18" on a t-rigged power worm. Best of nine this morning on "Lake 3".

 

Except for an eagle, I had the place all to myself.

Set my PB for best 5 on Monday.  Total 11.34 lbs. 

 

 

Here are the best three:

2.46 Lbs

 

2.84 Lbs

 

2.46 Lbs

Wes is super keen on fishing right now, so we went out after work Tuesday.  We went right back to an area of shallow pads where we were catching some on Sunday evening.  Wes started out with a frog and I was throwing a white fluke.  I caught one pike to Wes’ 3-4 blow ups and one landed bass, so I followed his lead and got to froggin’.  
 

Shortly before I switched, Wes cast up past a patch of floating grass in the pads, about 5ft. off shore and in 2ft. of water.  As soon as he passed the grass he got whacked, and bowed his 7’4” heavy rod over on what looked like a good hookset.  They all seem big when you’re winching them out of the pads, and he got her out of there OK to the 4ft. deep open water.  I picked up the net, and watched his line swimming fast toward the back of the boat under tension, then the beast jumped and we both gasped at the size of it as his frog got thrown.😱😩 I’m guessing it was well over 4#, maybe 5 or better which would have been a new PB for Wes.  I was proud of him that, although disappointed, he didn’t dwell on the heartbreak and went right back to catching them.  As usual, our hookup percentage was dismal (mine was zero 😒) but we had multiple blow ups and a ton of fun.  We were mostly just happy we found fish - a triumph in itself this year.  And the sunset on the shoreline was beautiful.

 

Oh, and we added some Bass Pro velcro rod straps to our little dream boat.  Very happy with them and it’s way better than our rods being a jumbled up trip hazard. 👍🏻

@The Baron, what kind of line you got tied to the frogs ? 

@The Baron: Frogs are so much fun and so hard to fish. By popular demand, I'm going froggin' tomorrow morning. I too expect lots of blowups and few fish, partly because of the lure itself and partly because of where I'll be casting it, i.e. the parts of the pond that are more weeds than water. May the @Pat Brown be with me! Here's Pat wishing me the best:

 

I somehow have decent luck with frog fish nowadays but I use 50 lb seaguar braid and put the steel to ‘em with ill intent

I'd be a better frogger if I looked more like this gal:

 

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

@The Baron, what kind of line you got tied to the frogs ? 

40# braid on a 7’4” heavy/fast rod.

 

For me, I know it’s my timing - I react too fast, can’t seem to give them that second or two that “they” say it needs.  My hooksets are sometimes too lazy.  Wes is much more violent - sometimes he hooks up, sometimes we duck frogs. 😆

 

 

The wait helps often but if the frog disappears, only one thing could have taken it under. 

4 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

The wait helps often but if the frog disappears, only one thing could have taken it under. 

 We have had days where they seem to eat it much better, and even I get decent hookups.  Last evening even Wes thought they were just angry swatting at it, not sucking it right in.  Don’t know what that means - change color? Or frog size? 🤷🏼‍♂️

Or toss a fluke ! Because it’s magical 

5 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Or toss a fluke ! Because it’s magical 

 

Okay, change of plan. Tomorrow morning will be froggin' and flukin'. 

lol - Not so fast @ol'crickety… I started with a fluke Tuesday evening.  Caught one pike while Wes had 3-4 blowups and landed one/lost the monster bass, so I switched.😊 That said, from a canoe it’s probably easier to get a hook in with a fluke.

 

But yeah @TnRiver46  I was throwing (have thrown before) a fluke on a 1/8oz. belly weighted swimbait hook and also sometimes weightless.  It comes over pads surprisingly well and sometime when you let it sink into a hole… 💥 😎

The fluke does only have one hook so I’ve definitely missed a lot but they sure love the side to side action, it triggers something. The gamakatsu nano alpha 4/0 and 5/0 have been helping me hook more by poking thru the fish but I also think it pokes thru the fluke better 

It'll just be fun to catch a bass on something other than a wakebait, worm, underspin, or spinnerbait. I wish I could use a Mepps, but there's no way I can retrieve one of those through August's weeds. I'm yanking off weeds from the majority of my casts already with my single, point-protected hooks.

@ol'crickety you'll be a frog master in no time.

 

Scum Frogs have the best hook up ratio and durability of any I've used so far.

 

Send me your info in DM and I'll ship you a couple.  🤙🏼🤙🏼🤙🏼

Thanks, @Pat Brown. I am cucumber cool when it comes to fishing poppers and Ploppers. The bass will hit and I'll wait until I feel their weight. I never react too soon. With frogs, however, I lose my cool. I think it's because frog fishing is your face. I can cast a Plopper half of forever, so when a bass hits, as they almost do at the end of my cast, they're yonder. With frogging, I'm sitting in the weeds and I can't cast as far and they're as likely to hit inches from my canoe as they are at the end of a cast. 

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

With frogs, however, I lose my cool.

 

It definitely takes some getting used to.  Its difficult to get a good hookset with them and quite often the strike is violent and explosive, even right next to the boat or canoe.  Its sent my blood pressure up more than once when I wasn't paying attention.

 

Just keep in mind that many of us are froggin' from a far more stable platform than a canoe.  And we're often standing up too.  And we're using heavy or MH baitcasting outfits with heavy braided line.  50% is pretty good on strike to hook up ratios here.

 

Compare that to your canoe, sitting down, and a spinning setup...well its really just not a good comparison or recipe for success so don't be too upset if its not working out very well.  If you get to 50% in a canoe consider that a grand success.

Thanks, @gimruis.

 

The biggest problem I have with my canoe is the bass pull me into trouble. Last time at my pond, I hooked a big bass at least ten feet from wood and it pulled me into the tree in about three seconds. How can a bass between three and four pounds pull an 85-pound canoe with me in it? No wonder we love them. 

 

Whenever I have someone in the bow and they hook a fish, I pick up my paddle and move them to open water. 

 

I know tomorrow morning I won't even have a 10' buffer. I'll start in the thicket. Like this:

 

 

Anyway, I'm hoping for a 50% landing percentage, but I'll more likely achieve 25% and feel lucky to attain that. 

 

Overall, I am quite pleased with my weed-fishing. I have come far in three years, landing fish today that would have freed themselves a couple years ago. Plus, I enjoy the challenge. It's like solving a Rubic's Cube at night in the back of a pickup driving flat-out and pell-mell across a just-plowed field. 

1 hour ago, Pat Brown said:

Scum Frogs have the best hook up ratio and durability of any I've used so far.

^^X2^^

They're the softest frogs out there which can really help when use spinning gear. Still need to set the hook, but they're more likely to at least get them as they collapse so much easier than typical frogs.

Launch Frog (americanbaitworks.com)

GREAT morning today. A 16", 20.5" and 21 inch bass on a Mike iaconelli Gilly swimbait. analog scale for some reason said every one of them were 1 lb 

@BluegillsTightlines: GREAT morning for sure! 

Got home from work, a rough day. Hit the pond real quick for a little bit. 

 

@Backroad Angler: Why is this your screen name? What back roads do you use?

I fooled this bass