FROG Season Isn't Over Yet

NOTE: at rest both hook are below the water,
yet the front of the bait glides on top of the weeds

One of my favorite way to catch largemouth bass is with a hollow-body frog.  I have tried dozens of styles and brands throughout the years but there is only one that has gotten used for the past decade.  The Optimum Baits Furbit Frog is a bass catching machine.  It has every feature, not just a few like many companies, that a hollow-body from needs to put bass in the boat.

Color: Most frogs you see on the market are designed to catch the angler, many fancy colors on top of the frog, the fish will never see those colors.  The Furbit frog comes in an array of colors, including the bottom of the frog too, what the bass actually sees.  On emay argue that a bass doesn't look at the color anyway with a the visicous strikes that so often happen when frog fishing, sure in heavy vegetation the bass is seeing a shadow, but in most instances the fish will see the underside and color of the frog before biting.  White, Black, Green Pump, Brown, Pink, Black/Yellow is just a few colors.

Hooks: This really separates the Furbit from from many on the market today.  This frog is made with a double 6/O hook, yes they are really that big.  This provides the extra gap between the hook and the body of the from like no other frog out there.  Wider gap and of course ultra sharp will have you hooked up!

Weight: The most unique part of this bait is the placement of the weight.  It rests under the actual hook.  It by no means can get in the way of hooking the fish.  This was a one of kind over ten years age when debuted and is still rare today on competitors models.  The design and craft of this bait is second to none.  Most frogs on the market today have the weight between the barb of the hook and the shank of the hook, causing the gap to be much smaller than it should be, thus not hooking into the fish as much as the larger gap provided by the Furbit Frog.

Real fur legs and a spinner to add attention
 in open water. 
NOTE: the silver lead weight
underneath the shank of the hook

Attraction: One other item on the Furbit is a spinner that rests behind the legs.  When in open water this acts just like a blade on a spinnerbait, allowing even more reason for a fish to come and take a look from long distances. Another added attraction are the rabbit fur legs of the Furbit Frog.  These sway in the water when still and fan out as you bring it to rest, they look amazing to any fish nearby.

Weedless: Most every frog out there is weedless, that is the primary reason to throw one, however with all the extra design behind the Furbit it stays just as weedless as other frogs.

There is a reason why the Optimum Baits Furbit Frog is still selling the same model they did in 2007 when it first appeared, it is simply the best frog on the market.  The above reasons take this lure over the top when probing around weeds, laydown logs or submerged weeds.  If you start to pay attention to your frogs, I bet you may see why the Furbit catches bass, not just anglers.

Back to the Basics

As each summer winds down I always tend to think back on my years of fishing throughout the decades.  I think back to the days when I had no boat, but would stay out all afternoon running the banks of the river looking for that next bite.  I didn't always have 15 high quality rods/reels at my disposal, typically I had two poles back in my younger years.  The past several weeks when bass fishing my big bass boat has stayed home, not because it wasn't ready for a day of fishing, but I didn't need it.  I really enjoy living a few minutes from the Wapsipinicon River and running my small river boat around, yes once again looking for that next bite.  On the front deck is 3 or 4 poles, and a couple small tackle boxes of crankbaits, spinnerbaits and plenty of tubes and craw baits.  Nothing fancy, but it sure has gotten the job done.  In a week or so the first day of September will be here and the fishing this last month has been good.  The river has been up and down and the bass have stayed in their summer areas as predicted.  It has been nice to step back in time to a small boat, and just keep things simple.  It has allowed me to catch just as many, if not more bass by going back to the basics.  The simple pleasures of running the river in a 25HP motor will be something I will always do, nothing fancy, just me, my boat and the fish.

West Lake Osceola Tournament

On a tough day, 2 keepers
netted us a 3rd place payout

This Sunday was the last event in the Hot Rod Baits Bass Series.  The event took place at West Lake in Osceola, Iowa.  This series consists of 17 teams that participate in three events scattered around the state.  The first was at Lake Sugema, then Pool 9 on the Mississippi River and the finale at West Lake.  My tournament partner for these events is Brian Bowles from Marshalltown.  We make a great pair that are not afraid to tinker with baits and different techniques.  This has been a main reason for our success this year. 

I was able to head south and look over Osceola on Friday for a few hours and the entire day on the Saturday.  This turned into a critical piece to our game plan for the tournament on Sunday.  Saturday told me that the bass were hanging out on the main lake points and more specifically near that 15 foot depth range.  Main lake points were holding fish as well as secondary points too.  The depth and the rate of drop-off played a key part too.  Baits that worked well were jigs and Hot Rod Baits Big Craws.   A plan was in place after catching a few keepers and several smaller bass during the practice day.  As I put nine Quantum PT rods and reels away, one thing was for sure, tournament day was going to be a grind.  It is never a good sign when I have that many rods on the deck after a day of fishing. Bites were few and far between and the big ones were not showing themselves very easily. 

Tournament day began at 6am and we had 7 hours to try to get as many 14-inch bass as we could to the weigh-in.  It was such a grind that I knew if we could get 3 keepers we would be right in the mix.  Our day started off as planned b hitting some main lake points in the deeper water.  The fish had disappeared.  We stuck with it for almost two hours but nothing was happening.  We decided to try shallow near some deer tongue weeds.  This gave us an immediate sign of good thing to come.  Brian hooked up on a Big Craw by slowly dragging it on top of the weeds.  One keeper in the boat felt really good.  We continued to hit similar weed lines with deeper water relatively close by.  Our largest fish of the day came next on a weightless Hot Rod Baits Stickbait in the Jelly color; a nice 3.30# bass.  After this bass was in the livewell we knew we were close to our target of three keepers.  We continued to punch through the weeds and work the outer weedline, this produced a dozen or so smaller bass, but we couldn't get that third keeper in the boat by the time the tournament was over.  We felt good on the day as we changed up the plan just in time to put two bass in the livewell, it was the best we could do.  Only one team was able to get a limit of six bass on this day, and second place only had one bass, a huge 5.68 pound bass.  Our two bass which weighed 4.64# placed us in third...we were both a little shocked, but on a "grinder day" you just never know what it will take to place towards the top.  This high finish also boosted our Team of the Year standings, we started the day as the 7th ranked team for the year and ended up as the third best team in the series, the highest Brian and I have ever placed.  Full results of this event can be found HERE.