A Look At Frogs In DetailBy Aric Stoner
Many of us have tried them, and chances are those of us who didn't catch
many fish with them haven't touched them since! I'm talking about those
big hollow soft rubber-bodied top waters that we know as Scum Frogs and
Snagproof Tournament Frogs (or similar baits). There are two main
reasons why these baits often make a quick trip back to the bottom of
the tackle box. One, you're not getting too many bites, and two, you're
missing too many fish, or a combination of both. Let's take a closer
look at these problems, and I will outline some ways of how to get
around them.
You've taken ten casts, and now you're ready to change baits yet
again. Chances are you're just working that frog a little too fast. If
you're fishing the right stuff (thick weed beds or lily pads) then you
need to slow down your retrieve.
What a lot of guys like to do is skip the frog along as if it were in
a frantic run to get away from a predator. Now logically, that seems
like the correct approach, right? Wrong! While you may get "some" bites
doing this, you will miss out on the better quality fish by retrieving
the bait quickly like this.
Simply put, big bass are big lazy couch potatoes. They will sometimes
be in a chasing mood, but most of the time, if they are hiding in the
green stuff, they often aren't very active. They just sit around waiting
for a nice easy meal to munch on. They hide to ambush prey as well, but
the bigger fish still won't likely chase down a quick moving bait. It
will just zoom over their head and they will just sit and wonder what
all that commotion was.
What I like to do is pop, or twitch the bait once or twice, then stop
for a few seconds and repeat. When my bait comes to a pocket, weed
edge, lily pad or something else different to key on, I will let it sit,
and sit, and then sit some more! I will often let that frog sit there
for as long as 15-30 seconds and sometimes up to a minute. Trust me, it
is well worth the wait!
Now here is the important part, if there hasn't been a blow up by
now, I will just barely twitch it without moving the bait much at all.
This will make the legs quiver a little, and most often this is where I
will get a big strike.
What you need to realize here is that when retrieving these lures, if
there is a fish in the area, he has to have time to hear or see the
bait, then swim over to the source of the commotion, then inspect it
some more, and then decide whether or not to hit it. Big fish can be
very fussy that way.
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