YOU WILL JUST KNOW
one thing that i would suggest for gaining confidence with a frog is not to try and learn on the delta or Clear lake. try a small slough or farm pond. in a small, area with less to worry about, it is just easier to get that inherent feeling of when the fish have your frog and when they don’t and that is what being a good frog fisherman is about – just knowing. Finding the fish and getting them to bite your frog is only half the battle, the other is landing it. Setting the hook with a frog fish is an art and it something you will just have to learn. lots of guys aren’t going to like that answer. lots of guys are going to want to hear you have to wait, do a five count and swing, swing hard when it hits or any other concrete solution. it is just not like that. i would say, lots of times i wait, and lots of times, i don’t. Maybe, it is a 60/40 split. as you catch more it will become more absolute to you. There is no solid answer, there is no hocus pocus. it is almost about the sound, but i can’t exactly say it is that either. once you’ve caught 100’s and 100’s and 100’s, you will just know and you will understand what i am saying here. You can’t throw it once a year and become a good frog fisherman. a basic bit of advice that i can give is if they slurp it down and it’s gone –swing, but again that isn’t always 100 percent the answer. and, if you do swing, duck; because there’s a good chance it is coming back at you.
i’m hardheaded. i still want a 7’6” flippin’ stick to fish my frog. i’m not saying that it is perfect, but it is perfect for me. i feel in control with it. i’m also not saying you cannot use a 7’3” five power, because that may be good for you. There are a number of good braided lines out there – PowerPro, SpiderWire – i use 65# tuf-line. i want a fast reel to burn the frog back to me between casts and i use an okuma Helios 7:1.
You have to think of Gary dobyns. That guy took one, little black frog and crushed everyone, earning about $200,000 in a month and a half. He gets a lot of credit for being a good ripper, but he is a phenomenal frog fisherman. Then there is the Frog Master, Bobby Barrack. He probably has a better understanding of the bait than any of us do. and, there is Bub tosh. He is a killer with the frog. or, ish. He can just flat out catch ‘em on a frog. But, we cannot forget tony Franceschi, Charley almassey and Mark rizk. They were the first ones out there dominating Clear lake with it. a lot of us weren’t far behind them, but they were still first. and you just cannot leave out rojas or Freddie either. on any given day, they will all live or die by the frog.
EDitOR’S NOtE: Ultimate Bass Radio host Kent Brown’s most well-known frog fish may be the one he never landed. in an attempt at a back-to-back Heavyweight Bass Classic championship and a second $10,000 payday for the win, KB went overboard trying to boat his bass. With the frog stuck in glasses and the net empty, Brown ended the day without an encore victory, but still has the belt and the memories of the 2009 Heavyweight Bass Classic championship that he claimed with the biggest bass at 3-pounds. Watch vid “if you’re going to fall out of the boat, it may as well be for $10,000, when there is a camera man on the back deck,” said Brown as he recalled the day.
GEAR
THE BEST WITH THE FROG
There is always a controversy on who is the best frog fisherman. For me, i think the best live within a 50-mile radius of the California delta.
summer 2013
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