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Fall 2020
I watch the film. I break it down. I look at the rod, the load, the arch, the bend, the C-shape, the I-shape, the partial C, the moment the fish comes off and how that translates. I want to know where can it be perfected?
TEACHING MOMENTS
The drawback in teaching yourself is you may not like what you learn. And, what I learned from teaching myself is there’s not a single rod that is 100 percent perfect for frog fishing in 100 percent of scenarios.
I realized this because I had one rod. I wanted one rod to do everything in all situations – open water and heavy cover. But after watching tape and re-watching film and reliving successes and failures, I had to get honest with myself.
My first frog rod – the Perfect Frog rod – was the perfect rod for the time. It is what I have used forever. I stuck with it because of how much success I had.
But, along that journey I had failure too. You don’t lose a lot of big fish, unless you catch a lot of big fish. You don’t catch a lot of big fish, unless you’re fishing for big fish. So, I catch, and I lose a lot of big fish.
I see both ends of it. I’ve caught hundreds and hundreds of bass in the five to 15-pound range. That has given me a lot of scenarios to work with – lots of film.
One of the most critical factors I’ve learned from my many frog fish lessons is about losing the load.
Think of the moment you swing… Think about the power of your action – the juice of the rod. The impact that you put on that three to seven-pounder is sheer momentum.
You can’t ever reel fast enough – you can’t ever catch up – you can’t ever recover – from the momentum your swing generated into that fish. You give the fish too much of a head start. They rocket towards you, catapulted by your set, cartwheeling across the water.
You can’t launch the fish with that momentum and keep the load in your rod.
When you swing and load, you have a C-shape in your rod. If you lose the load, you have an I-shape in your rod. If you want a “caught fish” you have to keep the C. You have to hold the load.
The most important attribute of my new frog rod is that it will minimize the energy that translates to the fish – minimize the momentum of the fish after your set.
ANSWERS
That first rod that I made so many years ago was so much more than what we had, but now, years later with advancements in technology, hundreds more big bass catches and big bass losses, I could see there were improvements to be made and that started with two separate rods.
That is where we are now. I’ve learned to be successful – a higher percentage of the time - I really need two rods and now I have developed them.
Bobby’s Punch Stick is very much like my first frog rod, with some improvements from my many lessons of fish landings and losses. It is for punchin’ and froggin in the heaviest cover.
My Open Water Frog and Swim rod is something I never had. It is for those other situations – open water to moderate cover – scenarios where we need to control the momentum of the fish during the set to hold the load.
All scenarios are not created the same and therefore the critical factor in landing a bass – the load – cannot be successfully handled in the same manner.
The pop, the bend, the speed… you just cannot have one perfect rod for both scenarios of frog fishing.
But, that’s okay; because, now I have an answer. •
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https://www.fishermanswarehouse.com/product/bobby-barrack-signature-punchin-stick https://www.fishermanswarehouse.com/product/bobby-barrack-signature-open-water-frog-swim-rod