Kayak Frogging: what I learned

[deep]

 

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?)

 

[CountryboyinDC]

That's more than I've learned about frogging from a kayak for sure, nice write up.  All I know is a bass a foot long has the advantage over you and your kayak in a tug of war in places I throw frogs.  That heavy rod, fast reel, and 50 lb braid do you absolutely no good if he gets dead in front of you.

[Abby]

Very good post. Keeping all that in mind.

[DSTN]

Thanks @deep.  As a fellow kayaker and someone whose been on the struggle bus with frogs this is helpful.  One question I have is how or what angle are you holding the rod to walk the frogs? This has been maybe the hardest part for me. Haven't found a method that clicks.

[tcbass]

What I've learned about frog fishing:  I fished frogs for over 10 years with moderate success. Started using Whopper Frogs and killing them. Won't go back to regular. 

 

Try it out. You might have great success.

[Brad Reid]

Very thorough and I appreciate the effort.

 

I was watching a little video just yesterday with Roland Martin and Jimmy Houston having a little impromptu contest where Roland used only a frog and Jimmy only a spinnerbait. So, what was so interesting is they were in Houston's boat and he pulled into some pads and shut it down, then Jimmy made the shortest casts, really just little 10 ft. or so pitches with his spinnerbaits and was pulling a fair share of bass out of the openings between pads. 

 

From a much stealthier kayak gliding in to the pads, this compared to some large boat, one could do this same thing with all sorts of lures . . . including frogs.

 

Gosh, always a challenge getting big bass out of the pads from a kayak, having only 10 feet of line, otherwise some relatively short amount, would make the task much easier I suspect.

 

Brad

[fishwizzard]

On 8/26/2019 at 11:48 PM, deep said:

 

I caught most of the frog fish on an IRod Fred's Magic Stick.

This is the rod I use for most of my frogging and I really love it.  I think it's ModFast taper is also key in helping land frog bass when I am positioned less then ideally to get one in.  However, the longer handle has cost me more then a few bass as it seems to get snagged on my PFD/sunshirt more often the the rest of my short-handled kayak rods.  I love the rod enough that I keep thinking about getting a second one and having the handle cut down and re-balanced for kayak use.  

[J Francho]

On 8/26/2019 at 11:48 PM, deep said:

Bonus pro(lol) tip: Have a follow-up bait ready to throw back when a fish misses your frog.

Good advice, always!

 

That fish is a slob - nice work!

[Dens228]

Two things I do, when I'm frogging I also have another rod right next to me with a weightless t-rigged Senko or Rage Bug for follow up.

 

This year I tried the Jackall KAERA frog, same standard weight with a little smaller profile.  Like you I noticed the bass were better at inhaling the entire frog into their mouth and then better success with hookup rates.  

 

One thing that always amazes me though is how often the bass totally misses the frog, sometimes by quite a bit...

 

[J Francho]

2 minutes ago, Dens228 said:

One thing that always amazes me though is how often the bass totally misses the frog, sometimes by quite a bit...

Are you sure they're missing?  I thought this too when fishing a local pond.  Turns out, there were several distracted, small blue gill following my frog.  Sometimes even nipping at the skirts.  Then I saw it - a big bass blew up on a blue gill.  They weren't missing at all.  Consider adding a 4" gloating blue gill swimbait to your follow up arsenal, if the cover allows.

[Dens228]

10 hours ago, J Francho said:

Are you sure they're missing?  I thought this too when fishing a local pond.  Turns out, there were several distracted, small blue gill following my frog.  Sometimes even nipping at the skirts.  Then I saw it - a big bass blew up on a blue gill.  They weren't missing at all.  Consider adding a 4" gloating blue gill swimbait to your follow up arsenal, if the cover allows.

Yes, but only because I have some GoPro Video's that I zoom in and slow down.  I'm sure some are small fish but some are big blow ups that completely miss.  

 

[kayl.]

A big key out of a kayak is to use an anchor pole when you can. I made an old one out of extra 3/4" pvc that worked ok. My new one out of a 3/4" fiberglass stake is beefy as sin and 2' longer for deeper areas.

[fishwizzard]

22 hours ago, J Francho said:

Are you sure they're missing?  I thought this too when fishing a local pond.  Turns out, there were several distracted, small blue gill following my frog.  Sometimes even nipping at the skirts.  Then I saw it - a big bass blew up on a blue gill.  They weren't missing at all.  Consider adding a 4" gloating blue gill swimbait to your follow up arsenal, if the cover allows.

One of the best patterns in some of the ponds around here is the "Geese Feed".  A little kid throws bread to the geese and this attracts a huge school of sunfish as well.  Once the kid leaves I start casting some kind of 'gill-imitator around the edges of the school.  It works often enough that on tough days I sometimes wish I carried a pocket full of stale bread to get it started.  

 

I never thought about the gills following a frog, I will have to give a 'gill followup a try.

[deep]

On 8/27/2019 at 11:10 PM, DSTN said:

Thanks @deep.  As a fellow kayaker and someone whose been on the struggle bus with frogs this is helpful.  One question I have is how or what angle are you holding the rod to walk the frogs? This has been maybe the hardest part for me. Haven't found a method that clicks.

 

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.

[Yakalong]

nice write up 

[Deleted account]

That's a lot of good information gleaned in only 2 months. While I don't agre 100% with everything in there, it's obvious you've put the time in with an open mind, and are listening to what the fish are telling you. BZ!