fish_a_Noodle jugs and also the little package of lines, leads, hooks.

Here's my problem. The line is about six feet long with a weight on the line and a "J" hook at the end.

I set out my jugs and just watched them while fishing R and R. I could see my jugs jerk, tumble over, start moving across the lake, etc. Over half of the time, though, I would motor up to the jug, only to pull up an empty hook with nothing on it. The cats were just sucking the shad off of the hook.

I begin to think that the reason the cats weren't being hooked to often was because the lines were free floating in the water without being anchored down with some type of weight.

I went to Walmart and bought some jug line and bought some of the "big eye" trotline hooks to put on the lines. I also bought some trotline clips to put on the lines with the new hooks.

Question: Is there a certain type of hook that does a better job on juglines than just the standard "J" type hook?

What about Kahle and Circle hooks, folk? Also what size hook to use would help as well.

I'll be sure to post results. Maybe with a weight on the bottom of the line, the hook style won't make much difference. It was really, really frustrating to run those jug lines every 20 minutes or so, only to find all my hooks bare with no fish!

I would recommend a 5-0 stainless salt water long shank hook, put no more than 1 hook on the line, 3 ft from the weight with the staging 18in. long. This time of the year I fish in about 6-8 ft of water with my juglines baited with perch. Check your lines every 2-3 hrs at nite, that is when the yellowcats are on the move & feeding.If you want to catch channels & blues, fish in a little deeper water with ghost minnows & fresh shad all day long, checking them every 2 hrs. Hope this helps, this is what works for me! Good fishing & God Bless, be safe.

Kahle 4/0 or 5/0 are good hooks. Circles are ok but I wouldnt put them on every jug I had. I also like tru turns on my jugs. When you bait your hooks with the shad worm them on the hook and when you bring it out the tail bring it out all the way through and push the shad up over and past the barb. I would put weight on my jugs also. Why chase them all over the lake. Doesnt make sense to me. I use two hooks per jug but no more. Three will get you hurt. Not saying two wont. Also I don't think you were getting hits from catfish. Probabaly gar. That's just too many missed fish. How are you tagging these jugs?