How to Improve Your Frog Game for Bass

A topwater frog is one of your more straightforward baits with out-of-the-package fishability. However, several tweaks and adaptations will enhance sa frog’s performance. When the bite’s easy, an as-is presentation might get the job done, but in many cases, a little front-end effort can broaden your bait’s fish-tempting ability.

Leg Work

The standard multi-strand leg style simulates a kicking/swimming motion in open water, but a full set of legs can be overkill, if not a liability, by extending the bait’s profile too far past the hooks. Basically, if you have too much in the legs, fish might get a mouthful of strands without reaching the hooks.

For a simple for frog-trimming measurement, fold the legs forward over the frog’s back and trim the strands level to the front edge. For an enticing open-water retrieve, trim one side a half inch shorter to create uneven drag for a more exaggerated walking motion.

Over heavy mats and dense pads, trim those legs within an inch of the body, or remove them entirely. A stumpy, or legless frog may seem incomplete, but shrinking the bait’s profile makes the fish more likely to target the body.

Sinking Feeling

While much of society places enormous emphasis on weight loss, froggers often lean in the opposite direction—for their bait, that is. Out of the package, most frogs are heavy enough to move through lily pads, duck weed, and sparse grass, but dense mats often conceal the subtle imprint of a standard frog.

Deepen your frog’s impression by squeezing BBs or buckshot into the body (through the hook hole). This not only increases weight to deepen the frog’s impression, it adds enticing rattle; two points that help the fish find your frog.

With this strategy in mind, savvy froggers will take a cue from previous visitors, by noting a mat with “frog tracks.” Long lines cut into the surface scum means the spot was good enough to attract attention, while blow-up holes or drag marks where a caught fish plowed across the mat should further the appeal.

Design Difference

The traditional narrow-nosed walking frog is the common choice for all but open water, as it more smoothly navigates through cover; whereas a popping frog’s concave face creates the disturbance needed to alert distant fish.

That said, poppers can benefit your heavy-cover presentations with more of a surging motion that resembles a big frog bellying his way through cover. The exception is an eel grass mat, where those long, tough blades typically bog down a popper.

Stick It To ‘Em

Generally known, frog hooks are some of the strongest and sharpest you’ll encounter. Considering the hook-set obstacles of heavy cover and often awkwardly haphazard bite angles, you really gotta have the right hardware.

However, a couple of tips will benefit your efforts. First, tight hook profiles that hug the bait’s back work best in heavy cover, while bending a frog’s hook points slightly up and outward increases your open water hook-up potential. Also, tightly cinching the frog’s double hook shanks with braided line prevents the flexing that can lead to dislodging.

Once you’ve bound those hook shanks and reoriented the bait, adding a couple drops of Super Glue or Loc-Tite around the belly weight keeps this balancing piece from dislodging during a fight. Losing that weight not only impacts bait performance, it diminishes casting distance and allows the frog to fill up with water.

Also, dropping a little glue behind the hook eye bonds the nose to the hook, keeps the body straight and prevents it from pulling down along the shank. It’s a minor thing, but the time you'd spend straightening out a disfigured frog is time you could be firing off an other cast.

Presentation Prudence

Short side arm pops to isolated targets, skips beneath overhanging limbs — all part of the frog game. However, long casts are the norm.

Unlike bed fishing, subtlety is in short demand, so don’t worry about a heavy splash down. Minimize boat noise and avoid blowing out a spot with sudden trolling motor surges. However, plopping a bait onto a mat, or into open water matches what you mimic.

Case in point: I recently cast a frog toward the far side of a drain pipe’s current seam, but misjudged my distance. The frog hung in the emergent vegetation and when I popped it free, the frog disappeared in a violent boil the very instant it touched the water.

Bass constantly watch their feeding zones and frogs are some of the most common targets of opportunity. These amphibians hit the water swimming, so make sure your bait’s presenting an authentic look.

Another way to force a quick response comes by making a long cast to the hard shoreline and then working your frog into the water. This prevents spooking super shallow fish with the bait directly hitting the water, but resembles a real frog taking the plunge.

Give It A Rest

A properly modified frog can deliver repetitive action that allows you to maximize a sweet spot. Bass tend to cluster on appealing areas beneath sheltering vegetation and plucking a handful of good ones from an area the size of a pool table is no rarity.

Just know when you’ve worn out your welcome.

If the bites stop, try a couple different angles, but more likely, you’ll do better by giving the spot time to rest and reload. Revisit an hour or so later and you might find the fish have short memories.

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