Buzzing a frog for big bass blowups
Spring and summer is topwater time and two of the best baits to throw are frogs and buzzbaits. What would happen if you combine those two baits into one? Travis shows us the killer blowups you get when fishing on top, with the new Prop Frog from Lunkerhunt.
* Transcript below:
Did you see he opened his mouth? That was awesome!
Oh my god look at the spiderwebs in here. With the dew on them. Do you see it? That’s beautiful. And this little algae bloom in here, oh god I’m gonna get the big one.
Oh Bert, I’m talking about the one up ahead of us, you see that one? With the … Oh, got him! Oh good morning! Look at that. Boys and girls, we’ve got the start of the video. When springtime starts everything goes shallow. There’s spawning, there’s protecting beds, bass, bluegill, shad, everything goes shallow and it becomes pure chaos. And it can be a lot of fun to target bass that time of year. One of the best ways to do it is throw in top water, but when you throw in top water … Back you go. When you throw in top water you don’t know if you wanna throw a walking frog that you can fire up in those corners and work it out of there in or some kind of buzz bait. You can make those long casts and really trigger those aggressive strikes from those fish coming out of the cupboard.
But you no longer have to choose now, because Lunkerhunt came up with the prop frog. Look at that, look at those little feet. You got the props and you got the advantages of just having a hollow belly frog. So let’s break down this technique starting with rigging.
Okay so first lets talk about some features of this Lunkerhunt prop frog. You have the traditional body shape of a hollow belly frog, you’ve got those nice little hooks that fit right alongside that body so you gotta weedless design. But then, what’s unique that Lunkerhunt has done is you’ve got these prop little legs instead of the rubber legs that you normally have. And then included that, that stinger hook. So that thing deflects off of cover and stuff but when those fish short strike you’re still gonna get those hook ups. Great little bait that you can stop, pause, and work over thick cover. But then also with those little prop sounds you’re gonna be able to trigger those aggressive strikes, those fish are gonna come out from cover and pound this thing.
Then I’ve got 30 to 60 pound braid here. I love throwing the braid, you’ve gotta have a strong enough line that you throw into that cover and you get walloped, you gotta be able to get that fish outta there. And part of yanking that fish out of there is having the right rod. I’ve got a 744 medium heavy fast action. So I’ve got enough tip to really warp this bait around, but then I got that backbone to really yank and control that fish out of the cover. I’ve got a KastKing Speed Demon, it’s a high speed 9.3:1 gear ratio, so as I make that cast, I warp that bait a little bit. Once I’m out of the strike zone I can reel it back in real quick and make another cast. And really have full control over this bait.
Oh! That was a big fish dude.
This bait is real easy to work. You just cast it out, rod tip up when you come over stuff, and then once you’re in the open water you just let those legs work just like a little buzz bait. It’ll make that little gurgle gurgle gurgle noise. A nice slow even retrieve. And once you get the hang of it you could start messing around with it, you could speed it up a little bit to get a bit more violent gurgle. But really you’re gonna … like in the situation right here, there’s tons of different vegetation but there’s little pockets and stuff.
So I’m gonna slowly warp this over the pockets and then actually over the vegetation, I’m gonna crawl and hop and try to make those vibrations. Because when you’re vibrating on top of that vegetation those fish can hone into you a little bit better. And then once I hit that open water again I’ll just have that slow cadence that’s a characteristic of like buzz baits. And that can really draw those aggressive strikes, especially if a fish is underneath that vegetation that comes away, making that noise, you’re really gonna get a nice little bite.
The other thing is when I make that cast, a lot of times once it lands I’ll let it sit for a few seconds, three to five seconds. And fish will hone into that. When they hear something land, they’ll come check it out. Bass are curious by nature. And so I give it a couple seconds for them to come take a look at it, and then when I start that movement a lot of time that’s when the strike will happen. That bass will come up to it, take a little look at it, and be expecting, and all of a sudden it’ll start running away and that bass goes no no no, you’re not going anywhere.
All right, thing about where to use this is anywhere shallow. We talked about springtime, everything’s happening up shallow. They’re up making beds, all kinds of species are up making beds throughout the spring. Then they’re protecting them, they’re feeding up there, there’s so much going on that having a versatile shallow water top water bait is very beneficial because you can come over a lot of that vegetation, you can move it slow, you can move it fast. So right here I’ve got a lot of different targets I can fish. I could fish just open water and there’s little tiny clumps here of vegetation out in the open, and this is a perfect bait to throw out in the open because around the vegetation I can’t see.
So I’m able to work this fairly quickly over this open water and see if there’s any fish that wanna bite. But then as I come closer into these little pockets I could throw this bait, because it’s virtually weedless, I could throw it right in that grass, bring it right to the edge right there, and work it just like a traditional frog. Once I’m out in the open I can work it like a buzz bait now. And so the location, basically I’m gonna try to throw this in anywhere from half a foot … if there’s water I’m gonna throw it right up in there, to about four or five feet of water depending on if there’s some vegetation and stuff out there. So any shallow areas these fish are in, this bait is perfect because you can throw and you can cover so much water, really figure out where those fish are, and generate some aggressive strikes and big fish hit top water. Do not forget.
When you’re fishing for the shallow water healthy bass this time of the year guys, having something like the Lunkerhunt prop frog is perfect, because you can fish all the conditions you’re gonna run into, right? You could throw this into open water, draw fish from long ways away, but also you can get right in the thick stuff where they’re hanging out, right? You could throw that right into little pockets, work it like a frog, positive the fish aren’t reacting right away, so you have that versatility, you’re really gonna be able to figure out what the fish are doing and find where those fish are.
Guys, if you liked this video hit that thumbs up, hit the subscribe button, so you can get all the Lucky Tackle Box videos that we are throwing out there. I’m Travis Moran, my boy Sam is behind me here. Sam? You photo bombing? He’s camera shy. Anyway guys, I’ll see you on the next one.