Favoring a Spro Bronzeye (standard and Poppin versions), Mah sticks with simple colors like black, natural green and white. He keeps his frog in constant danger by targeting what he calls “big fish spots.” “i spend about 75- to 85-percent of the time throwing the frog in and around open water situations; but i like for my frog to be near some piece of cover – big wood, tule clumps, mats, lay downs etc.,” he said. “i keep my percentages high by targeting specific pieces of cover/structure. i rarely just go down a bank throwing a frog unless it holds the proper type of cover/structure.” “i also like to spend the majority of my frogging around hard banks. This means that i have an idea of where the fish are going to position themselves. i try to avoid large expansive mats of grass and tule berms.”
Mah said he finds the Delta frog bite heating up in mid to late april. He has caught some of his biggest bass on frogs earlier, but doesn’t usually expect to catch many in the early spring. For someone that wants to come to the delta and catch numbers and quality, Mah suggests planning a trip between May and November.
200e7 spooled with 65-pound Power Pro Super Slick in timber Brown. He said a rod with a soft tip is essential for getting the frog to walk back and forth like a topwater plug. Balancing this flexibility is plenty of backbone to pull a big fish from heavy cover.
Frog EnhancEmEnt
relying on a frog’s inherent bass-angering traits will get you plenty of strikes, but maximum effect often hinges on a few bait enhancement tricks. First, Monroe suggests upping the bait’s audible appeal by shoving worm rattles into the leg holes. Monroe enhances his namesake Snag Proof PHat Frog by crushing the interior rattle chambers. Multiple pieces all clanking, clicking and rattling in unison can draw fish charging through the thickest of mats. Scent gels and waxes make frogs more appealing at close range and for those big black eyeballs, delta legend Bobby Barrack uses permanent markers to add various stripes, dots and other markings to play up his frog’s visual attraction. to make sure he catches whatever bites – even those double-digit giants that don’t play nice – Barrack lashes the twin shanks of his frog hooks together with braided line.
Ultimately, Mah said it’s important to approach frogging with the right perspective. This is a high- reward bait, he notes, but you have to invest well to reap the rewards. “i consider eight to 12 bites on a frog a good frog bite,” Mah said. “More than 12 and it’s exceptional in my book. i have had days where i’ve caught 25+ fish on a frog and my best five will push 30-pounds, however those days are far and few between. it’s also a bait that you need to throw for a considerable amount of time. Thirty minutes to an hour during the day is not enough. Keep colors simple, if you put it in the right spot it usually doesn’t matter that much.”
Mah describes his ideal Delta frogging conditions as: 1) Low minus tide sometime in the early afternoon
2) two-three days of warm, stable weather prior to his fishing day
3) light or no wind. In such scenarios, he finds the frog equally effective as a search tool and a primary bait.
“i’ve had events where i wanted to locate fish, but not catch them in practice,” he said. “You can usually tell how big a fish is when they come to the surface to eat a frog. Then it’s a bait that i can pull away from them or bend the hooks in. it is absolutely a bait that someone can win a tournament on.” of course, doing so requires the right gear and let’s just say that frogging demands gear with an attitude. Mah throws his frog on a 7-foot, 5-inch Gloomis BCFr 893 with a 7:1 Shimano Chronarch
Issue 3
June 2012
7