Basstrike Fishing Blog

Usually four frogs are available in the market, and they include hard plastic, soft plastic, hollow body and pop and spit. Due to many different frogs lures available on the market, it has been very challenging for anglers to choose the right frog for their fishing adventure. This post explains where and when to use different frog lure to catch big bass.

Hollow Body Frogs

Hollow body frogs possess hollow, flexible plastic bodies with double upturned hooks. These hollow bodies snug against the hooks to make them weedless. However, because hollow bodies are very soft, when a fish strikes, they collapse and hook the fish.

Fishing in waters with dense surface vegetation or slop should involve the drag of hollow body frogs across the gunk’s top. Inexperienced anglers see vegetation on a water surface as a solid mass that can’t hold fish. This is true because the vegetables covering the surface of the water are only solid at the surface, but underneath, they are open and attract many bass. A great strategy is throwing a hollow body frog on the vegetation. Find solid areas where there is vegetation with upper dinner plate-sized holes. The holes reveal the presence of bass and that they these bass made the holes. Stay calm to hear the sounds of the bass feeding underneath the visible grasses. This is a way to find an active bass.

Hard Plastic Frogs

Hard plastic frogs are mostly used in open water due to their possession of open treble hooks that can easily be snagged in grass cover and wood. Moreover, their bodies and color patterns resemble the body of real frogs. “Walk the dog” action is a kind of movement displayed by hard plastic frogs. This action is initiated when the angler works the fishing rod in a particular way.

For the “walk the dog” action to be achieved, the angler has to jerk downward on the fishing rod and on a semi-stiff fishing line. Doing this over and over again makes the frog move in a zigzag to and fro manner while moving across the water.

Additionally, hard plastic frogs are perfect lures to fish on smaller waters like streams and ponds that have a low quantity of baitfish. Frogs are some of the food available to the bass living in such water.

Popping Frogs

Popping frogs are lures with either hard or soft frog body style. They have a concave face that holds and spit water when twitching the bait on a water surface. They disturb the water surface more than other frog styles that lack a cupped mouth.

Chugging and popping topwater lures is not a new thing, but anglers have started to discover that a real frog look is more effective than the traditional way that mimics a baitfish. It is fun to catch fishes on popping frogs.

These popping hollow body frogs perform excellently in open water and on slop. Baits can be driven from the weed edges to open waters. They can also create attractive pops and splashes whenever they twitch. Popping hollow body frogs are very effective if used in lowlight conditions—a condition that triggers bass to swim away from a grass area to open water to feed.

The action of popping frogs makes them more effective when combined with shoreline grass-wood cover mix, especially in new areas with briars, pasture grasses, floating debris and buck brush. This style of bait can overcome snags with the help of its weedless properties while its concave face creates a surface disturbance.

Hard plastic popping frogs perform the “walk the dog” action on the water surface, but they add splashes and commotion that will always attract bass and other fishes from a far distance. This kind of bait is the best recommended for stained water, lowlight or windy conditions. It could also be used on small lakes and pond.

Soft-Plastic Frogs

These are weedless lures, but they sink down slowly into the water instead of floating on the water surface. Anglers usually rig soft plastic frogs on hooks that have slight weights and wide gaps, and it is done purposely to make the frogs run straight.

Soft plastic frogs have some kind of swimming and kicking legs. The frogs buzz and swim whenever they are reeled at an average to fast pace with the fishing rod, but they sink down to the bottom of the water like a stunned frog when paused.

The effectiveness of soft plastic frogs depends on how active the fishes are and the vegetation on the water. In areas densely covered with grass and moss, a buzzbait will get its propeller blade clogged up while in the same areas, a soft plastic frog will work with no issues. 

Others

Most frog lures imitate the shapes and actions of frog and this is the reason why frog lures are in different styles and shape. Now days, there are more and more new styles lures be created. Maybe you will see some amazing creative lures in future, don’t forget to share to us.