Lure same as a frog but better at hooking the fish?

[Fred Allen]

Seems every place I fish is a place where im using frog most of the time as weeds all over top of water or just inches below so everything else hangs up.  I use the frog but I miss SO MANY FISH. Its such a bad thing to miss all the fish. So is there a bait with weedless characteristics of the frog but has better hooking? or a REALLY good frog? I use weightless fluke too but hook set not much better and flukes dont last too long until you need to replace.

 

Fish were hitting frogs all day today but I only landed one! 

[Kenny Yi]

are you missing the fish or is the fish missing the bait?

 

some tips: get softer body frogs, bend the hooks out a little with pliers

 

wait till the fish eats the bait, then set.  don't swing on the blowup.  if he misses, leave the frog there, he might grab it again

[Deephaven]

Outside of the premature cross his eyes swing I find frogs to have rather good hookup ratios.  My guess is you are pulling the bait away way too early.

[Fred Allen]

I might be setting too early on some. But some I feel like I hooked him and hes pulling hard and still will come off. I had a huge one pulling my kayak but then he still got off. I was mad because I know that one was the biggest bass I ever had on my line. I saw his tail and it was like a whale.

[Hammer 4]

Scum has a new frog out that's really super soft. Tim from Tacticalbasssin did a video, he really likes these frogs. Maybe have a look see at them on TW.

Also, have you altered the hooks on your frogs, i.e. slightly bent them up and out.?

[Bluebasser86]

What rod/reel/line/frog are you using? The wrong gear can play a huge factor in why you're missing/losing frog fish also. 

 

I don't agree with the "wait to feel the fish", or "count to 3" trains of thought with a frog at all. I watch my bait and when it's gone, I swing on them. Fish don't have hands. If the frog disappears, the most likely scenario is it's in the fish's mouth. Now maybe you're good enough to tell how deep a fish has the frog in it's mouth by feeling with the rod, but all I could tell is if it has it or not, which I'm pretty well convinced at this point it does by the frog being gone. Waiting to set just allows them to bury as far as possible into the grass, making getting a hookset, as well as getting them back out of the grass, even more difficult. Don't have to believe me, but watch some tour pros and see how many are feeling for the fish or waiting for a 3 count VS swinging as soon as they verify their frog is gone. I'll bet it's a landslide towards the latter. 

[GreenPig]

4 hours ago, Deephaven said:

Outside of the premature cross his eyes swing I find frogs to have rather good hookup ratios.  My guess is you are pulling the bait away way too early.

Exactly my thoughts. My frog hookup ratio is pretty good. I think it's all in timing the swing.

[Biglittle8]

5 hours ago, Kenny Yi said:

are you missing the fish or is the fish missing the bait?

That is the question. Waiting too long to set the hook can cause it's own set of problems. (Dropped bait, weed wedging)Swinging when the blow up first occurs can be a crapshoot, but like bluebasser86 said, if your bait is underwater, more than likely the fish is eating it. That's when I set the hook. Someone else on here mentioned bending the hooks out a hair towards the outside of the body, I have tried that on a couple of frogs...can't tell if that's made a difference.

[Jaderose]

You're gonna miss fish when you throw a frog.  The FISH are gonna miss the bait when you frog.  Bluebasser is right when he says (basically) that there is no "count to 3" technique that works all the time.  It's all timing and that timing takes practice.  May I ask what frog you are using?  I throw Scum Frog Trophy Series but have recently purchased some Spro King Daddy and had such a great hook-up ratio that I intend to explore the full Spro line.  It's a frustrating, exciting technique that takes a while to get good at.  It's worth taking the time.  When you're chugging in a frog across a mat and see and hear that toilet flush sound that indicates a lunker and you feel the weight on your line?  Nothing is better

[Catt]

4 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Don't have to believe me, but watch some tour pros and see how many are feeling for the fish or waiting for a 3 count VS swinging as soon as they verify their frog is gone.

 

And watch how many miss using either technique.

 

Dean Rojas stated he hates fishing frogs in matted cover because his hookup ratio is poor. 

 

Lots of factors come into play causing the bass to miss your frog. First they don't have a clear view of your frog so they're hitting at movement. 

 

Some days you miss em...some days they miss em.

[Ski]

7 hours ago, Kenny Yi said:

are you missing the fish or is the fish missing the bait?

 

some tips: get softer body frogs, bend the hooks out a little with pliers

 

wait till the fish eats the bait, then set.  don't swing on the blowup.  if he misses, leave the frog there, he might grab it again

This ^^^^^^

[Dirtyeggroll]

What frog are you using?

 

make sure your drag is cinched down.

[Mike L]

The Scum line of frogs are the softest you can buy, you don’t need to touch the hooks. 
I’ve been using them for around 10yrs and won’t use anything else. 
There are other brands that folks on here swear by and have excellent results. 

It’s not necessarily what you’re using it’s  most likely how you’re using it and what equipment you use. 
 

To answer your question, 

Any top water bait that is designed to walk across topped out vegetation may work but I’d bet you would have the same problem. 

 

Answer some of the questions by the previous posters and go from there. 
 

 

 

 

Mike

[roadwarrior]

Give the Rage Toad a try.

 

https://www.strikeking.com/en/specialty-brands/rage-tail/rgtd

[moguy1973]

Here's a good video on why it's hard to hook up with fish using hollow bodied frogs:

(40) Topwater frog fishing: the science of setting the hook - YouTube

[fishballer06]

You could try a buzzing frog like a Horny Toad or Rage Toad. Or I also do that same technique with creature baits as well. 

[Dens228]

9 hours ago, Kenny Yi said:

are you missing the fish or is the fish missing the bait?

 

 

This right here.  I video a lot of my fishing and when I watch them later I'd say a large percentage of misses were because the bass missed the frog.  I still didn't get the bass but it made me feel better.....lol

[TnRiver46]

A good frog alternative is just rig a ribbontail worm weedless with no sinker and reel it across the slop. Vary the action, mix in some twitches and stops. This was always my go to golf course pond method for scum and it’s pretty effective with a good hook up ratio 

[moguy1973]

54 minutes ago, fishballer06 said:

You could try a buzzing frog like a Horny Toad or Rage Toad. Or I also do that same technique with creature baits as well. 

I use horny toads because A) I have trouble getting a hollow frog to walk usually and B ) I have a hard time hooking up with fish and keeping them hooked.  With horny toads if they have the bait the fish usually end up in my hand.

[Mobasser]

You might try a Heddon Moss Boss spoon. One single hook will hook bass well. It's hard plastic, and will ride over the weeds.

[Ratherbfishing]

The best soft/hollow body "frog" I know of is the Snag Proof Moss Mouse.  They aren't as "glamorous" as some of the other frogs on the market but they get hit well and the hookup ratio's are really good.

[Jaderose]

13 hours ago, Fred Allen said:

Fish were hitting frogs all day today but I only landed one! 

Welcome to frog fishing.  This was me for days, weeks, and months on end when I first joined the freaks that LOVE this aspect of bass fishing.  I've always said Frogging is like Chess.  Easy to learn...hard to master.  I'm NOT a master but I'm above average at it out of shear experience and stubbornness.  When people ask about Frogging, they usually get a bunch of rote answers back...Count to 3, bend out your hooks, trim the legs to walk better, etc.  The first 2 are simply wrong.  Counting to 3 will usually cause you to miss.  You can bend out the hooks but you will see very little to no gain on hook up and start picking up more debris.  Trimming the tails WILL make the frogs walk better so I keep a couple with the legs trimmed basically OFF.  Those walk great.  The key to getting good hook ups on frogs is timing and the only way that I know of to get that timing is through hours of throwing frogs.  One day it will just click.  Until then, it's frustrating.  But here's the thing....you know those fish are there.  You've seen them.  Plus, I all but guarantee those are some of the bigger fish in the lake.  Those big lunkers are lazy and have figured out that they can lay under all that mess and pick off easy meals.  Frogging is kind of a subset of bass fishing and not everyone does it so those fish aren't seeing a lot of pressure.  You get access to fish not everyone is gunning for.  I wouldn't expect everyone to be a obsessed with it as I am but I would encourage everyone to make it a viable technique in your arsenal because when the frog bit is on, there is nothing better in my humble opinion

[Fred Allen]

I use 2 walmart ozark trial brand green and brown, a booyah frog and a regular scum frog. I caught most on a booyah frog followed by the walmart frog brown. I have not thrown the scum much as its pretty big so im scared the fish wont take it. 

 

I use a apu garcia black max reel with 50 pound suffix 832 my rod is a Zebco 33 rod my old zebco reel came on.

 

Lots of good tips here and I did not know the rod might be an issue as my rod seems fine to me. The softness of the frog makes sense to me so i boiled them in water today and they all came out VERY soft. I got the boil tip from here on another subject of someone wanting to soft their plastics. It worked like a charm and cant wait to throw the frogs now that they are softer. 

 

Is my rod an issue if so what kind of rod is good? Should it be stiff or not?

[new2BC4bass]

I have absolutely no idea if this is a viable cause, but it seems to me the rod may very well be your biggest problem.  I'm thinking it may not have the necessary power to set the hooks.  What does it say on the rod?  Power, action, rod material?  Medium Heavy (MH)? Fast? IM6?

[papajoe222]

I've read through most of the replies and feel I should add one more comment.

Part of the equipment you need when frog fishing is sharp hooks. Keep some type of hook file in your box and touch up he hooks before ever throwing that frog. Many of the bass I catch on frogs are hooked deep in the upper, bony part of the mouth.  That takes the right equipment, including sharp hoods.

Sorry to hear you lost what was likely your PB.