deep

Caught the first 2 frog fish of 2020 today. Kinda small though. The weather was great, mid 70's and sunny; the fishing, not so much. Apparently everyone else thought it was a great day to be out on the water too lol.

Got out on the water after 9 weeks, almost to the day. What a @#$%show. Parking lot overflowing (on a weekday) with twice as many vehicles for the capacity. Maybe 2-3 feet of visibility in a reservoir where normally I expect to see the bottom in 10 FOW. Snagged and lost a 110+1 on the second cast, after trying to unsnag it while fighting the wind for 10 minutes. Then I managed to drop my pole-type lure retriever in the drink. At least it was in somewhat shallow water and I got it back after faffing around with the paddle for a while. By this time, I had enough; and I hadn't even caught a fish! The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, thankfully, other than fighting the wind. Caught maybe 15 or so bass; they were all small.

"a shallower diver with a smaller profile for shallow ponds but also fishing clear water." 110 junior, flashminnow 80. Also a trick darter fished on heavier (10# or heavier) line. All of these are suspending baits. Lucky Craft makes a bait called Wander 80 which is a slow-sinker. The FX-9 is a slow-med rising bait (It also rises nose-up, which is a different look.) "And also just adding some deeper divers." 110+1 (~8 ft on JDM 10# size Tatsu), 110+2 (~12 ft on JDM 10# size fluoro). The KVD 300 deep jerkbait hits ~10 ft on JDM 12# size fluoro. These are baits that you can work like jerkbaits. If you're looking for pull/ sweep type baits, there are a lot more options. Staysee, Pointer XD, Live-X Leviathan, and quite a few others. "pointer vs lighting pointer, pointer XD vs staysee, staysee vs staysee v2 vs v3." I don't know what a lightning pointer does. I have heard of it, know it's a newer and cheaper model, just never bought one. Pointers come in different flavors, the regular pointer (the JDM version is called BFreeze, same bait), the slender pointer (if you only want one lucky craft, get the slender pointer 112), the flash pointer (newer). The silent pointer 95 is a sleeper, but very good bait. The pointer XD hits almost 14 ft on JDM 12# size fluoro. I was impressed with the deepdiving abilities. Different profile and action from the Staysee too. Didn't catch much on it though. There's a Staysee 120SP that'll go past 12 ft on JDM 10# size fluoro, and I like it better. The Staysee 90 v1 is a slow-riser, v2 is the suspending one, v3 is a slow-sinker.

So very sorry to learn this Tom. May he rest in peace.

Haven't fished much since last August, but walked the banks for a bit today with a couple jerkbaits. Water temps are in the high 30's, so I wasn't expecting much, especially from the shore. I covered a fair amount of water, and found a bunch of fish on a main lake point though, ~10 bass, ~5 or 6 jumbo crappies, and 1 unlucky rainbow trout. I've caught dozens on brook trouts on jerkbaits, but never a rainbow, until today that is. Not a bad way to ring in the new year, and I caught some dinner too!

Buddy took me out, and put me on a good one today. This was the only one I caught, but good to be back on the water after almost a month.

Hi there. I usually point the rod at the bait and jerk down or to the side. It's a lot more finessy affair than walking a spook. You can also just walk it with the reel. Keep the rod pointed at the bait, leave some slack in the line and make 1/8th or 1/4th turns of the reel handle (with pauses in-between). Some frogs definitely walk easier though. Matt Allen has an in-depth video on it. Search for "How to Walk a Frog", posted on 04/29/2015.

TLDR version: Fish small frogs that have hooks on top (not on the sides). Walk your frog. Make short casts. Use a heavy/ extra-heavy (power) rod. Straight braid. Drag locked down. Reel down and set hook straight up. Get your fish in the boat fast. Longer version: Fun Fact 1: At least 75% of my frog fish (ever) were caught in the last 2 months. Fun Fact 2: At least 75% of the frogs I own were acquired in the last 2 months. Preamble: I am ~5'8" and ~160 lbs. My kayak (Ocean Kayak Tetra) weighs ~50 lbs, and I (have to) fish sitting down. You might (or might not) already have less bugs to work out (better hooksetting leverage) depending on your situation. I tried a bunch of different things, and missed a lot of bites, before I found out what worked for me. After that, I landed pretty much every bass that "ate" the frog. I will say almost every frog I tried got bit (as long as I was walking them). Hooking the fish was the hard part. Bonus pro(lol) tip: Have a follow-up bait ready to throw back when a fish misses your frog. Small frogs: Topwaters in general are much more buoyant than a frog (or a baitfish) of the same size/ dimensions. I don't believe bass always get the bait (or all of it) in their mouths, especially when there's a lot of pads around. With frogs (armed with snagproof hooks as they are) I think this is a big issue. You actually have to set the hook! I don't think I got any more (relatively speaking) strikes on a smaller frog, compared to a regular sized one, but I have no doubt I hooked more fish simply because they got the whole bait when they blowed up on it. (Bend the hooks out and up if that makes you feel more confident when not fishing in pads.) The one exception would be mat frogs; and then I'd scale one size down and use a regular sized frog (rather than something like a phat mat daddy or a spro king daddy). Hooks on top: I am not sure how this actually translated to more hookups, but there was a significant different in the strike to hookup ratio betweeen frogs with hooks on top vs hooks on their sides (see pic). I didn't snag any more pads with frogs having my preferred hook configuration either. One single hook on top (Evergreen Kicker Frog) seemed like a very good idea, and I did have a very good hookup ratio with it, but unfortunately couldn't give the bait an extensive trial to see if this was even better than the double hook on top. Walk your frog: I don't know why this worked, but walking yielded much better results than bobbing up and down. And a frog of course doesn't really walk far side to side like a spook. I will admit a few (very few) fish bit as soon as the frog landed, and a few others bit when I was dragging over a mat and soon as the bait got to an open hole. But other than that, walking the frog was key. Luckily, all frogs walk, some better than others though. You can even walk (most) frogs with just the reel as long as there's enough slack. Bonus pro(lol) tip: Skip your frog under overhangs and then walk it back. Short casts: I generally fish deep clear/ slightly stained reservoirs, with not a whole lot of shoreline cover, an awful lot. I always prefer(red) to stay as far away from the fish as possible. Seems like longer casts were not an important factor in getting bit with a bunch of shallow cover though, and I had a much better chance of getting a hook in the fish with shorter casts. The big problem I had with longer casts is the line would get wrapped around the pads and when I'd get a bite, I had little hooksetting power. Not an issue in open water obviously. So I learned to make short 50 to 75 feet casts except when covering vast expanses of mats with holes here and there (and then I did what I could to keep the line away from the pads). Bonus pro(lol) tip: When fishing edges of pads, cast 10 feet or so into the pads and bring your frog back out, rather than casting right to the edge. I think I drew quite a few fish out of the pads and they bit right at the edge. Rod, line, drag: I caught most of the frog fish on an IRod Fred's Magic Stick. It's surprising how far that rod will cast a true 1/3 oz frog, considering it's rated upto 2 oz. Also caught a few on a Dobyns Champion 764 (which worked fine for small and regular frogs with lighter hooks). I preferred the IRod, because it was heavier (in power) and lighter (in absolute weight), and has a longer handle which I like both for casting and setting the hook. Literally two of my eleven regular size reels (non-swimbait casting reels, and I don't do spinning) have braid on them. For whatever reason, the drag on my Curado K doesn't lock down, and I found out the hard way that even a slightly slipping drag is not ideal for frogging (not from a kayak anyway). Used my Exsence DC after that discovery. Hookset: After trying a few different things, I learned to set the hook straight up, and hard, like I was trying to break something. Worked very well. Also, get your fish in the boat fast. I literally lost one frog fish (out of dozens) that I actually hooked , but quite a few were not hooked very well and a few times the frog just fell out soon as I got the fish in the boat. Popping vs non-popping and color: Didn't see much of a difference between popping vs non-popping frogs (surprising). As far as color goes, pretty much all the frogs I bought got white/ chartreuse bellies. I think chartreuse worked a little better, but I don't have a big enough sample set. Suggested frogs: Here are the ones that worked well for me. Jackall Iobee, Booyah Popping, Evergreen Kicker, Nories Chibi something, Megabass Pony (not Pony Gabot), smallest size Booyah, Molix Baby Sneaky Frog. (I have about a dozen others that got just as many bites but had lackluster hookup ratios. Anyone looking for some cheap frogs?)

One last trip to Lake Faraway before school starts, and one last good fish. Actually that's the only fish I caught yesterday, before a big thunder/rain storm chased me off the water. No regrets though. Faraway has been good to me. I caught fifteen or so good fish, and a really good one, in ~10 trips. Might not seem very impressive, but to put things in perspective, it would probably take me one whole year to catch that many decent fish from my local lakes! I'm going to start working on a post about fishing frogs sitting down in a kayak. The learning curve was steep, and it took me a good bit of time to figure out the techniques, baits and gear that actually put fish in the boat (I missed a lot of fish before I finally figured out what worked).

Back to catching "normal-size" kicker fish. These are not quite 5 pounders (yet) but I tried to follow @A-Jay's lead, and caught the first one before it started raining, and the second one when it was pouring. Caught both of these on a JDM Nories Chibi Ebigaeru (apparently that means "little shrimp frog"). When everyone's fishing the same lily pads in the same little 75 acre reservoir with the same Spro and Booyah frogs, I think it's good to show the fish something a little different. (Caught a few on a Jackall Iobee too, but guess that's not as exotic.)

Almost too big to fit in the picture lol. Definitely the biggest I've caught this year, probably the biggest in the last few years. Barely got the fish in the kayak and the frog flew out of her mouth. That was close. Maybe I should get a net. Caught a few more, and then a small panda to round out the day.

Tough fishing yesterday, sharing a well-under-100-acres reservoir with 5 other boats. Worked hard to catch a small limit. This one was the best of the bunch. I did catch a big catfish on a double tail grub though, and that was pretty cool.

Still burning gas and catching bass (from these faraway reservoirs). About 10 blowups on a frog today in a little over 4 hours on the water. Pretty sure three of them missed the bait. Hooked seven; one dove into a patch of pads and got lost before I could paddle over and dig it out. Landed couple small guys, one semi-decent one, and three good ones.

So, these stained shallow reservoirs are pretty different from the ones I usually fish. Haven't been catching very many, but the average size has gone way up. Think I could get used to this! Also, a double rainbow! Wonder what it means.

Tried out another new-ish reservoir yesterday. Caught a few, including these two within a few feet of each other, about an hour apart though! Pitching, punching and frogging. Pads everywhere. Need to spend more time learning this lake and finding the fish- I don't have a topo map.

Slowly figuring out a thing or three fishing this newish-to-me reservoir. The "tree" bite I found and refined the last two trips was almost nonexistent. I paddled and graphed around a lot; and found a few fish. Caught several, including these two on back-to-back casts; thought that was pretty cool.

LOL now we got a bunch of BR members who are salty because all their rods are low-end (at best).

Well done! WTG.

I have been trying to get out of my comfort zone, driving further, and fishing some new(ish) reservoirs lately. It isn't usually much fun fishing in the midday sun, but the heat and humidity seem to keep most people off the water, and I sure like that (these are all small electric only lakes, no jetskis etc). I caught 6 small ones yesterday and a couple quick releases. Not complaining though, buddy and I fish these places once in a while, and have a lot less luck. Guess I fish more thoroughly when I am on my own. Highlight of the day was a channel catfish I caught on a rage baby menace on a jighead. Set the hook and knew it was a good fish, but then it came up near the surface and I saw what it was. Then it kept digging and digging until it won't come up for like a minute or so. Finally landed the fish. It was a good fight on a 3 power Conquest/ Curado 71/ 12# Tatsu. Forgot to measure or weigh it, but it was around 20 inches.

Stingiest reservoir ever gave up 8 today; I don't think I've ever hooked more than 3 there on any one outing before today!! Also caught this weird looking baby (~10 inches) catfish pitching plastics. Not sure what kind of catfish though.

#lastcast #noskunks Fished all around the tiny pond I was fishing for an hour or so without any luck, while a fly fisherman was camping out at the one corner- with all sorts of current, temperature and O2 breaks- that I really wanted to fish. I decided to wait until he was done, and then I waited, and then I waited some more. Finally got tired of waiting, so I went up and asked if he'd mind if I made a few casts. He didn't, so I made my five or six casts, caught and released this bass, thanked him, and left.

Caught me a good one on the oneten plus one today:

Seems like there's a hump (or a hollow) on the spine of the point, and (at least some) casts from positions 1-4 cover that. (reading too much into it?) The few long main lake points in the reservoirs I fish have fairly sharp break(s) (one or two depth breaklines). I usually fish those break(s) both horizontally and vertically (not necessarily video game fishing), and move on; except when I feel like a more elaborate approach (as detailed in the sketch) might yield a lot more fish. I think what's really crucial is figuring out how (if at all) the fish are relating to the point, the corresponding depth(s), and breaks/ breaklines at those depths. And then I can fish for them with my favorite baits. I prefer paralleling breaklines (less casting, more fishing at the correct depths), but fish sometimes have different routines.

Surprised no one mentioned deadsticking topwaters, specifically topwater hard/ soft swimbaits. The goal is to make your bait appear dying, not dead. A twitch or two every few minutes will do the trick. It's a low percentage technique, but when you know/ think there's a fish in the area/ spot that will not bite, this often works.

Walking the banks for a bit in the AM, and caught 6 including a quick release. None were much bigger or smaller than this last one.