A frog is a commitment. It is a surface bait, it asks fish to leave the bottom and come all the way up, and for most of the day that is a big ask. In the right window it is the easiest bite of the day.
Low light means the hour either side of sunrise and sunset, and any heavily overcast day. When the light drops, fish move shallower and become far more willing to look up. That is the whole reason the frog works then and struggles at noon.
Two reasons. A frog is fished in and over weed, and braid cuts through where mono stretches and wraps. And a surface hookset has to move a lot of line and a hollow body before it reaches the fish, which stretch would absorb. Forty to fifty pound braid is not overkill here.
When a fish takes a frog off the surface, the temptation is to set immediately on the sound and the spray. Do not. Wait until you feel the weight of the fish on the line, then sweep. The blow-up is the fish committing, not the fish hooked, and setting into the splash pulls the frog out of an open mouth more often than not.
It feels wrong every single time. Count one, feel the weight, then set.
A soft plastic topwater frog with easy walk-the-dog action and a weedless profile that glides over pads, mats, and heavy cover. Durable and built for explosive…
One a week. Rigging, water, and what we are throwing.
