BooyahMan

I know the feeling all too well since she always catches more fish/better quality fish whenever she comes out. Maybe that's why I opt to go solo more often these days

As mentioned in the previous post, I went again tonight and brought my girlfriend along. Well *I* got completely skunked, but my girlfriend caught her first ever Bass on a frog. Second cast in MY spot haha. Not a giant by any means but she's d**n proud of it (and I'm proud of her) :

Thanks for the insightful responses! This is my first year that I've really started to figure out this lake and I've been continuing with the frog just because I wanted to see how late into the season they would continue to strike it. I don't know how cold the water is but the air temperature has been hovering just above 50 degrees. No pike or pickerel in this area; only Bass, stocked Rainbows and the odd Chum Salmon but the latter two won't go for a frog. I kind of wish there were other species present as that would make things much more interesting at the very least. It makes sense what you guys are saying as the strikes do seem a tad less aggressive and I have had to work quite hard just to get a couple hits. If my mistake now is just using the frog in the first place, I guess I don't have to worry too much about my technique for next year.

Man is this getting frustrating. Fished for 3 hours tonight and didn't get anything until the last half hour before dark, when I missed two good strikes on a frog. I normally wouldn't mind but the only problem is that I've missed the last 6 fish now, which is odd to me as up until the last handful of trips I've been consistently hooking up fish that struck the top water frogs. In fact, I had a d**n near 100% hook-up rate through October. I thought maybe lately they were just missing the frog completely but during my trip tonight I clearly felt the fish dive with the lure. I don't think it's the frog either as I've missed an equal amount on a Booyah, a River2Sea Bully Wa, and a Live Target. I know missing fish is part of frog fishing but after nailing them last month, this is getting a little frustrating. Not to mention I want to make the most out of every last blow up before the bass completely turn off of the top water bite. Is it possible that they are just spitting it much faster now? Tonight's fish almost felt like they weren't holding on to it for very long. Going to try again tomorrow night and hope for a bit more luck with sticking those hooks.

Favourite bass related fishing situation is when they you say that blow-up on a frog, then setting as hard as you can and feeling the fish on the other end. Nothing quite like that.

Biggest one is the one in my avatar that I would estimte between 5-6lbs. Haven't come close to getting another like that but consistently get fish between 1.5 to 3lbs on a Booyah Pad Crasher Jr.

Call me stupid but I've had a recent obsession with top water frogs and went on a buying spree when there was a sale. I figured I would just get a bunch as they are not easy to come by in my area, but now I am wondering how long my "spares" will last? Does the rubber eventually get hard or start to deteriorate? I hate to think that I'm just buying frogs that won't be useful to me in the future because they've become unusable. Thanks!

Awesome fish and glad to hear the topwater frogs are still working. I also use a Booyah (although the junior version) and absolutely love fishing with it. Last time I was out it seemed slower than the previous trips but could also be because the area I'm fishing is starting to receive its annual return of salmon and could be pushing the bass out. Fingers crossed for us that we have a few more weeks yet of topwater action!

Awesome fish. That colouration is wicked cool!

I mainly enjoy fishing by myself as then I can focus and not have to worry about anyone else. In saying that, I get the most satisfaction out of fishing with my girlfriend as she actually does enjoy fishing and fishes nearly as hard as I do when she's able to get out on the water. I don't mind tying up all her lures for her as seeing her face light up when a fish strikes is just priceless.

Beautiful looking mount! I need to get measurements if I ever get a nice bass like that in the future. How much does an awesome piece like that set you back?

Thanks everyone! This is a great community and I can definitely say it's a lot friendlier than some of the local-area forums that I frequent for salmon/trout/steelhead. I too am a bit surprised that the frogs are still working but caught a good 3lber tonight along with a couple of smaller fish. I'm wondering if the better fish are still hanging around the shore to feed as we just had a massive amount of rain and the water level is quite high. Once it gets to an hour before sundown the bite switches on.

I finally got a PB worth being proud of. I've written out a fairly lengthy blurb so if you don't want to read it, there's a picture at the bottom I promise! This is my second year fishing for bass and I think I have finally clued in on what the bigger fish in my local lake will go for. The vast majority of anglers in my neck of the woods are trout or salmon guys and bass are generally frowned upon (blasphemy I know). Because of this, there really isn't anyone to learn bass fishing from. The belief that my local lake only had tiny bass was almost unanimous (to this day there are still people that are surprised to hear that it even has Largemouth), and it was only through word of mouth after getting to know other residents that fished the lake that there was one fish rumoured to have been in the six pound range that was caught the year before. Most people passed it off as just that however; a rumour. In my first year of bass fishing, I started out with casting small spoons and jigging curly tail grubs under a dock. This brought in a few fish, but the problem was that they were all in the 6-8 inch range. We ended the year with my girlfriend landing a whopping 10 incher, which we figured was a good size. This year started with more of the same, except I picked up on wacky rigging some small plastic Berkley trout worms. This worked wonders but again, most of the fish were very small with the odd 12 incher thrown in. Whenever I tried larger wacky worms or tossed larger lures like Rapalas, I would always get skunked. We even rented a rowboat to get to some new spots but all we could catch were these tiny bass, and there were lots. I spent an entire summer day chucking a topwater frog to no avail as well, which made me put it away for awhile (more on this later). About halfway through the summer I started making my own spinners, and this became a very cheap alternative to wacky rigging the Berkley worms. I then discovered a little outflow creek that would hold bass, and I eventually landed a 14.5 incher on a spinner there. Fast forward to early September. I had upped my average by catching a handful of bass between 13 and 14.5 inches, but it was never consistent and more due to dumb luck than anything. Furthermore, they were still not the monster bass that I believed the lake was harboring. One day I commented on how the lily pads in the lake were started to recede a bit, and my girlfriend said, "why don't you try the top water frog again?" I didn't think much of it, but after a few more uneventful trips I finally brought it out. On that trip I started with my home-made spinners while my girlfriend wanted to try the frog. It didn't take long for there to be a SPLASH as a small bass took a swipe at the frog and missed. A little while later, I watched a much bigger one fly out of the water with the frog in its mouth. Unfortunately we were very green at the whole frog technique and my girlfriend ended up setting the hook much too soon. Regardless I was spurred on by this and immediately went back in the days that followed to try the frog. I got a bunch of blowups but for the life of me I either couldn't hook them or I couldn't keep them hooked. That's when you wonderful people of Bass Resource came in. After consulting the knowledgeable people on this forum, I went back to try again and finally landed a chunky 16 incher, which became my new PB. This was already much bigger than anything my circle of newly recruited bass anglers had caught out of this lake, but I couldn't help but feel there was something more that I had to experience. In the weeks that followed, I consistently caught fish in the 13-16 inch range and had at least a couple of blow ups every trip, with the majority of the action occurring right where the outflow creek meets the lake. I was pretty content with this new change of pace from the 6 inchers but I figured that with this colder weather it would push the bigger bass out to deeper water and I would have to wait until next year to catch my local lake monster. Or so I thought. ACTUAL REPORT HERE: The evening started out as any other frog fishing evening. Got to the lake around 3pm for a couple of hours of frogging before it got dark. The first couple of hours went by without a sniff, with the exception of a fish startling me to death when my frog fell at my feet and was suddenly met by a blow up. Alas, I did not see nor hook that one. After moving along the lake, I came back to my old haunt that had been so good to me over the past month. On the first cast upon my return, a big blow up sank my frog about halfway through my retrieve. Turned out to be a good decision to revisit my haunt as this fish ended up shattering my previous 16 inch PB, coming out to 21 inches in length. Did not get a girth measurement but seemed decently chunky, so I would guess a solid 5lb fish? You can judge for yourself: I was absolutely elated and was shaking so badly while releasing this fish. I was so excited that I forgot to check my braided line and on the very next cast, another one that looked roughly the same size demolished the frog within a few seconds of hitting the water. I went to give it a good hard hook set when SNAP! My line broke. Serves me right for using old/used braid. luckily for me, I had a spare setup so I immediately put that one together and proceeded to land another six bass in the span of about 45 minutes. The rest were in the 13-15 inch range so they weren't that big, but it was still crazy fun having so many of them explode on the frog. At one point it was 5 casts and 5 blow ups. Best frog fishing trip of my career so far and a fish that I will remember for a long time. I grew up with salmon and trout and I normally head out for salmon during the fall months, but I've been enjoying the topwater bite so much that I am opting for a bass trip tomorrow instead. Consider me addicted!

Thanks for the info! I'm more inclined to pick up a few after hearing about your experiences. Just wanted to make sure they weren't complete garbage that I'd be kicking myself for using. At the very least they'll give some variation to the Pad Crasher colours (have a very limited selection here).

Hi OntarioFishingGuy, thanks for the response. How did you find the material of the frog itself? I'm thinking as long as it's soft enough to collapse it should be ok?

Did a search on Google and on here but didn't see much info on these frogs. Has anyone used one before? I'm mostly curious about hook-up rates and durability of the frog as even though they are cheap I don't want to be wasting money if the material and/or design hinders the ability to hook fish. I am currently using Booyah Pad Crashers so if anyone has a comparison between the two that would be amazing. Thanks!

Very interesting responses guys! Sounds like I need to up my standards.

This might be a strange question but here goes. Don't know if length is a popular measurement with weight being somewhat variable between two fish of the same length due to girth, but was just wondering what everyone's definition of a decent length for Largies is and what your cut-off point would be for a trophy sized Largemouth in your local waters. On most occasions I only have time to get a length measurement and thus my infatuation with length haha. I guess I'll start. With my limited bass experience on my local lake my "decent' bass length is between 12 and 16 inches, and anything over 16 would be a monster (at least to me). So what length makes you go, "that's a good bass" and what makes you go, "THERE'S A MONSTER!"?

A very recent discovery but without a doubt my favourite way to fish for bass is with topwater frogs. I don't catch nearly as many but when I do they are on average bigger fish than the ones I catch using other methods. Not to mention the blowups! Surface strikes get the heart pumping like no other.

Hey guys, I bought a couple of small rattles and was thinking of adding it to a Booyah Pad Crasher Jr. Anyone have experience with adding rattles to their topwater frogs? Are there any disadvantages to adding rattles? I've been having some decent luck with the frogs but only in the evening and was hoping that adding a little extra noise would help get strikes in the morning or afternoon. Cheers

Hi guys, sorry to double post in my own thread but I have an update (already). No I did not get a new setup yet and I still have every intention of doing so, but I once again want to thank everyone that contributed to this thread. I tried frogging again tonight and FINALLY landed my first fish on it. I took the advice on the hook sets to heart and it really made a difference; I actually set the hook so hard that I fell backwards and looked like a complete fool. I know it's not a big bass by most people's standards here but this fish broke my previous record by almost 2 inches. Needless to say I am very happy and it was released to be caught another day.

Thanks for all the advice everyone. Lots of stuff for me to mull over, although I have a bit of time as i probably won't be doing much heavy cover fishing until next year. Hopefully I can snag some quality gear between then and now.

Thanks for all the great feedback guys. I took a look at the GX2 and Lightning rods in their medium-heavy models and unfortunately, they only come in 1 piece rods for that action. Due to transportation limitations I would really prefer to get a 2 piece rod as opposed to a 1 piece. Hope that's not blasphemy when it comes to bass rods! Very tempted by the GX2 rods though as we have a bunch at my workplace and they seem quite solid. For 2 piece rods I was eyeing the Berkley Cherrywood HD and the Shimano Stimula, as well as the Shimano FX. I know these are bottom of the barrel cheap rods but is there any disadvantage to using these rods? Assuming they are medium-heavy and have a fast tip. Thanks again everyone. Bass gear is very different from what I am used to so I have lots to learn!

Just what I needed to know. Do you have any suggestions? Preferably with a cheaper budget in mind.

That is definitely a possibility as I used to use baitcasting for drifting rivers and recently picked up a cheap low profile that I was thinking of using for the lakes. What advantages would baitcasting have over spinning for topwater frogs?