How to Fish a Frog for Topwater Blowups
A bass coming up through a mat of slop to eat a frog is about as loud as freshwater fishing gets. You hear it before you understand what happened. Half the time you miss it anyway. You can get more of those strikes, and stick more of the ones you get.
The bait: a hollow-body frog
A hollow-body frog is a soft, air-filled body with two hooks riding tight against its back. The body shields the points, so you can drag it over grass, lily pads and floating junk that would foul almost any other lure. When a fish clamps down, the body collapses and the hooks come through.
Frogs come in two broad styles. Walking frogs have a pointed nose and slide side to side. Popping frogs have a cupped face that spits water when you snap them. Both catch fish. Poppers make more noise in open pockets; walkers slide over thick cover a little better.
Squeeze the water out every so often. A frog that’s taken on water sits low and swims like a sponge.
Where to throw it
Frogs are made for the places you can’t fish anything else.
- Matted grass and slop. Thick surface weeds keep the water underneath shaded and cooler, and bass sit under the roof waiting for something to walk across it.
- Lily pads. Cast past the pads and work the frog through the gaps and along the outside edge.
- Edges and holes. Where a mat meets open water, or where there’s a hole in the middle of it, is where a lot of strikes happen. Slow down there.
- Shade. Overhanging trees, docks, laydowns, the dark side of a bank. On a bright day the fish go where the sun doesn’t.
Open water works too, especially in low light.
Cadence: walk, pause, pop
Cast past where you think the fish is. Hold the rod tip low and work the frog with short twitches on slack line. The slack matters: on a tight line the frog just comes straight back at you. Give it a little slack between twitches and it swings side to side, which anglers call walking the dog.
Mix in pauses. Plenty of strikes come while the frog is sitting dead still, right at the edge of a mat or in the middle of a hole. A two- or three-second pause there costs you nothing. Some days a long pause is the whole trick.
With a popper, snap the rod tip down in short bursts so the face pushes water, then let it rest.
There’s no one right rhythm. Start with a steady walk and change it until the fish tell you what they want. Over really thick slop you may just be hopping the frog across the top, and that’s fine.
The hookset: wait for the weight
This is the hard part.
A blowup is violent. Water goes everywhere and every nerve in your arm wants to swing. Don’t. Bass often miss the frog on the first try, or knock it sideways, or swamp it from below without getting it in their mouth. Set on the splash and you’ll usually rip the frog away from a fish that never had it.
When the frog disappears, drop the rod tip toward it and reel up the slack until you feel the fish’s weight. Then set hard, with a big sweep. Some anglers count to one first. Whatever your timing, the signal is weight on the line. If the frog is still sitting there after the splash, the fish missed. Leave it there.
Gear: braid and a stout rod
You’re pulling fish out of heavy cover, with hooks that have to punch through a rubber body first. Light gear won’t do it.
- Braid is the standard line. It has almost no stretch, so the hookset gets all the way to the fish, and it slices through grass. Somewhere around 50- to 65-pound test is common, and some anglers go heavier in thick slop. Braid floats, too, which helps keep the frog riding high.
- For the rod, think heavy power, often around 7 feet or a bit longer, with enough backbone to drag a fish out of the weeds. Exact length and action are a matter of taste.
- For the reel, a baitcaster with a fast gear ratio picks up slack quickly on the hookset. Spinning gear can handle small frogs in open water, but heavy braid and big hooksets are what baitcasters are built for. New to them? Read how to fix and prevent a backlash first. You’ll need it.
Stout gear is easier on the fish, too. You can get a hooked bass out of the cover and into your hands quickly, instead of fighting it to exhaustion in the weeds.
When to throw it
Broadly, frogs come into their own once the water warms up and the surface vegetation thickens. In a lot of places that means late spring through early fall, with summer at the peak. Things wind down as the water cools and the grass dies back. In warmer parts of the country the season runs longer.
Within a day, low light is classic topwater time: early morning, evening, overcast days. Don’t put the frog away at noon, though. On a hot afternoon there can be bass parked in the shade under a mat with nothing better to do.
These are broad strokes. Your water, your region and the year all move them around.
When you miss one
You will. Everyone misses frog strikes. A fish that just tried to eat something usually hasn’t left, and it may be more fired up than before.
- Leave the frog where it is. If you held off on the set, let the frog sit, then twitch it in place. Bass often come back for a second try.
- Throw a follow-up. If you did yank it away, cast something slower back into the spot, like a soft plastic that sinks. A wacky rig dropped into the hole is a common pick.
- Check the frog. After a swipe, make sure both hooks are still riding up and the body hasn’t torn.
- Let it go. It still counts as a story.
Taking care of the fish
If it’s going back, keep it wet and handle it as little as you can. Wet your hands first, support a bigger fish under the belly, and get it back in the water soon after the photo. Frog hooks are big, so keep pliers handy; they make unhooking quicker for both of you.
The best half of the name
The tagline says Frog Fishing Fanatics, and we mean it. A blowup on a frog is the best half of the name. (The other half is a lot less fun.) If you want to wear it, the Top Water Tee has a bass clearing the water to hit a frog. Otherwise, go find a mat and wait for the weight.