Although this is an old thread I am going to comment after my summer of mostly frogging at a lake that was crystal clear and shallow. It had to have a truly blue ribbon number of blue gill and bass in it with a ton of tall grass. They are small bass rarely making much over a pound at best but they are thick. Unfortunately I did not have a boat but the shore was great fishing till the irrigation dried it up for shore access about the 1st of Aug. But there were several weeks I fished 5 days a week for several hours. Basically had the same areas I fished every day so these fish saw a lot of my lures many times. A typical day was 7 to 10 fish but there were several days of 25+ fish and a few of 2 or 3 along with a few days they never cooperated!
I would cast into the grass as far as I could. Primarily used a Stanley Ribbit with a single worm hook, tried all sizes and types including Stanley doubles and Lake Fork hooks (they do hang up in really thick stuff). I tried a simple hook through the body, weighted hooks, TX style rigs and Carolina rigged.
Many times you would see a wake coming from as far as 10' away which surprised me. On those longer casts I could not see how the fish hit the frog. However on shorter casts or when closer to the shore it was very visual. What surprised me is how many fish hit the lure from my side of the lure or from the side. There were virtually no hookups when they hit the head of the frog short of foul hooks in the body. The side strikes were about 1 in 8 to 10 strikes, very poor hookup rate. Side strikes hooked up at a slightly higher rate with the double takes and Lake Fork hook. What became quickly obvious was the hookup rate on fish striking from straight behind was 1 in 2 or 3 depending on what hook set up I was using. Lake Fork was the best from the back with an easy 50% or better hookup rate. Although I didn't keep exact statistics hookup on the double take hooks wasn't much better than a straight worm hook going as far back in the frog as I could get it.
The other interesting thing was the Stanley's got more strikes than my hollow body but the hookup on the hollow body was better. Also, got more strikes on the weighted hook and TX rig when you would stop and the frog would sink at a fair rate. Many times with the floaters the fish would just stop and watch until the frog moved. Frog color only made negligible differences as most strikes came when the frog was moving and color changes didn't seem to make as much difference as the noise. You can't tell me a fish 10' away in the thick grass is seeing a black frog versus a green & white pattern! Almost all those fish coming that far would strike if it was moving and would not strike if you left it sitting.
Lizards worked the most consistently through the summer though. I used worms, tubes and minnow patterns but no hard baits as you really had to be weedless as possible if you didn't want to be hung up inside of 5 or 6 casts. The fish seemed to hit equally on floating versus TX style and hookup was exceptionally high because you just waited till they swallowed it and rip it. Easily 70 to 80%. Here they preferred green pumpkin with sparkles followed by black and red. What did surprise me on the lizards was the fish rarely blew up on the lizards when I just floated them. But I almost always fished them pretty slow as that is what the fish were attracted to.
What surprised me the most was the minnow imitations. Swim over and look at it and swim off far more than any of the other presentations. I altered retrieves, types, colors and sizes. Just was not impressing these fish.
Lizards got far more strikes than anything even though the area isn't known for lizards and is generally considered a tube lake by the locals. Frogs were an easy 2nd and like many I get excited every time there was a blow up. Saw almost no frogs in the area and only a few toads. You could hardly find a frog lure in any of the local stores, Wally World, Sportsman's Warehouse and K-mart carried the most gear. And lizards weren't much more common, I used primarily KVD Lizards.
When I get back to TX next week I will use more lizards fished with more slow retrieve than jerking motions. I will use TX rigged frogs from time to time and let them slowly sink after a buzz on top.
All that said, everyone ought to find a lake that is crystal clear and watch the fish. The learning experience was phenomenal. It really helped me to understand why they miss so many frogs. Most assuredly I will still fish a ton of frogs as my personal best 26 1/2" post spawn female was caught on a frog blowup when I was still learning how to convert from a WY trout fisherman to a TX bass guy and had never fished a frog in my life at that point!
