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On frogging


BassProAddict

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I'm not big on frogging but I do have some questions:

1.So is it ALWAYS a topwater lure?

2.Are there swimming/suspending and diving frog lures?

3.Why are most frog lures big? Are there any downsized ones?

4.Do you T-rig or c-rig frogs?

5.Do you dropshot frog lures?

6.What's the best rig for a LIVE frog?

7.What's the retrieve action for most plastic frog lures?

8.Any of you flip or pitch kermit here?

9.How dependent are you on frogs?

10.What's your hookup versus usage ratio?

Thanks!

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I'll do my best, most from experience, the rest from what I have read. I have been fishing frogs since I was a kid but took a long hiatus, and have now gone back to it when the time calls for it.

1. A frog is not always a topwater lure. There are a few companies that make soft plastic frog bodies, such as the Berkley Gulp! Bat Wing Frog. A frog though is most commonly used as a topwater lure. Whether to fish them top or swimming is in my opinion based on what time of the year you are fishing. Spring, summer, and early fall topwater seems most effective, late fall swimming seems like it starts to pick up big time.

2. The above mentioned Gulp! Bat Wing Frog has twin paddle tails for legs that will work well for a multitude of applications.

3. Most frog lures are big because the frogs down south are BIG! I have fished and frog hunted in Arkansas, and when I say big I mean it. I have caught frogs that were 20"+ when the legs were stretched out. It is not uncommon to get 30 or more frogs that measure 15" or better when gigging in a night. There are some smaller frog baits as well and I think the smaller ones work better in Minnesota and other northern states. For a smaller frog, my go to is a Southern Lures Trophy Scum Frog, color selection will vary depending on where you buy them. For bigger frogs, the Spro Bronzeye is hard to beat.

4. When using the soft plastic style frogs a T-rig with a small weight might not be a bad option, and in the late fall a Carolina rig would be okay I would think. One rig that I would like to try is one of the larger swimbait hooks with the weight on the shank of the hook, most likely a late fall presentation.

5. I haven't done a drop shot rig with a frog, but then I just started drop shotting so I wouldn't know. I don't think it would be as effective as using a creature bait though, frogs are generally not going to go to the depths normally associated with the drop shot.

6. Best rig for a live frog, not sure as I don't fish live frogs but the guys I know who have typically use something like a 1/0 Gamakatsu Octopus hook with a weed guard.

7. My favorite that works very well is find the pads or mucked up pondweed and cast right up to the shore. Hop it back to the boat, I like to hop (je-rk) it over the holes in the weeds and let it rest right on the edge of the hole for a second. Resting over the hole IMO doesn't work as well as on the near edge. If you were a frog, seeing all your buddies getting inhaled as they swim over the holes, would you stop over the hole where they can see you or try to get up into the cover? I have found that I get more bites on the edge of the hole than over the center. Another way overlooked option is quick hopping the frogs down the side or up under docks. I nailed a dandy 18.5" bass on an empty boat lift about a month ago with a frog.

8. Pitching frogs to small holes in the pads can work. A lot of times if I do it, it is pitching just past the hole and dragging it to the near edge like I explained earlier. If you know the bass are there, it can be a lot of fun.

9. I am dependent on frogs when nature calls. If I get to the lake and it is nice and calm, and you can hear the frogs going ribbit-ribbit GET THE FROG! Go to the pads or the matted weeds and work it, sometimes the only way I can effectively fish some of those areas. Late fall when the frogs migrate from the shorelines to the winter holes in the mud on the bottom of the lake is when you want to pull the weighted swimmers out.

10. Hookup ratio depends on the frog you are using. When you buy a Spro Bronzeye, feel it in the package, if the body is hard and doesn't squish easy, pass on it and move to the next. A few people have bought the harder bodied ones and not been satisfied with the hookup ratio. When you find the softer ones, with Spro's I get about 65-70% hookup ratio. With the SLTSF I mentioned earlier, I get 80-90% hookup ratio, they are softer and smaller and therefore easier to collapse and get a good hookup. Therefore I fish the SLTSF a majority of the time here, but always have the Spros with incase I am finding a lot of big bass.

As far as colors, I have had luck on several. White is a good color right as the sun is going down in the evening, Chartruese works good too. Daylight and morning hours, I like natural or black. I have done well on black in the early morning. Equipment is always my 6'-6" MH F Diawa Heartland-X rod with a Curado 200B spooled with 30 lb Spiderwire braid.

Take a look in the background of the first pic. Frog Heaven!

1405794232_3fa09994ce.jpg

This is the one that came off the boat canopy, right near some thick matted weeds.

2626201821_8d174307ee.jpg

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Now that's what I call an answer Polarus! Awesome work.I have some questions on your answers that I hope you won't mind answering:

1.Do swimming worms have to be weighted down to sink or are these frogs you mentioned natural sinkers/suspenders?

2.Related to #1

3.Roger on the frogs needing to be big but I think ANY bait has to have a downsized option right? Why aren't there seemingly too few downsized frogs?

4.When you T-rig a frog, do you have to peg it since frogs are mostly slop-fished right? For C-rigs, do you drag it or slow-retrieve it--> (are they even different?)?

5.Drop shot frog...I guess one way to find out

6.Wondering how long a live frog can be rigged before drowning

7.Roger on the retrieve...what about the HOOKSET? Do you even set it or does the bass hook itself with treble hooked/double hooked frogs? How do you set the hook on a Tex-posed plastic frog when the bass explodes on it?

8.Can't wait to try this.Do you pitch floating frogs or sinking frogs?

9.You have special frog gears and setup?

10.What's the feel of a frog bite? Is there any subtlty about it or is it a violent strike?

Thanks buddy! You da man!

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1&2. For most of the swimming type frogs, they have enough weight to slowly sink themselves. I know the Gulp! ones do. But they do not sink very fast, I think they work best almost using them like a jerk-bait. A little weight doesn't hurt if you are trying to get them to fall into the pads, I just prefer to fish them on top pretty much right up to the time they start to move out.

3. The Southern Lures Trophy Scum Frog is a much smaller bait than the Spros. I have seen two sizes of the Spros, the original and the Junior. I also prefer the SLTSF because it is a very soft but durable silicone material that stands up to many fish quite well. I think the actual Scum Frog brand frogs aren't quite as good in my opinion. They are smaller, but they have a rubber skirt like the old school spinnerbaits and jitterbugs. What ever you do, don't get the rubber skirts as they melt at a moments notice in a tackle box.

4. When the rare occasion does happen that I would t-rig one, I do peg, just makes it easier to pull through the weeds and other junk.

6. The people I know that have used live frogs only do weightless and prefer the lighter hooks to let the frog swim as it wishes. I personally think it is quite difficult to fish a live frog, which is why I don't do it.

7. For the hookset, I drive em home and try to pull the fish up on top of the slop. They are usually in a pretty good mess and if you don't get them up on top, it can get nasty quick. A lot of times, the bass will explode on them and come completely out of the water, in that case you have to wait until they get back in the water to set the hook. When they don't explode on the frog, they come up and suck it in from behind, you just hear a slurp and the frog isn't around. The strike on a frog is one of my favorites to witness.

8. The frogs I have pitched to holes were always the floating ones, haven't tried it yet with the swimmers, but I think they would work pretty well in that situation as well.

9. Just the medium heavy rod I use for wormin and jiggin, use it for frogs too. I never leave for the lake without that rod. I also run a lipless crank on there a lot of times too, very versitile rod. Some guys prefer a burner reel so they can get the fish up and in the boat quick for frogs, just because of the slop you generally fish em in.

10. I think I covered it in 7, but it can be either. Some dull, some "pinch me, did I just see that?" cool. A lot of times when it is sittin on the edge of the hole they come up and suck it in, but when it is over the hole, off a dock, or in the pads it is usually a more exciting strike, from my experience with em.

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Just for fun, here are a couple pics of a frog we found hibernating down in Arkansas during January in the duck swamp. This is just the average size bull frog down there.

Ready to jump...err just sit there.

2697951530_a64bceb754.jpg

Stretched out, sorry bout the heater.

2697951666_ba8c0d85db.jpg

And no, frog legs don't taste like chicken. But they are darn tasty.

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polar covered it well! my $.02

i fish much of the time with the power bait bat wing frogs,( i think?) using a 5/0 gama hook. no weight.this is heavy enough for casting, and a slow fall rate, but most of my hits come on the surface.JUST be WARNED! some of the hits can be almost heart stopping!!!then try NOT to set the hook til you feel the weight of the fish.( good luck on this one! grin) usually i work them as a buzz bait, but will stop them on the edge of an opening. seems to tick the fish off as they may be waiting just below and will hit as it comes into the opening. just a note. notherns love these baits also!

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I don't have much more to add other than about fishing live frogs. We fish live frogs in late summer early fall on the mississippi for smallmouth. We usually dead stick, with a lindy rig (2-3ft). We just fish gravel flats that have current. Pretty simple and a lot of action. We typicaly use 3-4" frogs and a #2 octypus hook and 1/4 oz walking sinker. The frogs seem to last 10-15 min underwater maybe longer never really timed it, usually didn't have to wait that long before they get hit.

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For anyone that wants to get some of the Gulp! Bat Wing Frogs, Thorne Bros had a huge rubbermaid container full of em at their sale today. They were at 50% off and they had a ton of other good stuff on sale too. Picked up a Crucial Drop Shot rod there for 30% off. Gotta love that.

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i found that if i let a yum buzz frog sink a couple of feet, then give a slight twitch, the legs will kick and the frog will glide under water. it looks just like a swimming frog. i'm not sure if the other swim frogs would work the same, but the yum has it's paddle feet in such a fasion that they catch the water just right for that 'kicking' motion. it may work better with a weighted hook, we'll see.

as for the hollow bodies, gotta love the spro. although i really want to try a sumo frog.

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BassProAddict,

Frogs are my new go-to bait. Haven't actually caught any on them yet, but they just feel right this summer. Sizmic sells a frog kit, complete with hooks and ... ta-dah ... size options. The kit I picked up at Gander has three sizes in four colors; total of 12 or so frogs in the kit, and less than 15 bucks. A really good deal.

The cup-faced frogs fish like a buzz bait ... I'm loving twitchin them on superline -- there's no way to hang them up.

The smaller two options aren't cup-faced, and sink a little more than the cip-faced ones, so I use them when I want to skitter over lily pads, dropping down in the holes between the pads ... the smaller ones sink just a litte bit more and faster into the pockets -- i'm positive i'm going to nail one like this soon. I never cared for topwaters until finding these frogs. They are a ton of fun and heavy enough to cast with precision.

Regards,

lazy ike

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My go to bait since mid summer was the stanley ribbit frogs. Some said it was too hot for frogs.....but what do they know if they don't fish it? Frogs will produce! They act like a buzz bait, having paddled feet so they can kick up water. I use them with my 6'8 mh shimano cumara rod with a shimano core reel w/ the 7.1 gears. Depending on the situation...I burn them over pad edges sometimes because they are very loud when they kick up water. This is very, very deadly when calling the big boys from the deep! The best right now has been the morning bite and the evening bite. Once the fog lifts...or the shade kicks in over the water's edge, get the frogs out. Trust me...they will produce! Theres no wrong way to fish a frog really....but there is a right time though! That time is now!

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The Big foot frog is suberb. A tip that i know some people do, Put some split shots in the frog for castibility and a more natural legs down in the water look.

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go try some! My fav are the watermelon w/ red flakes or the watermelon with pearl bottom. They're about $3.xx per bag of 5 but you can find them online for 1.99 per bag. They've been my ticket to a 5.5 last week and a 4.0, 4.2, and 4.4 pounder yesterday! I hit the shallows in the morning and evenings, and pull them out of the drops and deep by mid day. Go get a pack, pick a nice lake and get them out there! You can try a few to see what works for you..but I really like the stanley ribbit frogs.

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I like that color too - natural always works as well. I picked up some bull ribits, but haven't tried them. I haven't used the floaters either. 5's and 4's are hogs - congrats. Getting them to bite is one thing, and battling them in the thick weeds is another. Where are the pics? The biggest largie this year is on my avartar. 21" Bass opener - no clue on the weight.

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