It's frog time

Well it's official, the dog days of summer are here and usually the tournament weights plummet accordingly. Our last event on Belleville saw only 10 fish being brought to the scales and it reminded me of the 2008 event on Coldwaters Randall chain when only 7 fish were weighed in.

Warm weather usually drives the fish deep or makes

them look for heavy cover such as pads or matted

vegetation. The club will visit Wixom lake in a few

weeks and these are likely where a lot of the fish will be located. Patterns that work this time of year include dock fishing, finessing deep weedlines with senkos or fishing deeper structure. Since most of Michigans natural lakes are devoid of this type of deep cover, most folks fish weightless senkos around deeper weedbeds which can make for a long day. Yeah this pattern will catch fish but I've discovered something that is much more exciting, frog fishing. Many pros have begun to win tournaments on these topwater tactics, enough so that I decided to take only my frog rod to the lake last week and see what all the talk is about.

I launched my boat around 3pm on a hot weeknight and checked the water temps to be close to 80 degrees, about as hot as it will get all year. The wind was blowing good but as I ventured into a "slop bay" the waves didn't seem to exist. I threw a Spro Bronzeye Frog in natural green and began just pulling it through the pads until I hit an opening and then let it set for a few seconds. I was suprised when after only about 1o minutes did I get my first hit, just a slight sucking strike but I set the hook on a 2.5 pounder and I was hooked as a frog fisherman.

I proceded to get about 14 bites for the 3 hours I fished and only caught 5 but 3 were keepers and one was a giant that went 5.4 pounds on my digital scales, my second biggest fish ever. You havn't lived until a five pounder blows up on a frog in deep slop. But for all the success I had that first frog night, there is a lot of frustration involved in this type of fishing. First off, bites do not come frequently and your mind starts to wander. That's why I missed several fish that night, not being ready. Secondly as I demonstrated, you will miss the majority of the hits no matter how cool your nerves are.

But on the positive side, most of the fish that bite will be decent ones and you never have to worry about a lot of boat traffic back in the jungle. I have also discovered a few tricks in this type of fishing in my short frog career. The farther into the slop you go, the better. I believe these fish see very few lures during the season and they may stay there year round. You will also be amazed at how many fish will give away their locations. You can usually hear panfish sucking flies off the pads but bass will make this sound as well. I also actually saw disturbances in the water and threw to it to catch fish so pay attention. And most of your strikes will not be the toilet bowl flushing variety, rather a subtle sucking bite, just as my five pounder did.

My gear is very important when getting back in the weeds as you might expect. I use a 6 1/2 foot heavy action rod with a soft tip and I use the Spro Bronzeye Frog jr. with 30 lb power pro braided line. This is a must and you can probably go heavier. Finally, throw to everything, pads, floating mats, and get ready to go in and get the fish once it's hooked because it is hard to pull a 3 pounder wrapped with 5 pounds of weeds to the boat. By the way, I decided to try my frog fishing on a busy weekend this past Saturday and even though two tournaments were being held on an already busy lake, I managed two good keepers in about 3 hours fishing along with about 10 swing and misses. My new hobby still needs some work but I'm looking forward to trying it for a whole day in a club tourney. More froggin' reports to follow.