Well that’s not what you want to see at the end of your line…
I’ve never gone jug fishing, but I certainly get the appeal.
Drop a line down to the bottom, attach it to a pool noodle or buoy, then let it sit overnight while you get to get some shuteye before coming back in the morning to pull up that night’s dinner? Sure beats sitting in the dark, hearing all kinds of terrifying noises in the woods, and getting bombarded by mosquitoes.
But if you’re fishing somewhere swamp puppies are lurking, there’s always a chance it’s not a catfish you’re pulling up.
Alligators are found throughout the 10 states in the southeastern part of the United States, as far west as Texas and up north to North Carolina. Louisiana and Florida have the highest populations at 2 million and 1.3 million respectively, with the other states trailing far behind.
We don’t know exactly where this video comes from but a fisherman was out checking his jug lines with what I presume to be his wife, and she starts filming as they bring up one of the lines that he thinks a monster catfish is on.
“This is a big, big catfish. My biggest catfish, it’s gotta be. Getting him off the bottom is a little bit tough.”
To which is wife responds
“We’ll be eating good tonight!”
But when their catch breaks the surface, they’re not greeted by a flathead, blue, or channel… they’re greeted by a long snout and a mouthful of sharp teeth.
It was an alligator, and a large one at that.
Naturally, his wife got pretty nervous, but this clearly wasn’t the guy’s first run in with one of these prehistoric creatures and just continues saying how big of a catfish it was before giving it a tap on the head and letting the line go.
Honestly, I don’t really know what you do from there except cut the line and go check your other jugs. Maybe it was gator hunting season and they could harvest it, but as we heard from the Mississippi hunters who bagged the state record, that can be much more of a fight than they were ready for.
Gotta stay alert in gator country, you just never know when one’s going to peek its beady eyes up and try to pull you under…
