Beetlebz

I've been doing a ton of reading, can't really find what I'm after. I recently put into service a dedicated frog/flipping stick. I'm using 65lb PP because that's what I had handy on another reel, just spooled it on backwards. I've always ever used regular PP, it works and its never failed me. I stopped using it in lighter weights for literally everything because 1) twice I wound up with tiny knots in the line after picking out a backlash or loose wraps and 2) the feeling of the coarse braid under my thumb is like fingernails on corduroy. Makes my skin crawl. I've been shopping for an alternative. I was going to grab some maxcuatro but it's still a 4 carrier braid which doesnt excite me. Is there any reason I can't use sufix 832 for flipping frogging and punching? I use it on my spinning rods, the 832 has been perfectly durable. It seems like the internet is full of articles saying that you need 4 carrier braid for heavy cover, but not one that I found saying why.

No, but I use the X8 in line green.

I just finished building a froggin flippin combo.. uses a fuego ct with 65lb braid.i almost went with a tatula SV for flipping and because frogs fly so poorly though the air, but I've been very happy with the fuego. It helps that the fuego is so inexpensive. Keep in mind frogs take quite a bit of brakes!

I'm not going to lie, I got a pack in my last MTB and I stared at it for like 15 minutes trying to figure out what the heck to do with it. I need to spend some more time with it for sure. I tried Texas rigging it weightless, I had a silly slow fall, never occurred to me. I threw 1/4 of tungsten in front of it and swam it around a little. I definitely need to try it as a chatterbait trailer, I hadn't considered that. The body would keep it up in the water column, burn it across shallows. That would be pretty beast. I'll play with it a bit the next time I'm out and give it a fair chance for sure

Oh no you're absolutely correct. I never understood why so many boards dont allow it. After all, that's how I found these boards ?

I love the amount of necro-posting on these forums ? it is beneficial however! I just ordered my first set of nail weights, ill be trying this out soon. Got some great worm advice reading through the thread!

It's one of my favorite tools in the toolbox. It runs a lot shallower than a 1.5 square bill, only a couple feet deep, maybe 3 at the most. Has a loud but muted (so loud, but not all rattly like a lipless) rattle and a really *really* wide waggle. In the spring it should be illegal it works so well. Now I still throw it now and again when they are pushed up tight to cover and when they are really active. In and around lay downs and over grass. I prefer it because the only cover here is too shallow for a traditional square bill and they get hung or weed bound alot.

I really wish I had taken the deeper out with me the last couple times so I could try to find them. I charged it up yesterday and forgot it on my kitchen counter. The only place I can think they would be is either suspended somewhere or out in 20 feet at the edge of the only dropoff that goes to 30ish feet, but I've honestly never seen bait down there. Maybe there is now, I suppose. Yesterday I managed to actually get a few in the boat casting a Texas weightless red shad laminate senko up into the shade line on the bank but all tiny squeakers. I suppose if nothing else I'm learning how to beat a tough bite, so theres that

My frogging rod is also my flipping rig, 7'6" favorite defender heavy fast with the 8.1:1 fuego ct. If you can get the fuego for $60 that's a $160 combo. The tatula ct is a great choice too, and would still be in budget.

I've been fishing seriously several days a week for a couple years now. I fish ponds and reservoirs here and there with the kayak but I do 85% of my fishing at my one local reservoir. Its man made but very old. Several tiny creeks in, one spill way out, almost zero current. The deepest part is around 30 feet out towards the spill way, the majority of the rest is a bowl around 22 feet deep. Very little off shore structure and nothing of size that I've found with my deeper pro+, tons of shoreline cover, mostly wood and low hanging trees over only a couple feet of water. I have had some tough spells in the past but nothing like this. Normally the biggest bites come up shallow flipping a Texas rig or jig into the shoreline structure. There's a couple steeper banks that historically are good for a jig bite, a couple shady pockets that hold some flippin fish. Occasionally you can get a fish to bite near the edge of some cat tails, but those are up in less than a foot of water. The rest of the morning I have mixed success with a squarebill out and around shallow cover, a 6th sense MVMT up into the cover and a mid range 8-10 foot crank to get reaction bites moving out on the banks. So we have been pelted with hot days here in Connecticut but the fishing has still been decent. Even later in the morning I've still been doing ok flipping shallow cover and dragging a Texas rigged power worm out to about 10-12 feet. The heat wave was broken by several days of rain followed by some cooler days. Immediately the bite went to crap. It was a grind during the heat wave, but it just stopped once the rain hit. I had one grind day turned good day just after the rain ended when apparently I found the bass schooling on baitfish. Shortly thereafter I had a day where I only caught one (however it was massive) pickerel and a squeaker and then today I got a squeaker fishing a darter up shallow with a exoswim and then boom. Nothing. I got a couple tiny nibbles that I'm fairly sure were bluegill on the ned right after the squeaker but that was literally it. No nibbles no nothing. Funny thing is I'm not even seeing the bass visually while I'm paddling around. Its like they're gone. Today we had more storms coming in that's why I went out 3 or 4 hours ahead of the storm and fished right up into the rain, still no nibbles. They should have been jumping into the kayak. I'm trying to force myself to frog fish to build confidence in it, I have had 2 blow ups in 2 days. Every time I think hey, it can only get better! and somehow, for a week now, just keeps getting worse. In my 7 or 8 years fishing here and 2 years fishing seriously, I've never seen the bite this bad. What gives? If they were in shock from the sudden temperature drop with all the rain wouldn't they have bounced back in a day or two?

Aye I work nights too. 6p to 6a Friday through Tuesday. Sunday Monday and Tuesday nights are sleep shifts so I try to get out Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday in the morning.

It had a bit of a side to side slither out of the box. I cut about an inch off one skirt and 1.25 to 1.5 off the other, really woke up the action. I could probably get an even wider walk with less forward movement if i cut them even, but i haven't found a need. The one I got is green with a white belly. I want to get one with a yellow belly and a black belly to try next. It was a huge relief, after my disappointment with the bully wa 2 I didn't think I was ever going to find "the one".

If anyone cares... the terminator walking frog is the TICKET. Thing walks like a spook, has the drain holes in the back so it cleans itself out on the cast. I threw it for an entire day and didn't catch a single Bass (been super tough here) but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm going to get a couple more just to try them out for comparison sake but the Terminator walking frog is the Frog I've been looking for.

Oi, that's a tough one. 3/8oz flippin jig with a Christie craw can do an awful lot. But I gotta go with the consensus, where I fish I'd go with a 1/4oz Texas rigged power worm

I switched to YZH and Big Game all around with a couple exceptions. Haven't had a break off in a year.

I use the baby on my 3/8oz jigs. I go up to 3/4oz for football jigs but the hook is roughly the same. The regular D bomb is just too big imho. Fwiw I got away from using them as jig trailers at all and switched to rage craw / saw craw / Christie craw for flipping jigs. I always keep d bombs on hand for flipping Texas rigged though.

So I had dead still water and overcast Skies this morning so I decided to string up with braid and throw nothing but the Frog all day. The first contestant is the bully wa 2 in lemon lime with the white belly. Man, I couldn't get this thing to walk and save my life. Eventually I tried trimming the skirt... once I cut it up around half way I was able to walk it, but only with tiny tiny twitches and really small movements. Again my basis for comparison is the live target sunfish which walks like a spook. I only got 2 blow ups all morning and neither were good direct hits. I don't necessarily contribute the lack of fish to the Frog though, the fishing was really really tough today. I couldn't even get bit on the Ned. Next up, hopefully tomorrow morning, will be the terminator walking frog and if it goes well, the poppin pad crasher.

I saw more of this activity today. Water was dead calm so i investigated. As best I can tell they're schools of 2-4" large mouth. Today the little pods of activity did not bring any bites, but the fishing was a total grind everywhere else too.

I find shallow cover on steeper banks is normally the ticket. Once I find any concentration of fish I just start working my way out with something that covers water efficiently, like a jig or a Texas rig. Sometimes I dont catch fish off the bank, but often I can find them holding anywhere from in the lay down to 15 feet or so deep straight off of it. Other times when all else fails dragging a shorter Carolina rig around works. I'll cast fairly shallow and drag it out deep at a 45 degree angle to the bank until I can figure out how deep they are holding. Sometimes I dont catch any and curse the day the Carolina rig was invented. I use a deeper clamped to my kayak to help figure out depths especially on new bodies of water. Pre-kayak I used the same method but casting deep and working shallow.

Yeah I normally try to get out and fish pre-front and do pretty well, but my work schedule isnt the most predictable thing in the world. Plus, with a kayak I try to get off the water before the downpour starts or its miserable packing up (and my tackle backpack gets soaked). Funny enough @jbmaine I caught a perch the size of my crankbait on my crankbait during this time. Determined little bugger. @BoatSquirrel I'm going to have to keep a roadrunner or inline spinner or something on hand in case I see this again. I've been pretty serious about fishing for a couple years now but only 1 year or so, maybe a little less, with a kayak and the ability to explore the water some. Its a whole new world for sure.

So I was out on my local reservoir this past week... had been storming and raining for days at this was the first real break. I thought the fish would be going to town with the break in the weather but nada... not a single bite for the first few hours. Then I paddled over to a shallower sloping bank that doesnt normally hold many fish in the summer time. It's good for the occasional cruiser but that's about it. I noticed a patch on the water, about a 3 foot diameter circle. It was almost like it was boiling... or as if there was an invisible shower head raining down in one little spot. I ran a squarebill near it and caught my first bass of the day. I found several more of these spots, caught one or two fish on the 6th sense MVMT80 on everyone. Caught a small perch and a pickerel too. I assume this is some sort of baitfish activity, but what? And what are they doing? This is in connecticut and in water with no shad. Everytime I paddled ro where they were they would disappear and reappear 20 feet away. This was in only a few feet of water, maybe 5 tops.

I prefer the favorite defender or phantom, but it seems like the consensus is that heavy is heavy enough and I dont need to go extra heavy. I've hauled a *lot* of bass in on my 7'6" defender ?

I ordered a couple different ones to try, but now I have to grab a new rod for my braid reel. I prefer all my rods to be in the mid 7s, but should I go heavy fast or extra heavy fast? The only other thing I'm going to use it for is flipping and pitching so I can go either way.

What i mean by missing fish on the live target... well, here's my theory. I have a do-all heavy 7'6" fast rod but i have it spooled with 15lb YZH for jigs and deep rolling spinners and chatterbaits (incidentally I think I have decided to switch to 20lb). YZH has a ton less stretch than mono but it still stretches. I lost count at around 200 (yes, you read that right) strikes and blow ups with no hooks... I suspect it was a lot of small fish but also when it got choked by a large bass I was expending the energy of my hookset stretching the line instead of burying those massive roofing nail hooks. Just yesterday I got a second reel with 65lb power pro to use. So I grabbed a bully wa 2 to try and when I get a new rod in a couple weeks as funds permit it's going to be a 7'3" to 7'6" exH on 65lb power pro. I'm hoping that will help.

I'm settling on the bully wa 2 for an all around frog I think. I will try some others for matted vegetation later on but just to get started I want a great walking frog. I'm hoping my 7'6" heavy with braid will be enough to drive those massive hooks home. I suspect that the massive hooks are the reason I miss all the blow ups on the live target sunfish. Incidentally that's also the reason I was considering the snag proof bobbys perfect frog. So many choices.