kfelton0002

Wait until you feel the weight of the fish and then set the hook. If you don't pause for at least a couple of seconds you will pull the frog right out of the fish's mouth. The best frogs I have used as far as best hookset ratio are the Koppers LiveTarget, Spro Bronze eye, and KVD Sexy frogs.. Booyah frogs are pretty soft too and the body collapses well for a good hookset. I have had the most luck on Koppers LiveTarget and Spro though.

Your medium/heavy rod will be ideal for froggin! Invest in some good quality braid that is at least 30 pound test and have fun hauling them in!

I recently bought my husband a Abu Garcia Orra S spinning reel combo (the rod is a medium/fast action) and we throw mainly topwater frogs and plastics (senkos and creature baits) with it. It will cast a mile even with a weightless 5" senko! And with some heavy braid it is a beast for froggin. We haven't invested in a medium/heavy or heavy setup for froggin yet and seem do well with the medium rods/reels. Tie on a flurocarbon leader and throw senkos, flukes, craws, etc. Its an awesome combo. We don't do much crankbait, jig, or spinnerbait fishing in the ponds we fish but spinning reels are very versatile and you can throw any type of lure with them I imagine. I am a firm believer that you can make one rod work for you for any type of lure and any scenerio you could be fishing. We have several setups.. 5 spinning setups ranging from ultra lite to medium and two medium baitcaster setups, but we have one setup each that we use 90% of the time and they work for us.

I like Koppers LiveTarget frog in leopard white.. or spro bronze eye (any color with a white or yellow belly as we have a whole box of them).

Plastics, both worm and creature bait types. My husband has an obsession with GYCB and has to have every color.. every size... they even have their own tackle bag!! So we spend the most probably on plastics.

I do have a sister actually.. but she doesn't like to fish. lol!

I love the baby brush hogs in the black with red flake. For some reason the bass where I fish burn them up. They won't touch a full sized brush hog.

I have never caught bass on many things.. including chatterbaits, buzzbaits, spinnerbaits, jig n pig, and any other rig besides a Texas rig.. because I either have never or rarely ever use these techniques. In the ponds I fish the water is too full of slop for any kind of bladed jig or spinnerbait. Buzzbait fishing for me was a big goose egg. And the one pond I tried out a chatterbait I slow rolled it just fast enough to get the blade going, along the bank, around cover, and nothing. I have no confidence fishing with jigs so nothing. I have purchased some crankbaits to try in some of the less slop filled ponds I fish but have never fished one so there's another one. The only baits I can safely say that have always produced for me are soft plastics and hollow body frogs. I love a baby brush hog, and I love a smaller 3-4" stick bait.. also love the bigger Yum Craw Papi. Texas rigged with or without a weight (split shot, drop shot, bullet) they always catch fish. And hollow body frogs rarely dissapoint. I am still new to this bass fishing biz so I still have a lot of experimenting and learning to do.

Copper sulfate more than likely. It prevents/inhibits the growth of algae and can give the water a bluish cast.

I've had fish just explode right out of the water and crush a topwater frog just a few feet from where I was standing. Its pretty awesome! Scares a few years off your life if you're not paying attention.

Yeah we keep stopping at that gas station every chance we get. Someone else bought it so they are pretty much giving away the fishing merchandise away at cost if you purchase large quantities. Now if I could only find someone selling some old packs of 3" Yum Dingers I would be freakin stoked. The bumblebee (black/yellow) color absolutely drives bass nuts in the ponds I fish but I'm getting down to where I only have like 4 left and they don't make the 3" anymore I don't think. I don't know what it is about those little stick baits but they are awesome. The bait monkey is satisfied for now but for how long? Until I run across some 3" stick baits in a black/yellow swirl color then I'm gonna buy every pack I find! lol

The moment when you think you have enough lures and soft plastics that danged ol bait monkey rears his ugly head. We have run across some out of this world bargains lately! I'm talking GYCB, Yum brand, Strike King, and other various brands of soft plastics for $2 a pack.. yes I said $2 a pack!! And Rapala crankbaits for $3 each! Not to mention a little gas station close by that has all their fishing tackle and equipment for 25% off, and up to 50% off if you buy $50 or more worth of stuff! We got two Abu Garcia Cardinal spinning reels that were originally like $54 for half off! My husband purchased every Gamakatsu hook the gas station had.. lol. So we have like literally $150 worth of Gamakatsu hooks (G lock EWG, offset EWG, worm hooks, etc) for half off.. they were original prices of $4 for a pack 8 I think. We couldn't pass it up. Hooks are something you use plenty off, as are soft plastics so we have loaded up lately. Have spent more money than I care to even think about, but we have every lure, every color for every condition that could possibly arise. I am beyond pleased. Gotta love the bait monkey.

If the hook can be removed without causing the fish damage (evisceration, excessive bleeding, etc) then it needs to be removed and the fish released. I have had fish gill hooked that die, and hooked even deeper to where all you could see was the line coming out of their gullet. I have cut the line close and released a gut hooked fish before but I felt really bad about releasing it. I wish I would have just taken the fish home instead. But that was before I researched the topic and learned that odds are, most deep hooked fish don't make it. Hooks left in a fish's mouth/lips can hang on food/prey they eat and cause them issues, so always carry kneedle nose pliers to remove difficult to get out hooks.

A gut hooked fish will more than likey will die. The hook dissolving in the gut is a myth. It is true hooks corrode and rust, and will eventually break up but a hook can damage the fish internally, or make eating painful or impossible. A big healthy fish can last maybe a month or two (maybe a little longer) without a meal, but it will die of starvation before the hook rusts away. Yes I'm sure there are exceptions to this and there are fish swimming around that have hooks inside them that do not disrupt their eating or digestion, but I've always read that a gut hooked fish is better off taken home and eaten, than to be released to die slowly and even painfully. Others may feel differently. As far as plastics, fish can live with plastics in their gut a long time with no problems. The plastic cannot be digested and when the plastic is exposed to a moist environment for a long time it bloats and expands, taking up room in the fish's gut. They can pass plastic worms whole and can even regurgitate them if they make the fish uncomfortable but they can also spend quite some time inside the fish. I have had fish on many occasions to regurgitate their last meal in the cooler (we use as a livewell) so I imagine it isn't a big deal for the fish to spit up the plastic if it is causing the fish issues.

I'm from southeastern KY and fishing has been pretty tough lately. It is ridiculously hot mid day so that time is out for us. If you want to catch anything besides heat stroke you have to fish early morning to late evening. It has been up in the low 90's for a couple weeks now. Summer can put a real damper on fishing, but it doesn't make catching anything impossible. Just a little more challenging, and I have found I have to change baits a lot until I figure out what they want to bite. It's not like early spring when they're chasing lures and biting anything that remotely resembles something to eat.

I love to swim them at a moderate retrieve, not fast but not slow. I also like to barely drag them along the bottom. I haven't had much luck getting bass to bite on the fall, or the sink and pull up and sink again bit. I've found the bass prefer a moving bait in the ponds I fish. Rarely do I get a bite when my bait isn't moving. Texas rigs are very versatile and you can adjust your plastic size/creature/weight, and the rate of your retrieve to what the bass want to bite.

Texas rigged plastics are my go to bait and I catch the majority of my bass on them. I love a 3-4 inch dinger rigged weightless.. it is my confidence bait. When nothing else catches fish, I throw a smaller stickbait on and get bit.

I second that! If I can't get the bass to bite I go after the bluegill! Love those little guys.. lol. We havemt done any crappie fishing but no doubt I will when we hit the lake.

I'm okay with catching one pounders as long as I'm catching something. They are fun.. I could catch them all day. Don't get me wrong, catching big fish is awesome but sometimes in the ponds I fish they are few and far between. Until we get my bass boat catching the smaller guys and the occasional pig will just have to do. Hopefully we will be going boat shopping within the next year.

I don't mean reloacate them to another state or continent, maybe just to the nearest river where they are naturally or a nearby silt pond or creek. I understand relocating them to somewhere those organisms aren't currently would be bad. There are people my brother know that eats them regularly. They actually go out and throw a rope with a heavy hook with bait to catch them. I've heard they are delicious and taste like chicken but yuck.. I couldn't bring myself to eat one.

Texas rig weightless or with weights and beads, different actions but both give good results. I've not done any bass fishing past say 10pm or so because the bugs are horrid at night and I prefer to fish when I can see, but during hot summer months I imagine bass are more active and do a lot of their hunting/foraging during cooler night hours.

Awesome! Congrats on your first topwater bass! I love catching them on topwater frogs and you can catch nice bass with them. Invest in a couple with a white belly and you won't be dissapointed. LiveTarget frogs are awesome.. I love the white leopard color, and spro never dissapoints. But recently we've been using the Strike Kings KVD Sexy frogs in the brown back/white belly color and they're good. Topwater poppers work well too. I've only caught little one pounders on topwater so not all topwater experiences are going to be the big elaborate blowups with moster fish. I'll take whatever I can catch and don't complain as long as I'm catching them regardless of their size. lol

If the turtles are not wanted put it in the back of your truck and relocate it. Treat is as you would want to be treated. They are just trying to survive, and like a previous post said some of the larger turtles are quite old. Please don't kill them just because they are unwaned. If the pond owner wants the turtles dead let him do the killing. And alligator snapping turtles are prohibitated from being killed and are to be returned to the water unharmed if possible. Regular snapping turtles can be "harvested" but that means taken and not killed and left on the bank to rot.

The thought of someone smashing a turtle makes me cringe.. please don't kill animals for pleasure unless you are going to eat them! Be humane and cut the line. If the turtle is going to die anyway (due to deep hooking) at least give it a fighting shot. They're tough as whit leather. My brother kills them when he catches them but he gives them to a buddy who eats every one he gets his hands on. I caught a smaller one once on a shiner and I wasn't too afraid of a little guy. My husband had me stretch his neck out and then he grabbed its head and used pliers to remove the hook. No blood or anything and the turtle was fine.. even went after another minnow after he was back in the water. lol

I mostly bank fish local ponds as well and I have found that most bass tend to lay shallow around the pond edges under shade if there is any, so working the bank with a topwater frog or texas rigged plastic (senko, worm, craw, creature, etc) early in the morning or later in the evenings produce bass for me. I love the smaller 4 inch senkos or Yum Dingers for ponds. Smaller baits can really produce when full size baits won't in ponds.