Sure, you can punch grass beds and catch some good fish —but there’s no more exciting way to snatch bass out of vegetation than with soft-plastic frogs like Stanley Ribbits, Zoom Horny Toads and Scum Frogs. Here are some tips for fishing these lures and g
Josh Cameron pulled up near a shallow grass bed on Pickwick Lake and promptly sailed a frog across the matted grass, and worked it toward the boat.
Ka-woosh!
A bass exploded on the fake toad and crushed it before diving toward safety.
Cameron was having none of that, however, as he quickly dropped his rod tip and reared back and drove the steel home. In seconds, he turned the bass, wore it down and hoisted it into the boat to quickly admire and released the nice fish.
Cameron, a Mississippi State Fishing Team member, found a frog pattern during the last minutes of practice and developed a tournament strategy. As a result of that frog bite, Cameron and his partner won the MSU Pickwick Team Tournament, which was a qualifying tournament for the WBFL Okeechobee Tournament held earlier this year.
“During the tournament, we had a couple of bites early, but once the sun got up high — around 11:30 to 12:00 — the bass really turned on, and we worked them over good with that frog,” said Cameron. “We did lose a couple of big ones, but caught 10 keepers and culled enough to win the tournament on the strength of our frog bite.”
And there’s no better time to dig the plastic frogs out of your box than this month, he said.
“May is one of my favorite times of the year to fish, and fishing a frog is my favorite thing to do during the month.” Cameron said. “You can have some explosive topwater action that is almost unbelievable if you get on the bass at the right time.”
While there is a multitude of frogs on the market of all types, sizes, kinds and colors, he prefers using just a few of those frogs depending upon the specific conditions and types of water he’s fishing.
“I really love fishing the Zoom Horny Toad when fishing over matted grass,” Cameron said. “My favorite Horny Toad is the white or green color.”
He’ll make a change, however, when targeting bass coming out of the spawning season.
“SPRO Poppers are really good on post spawn bass,” Cameron said. “I’ll work the outside edges with the poppers and get a lot of bites.
“My favorite color SPRO has a yellow greenish top and a white bottom, and sometimes just white. My favorite color on Pickwick is black, and I like to work the main-lake pockets right on the edges with a SPRO frog, and black is definitely it.”
Locating bass is pretty basic this month: Grass, grass, grass is the name of the game in May when it comes to catching bass on frogs, according to Cameron.
“I want to find grass and stay near it all day long, if the fish are there and active,” he said. “That’s the key to catching them this month: grass with the presence of baitfish and bass.”
But he doesn’t just look around and settle on any old grass bed.
“During May on Pickwick, I want to locate the major feeder creeks,” Cameron said. “Once I pinpoint the major feeder creeks, I’ll stay as close to the main lake as I can and fish those areas first. I’ll work about halfway back in the cove, or creek and keep fishing as long as I’m getting bites.
“But if I reach the halfway point and I’m not getting bit, I’m going to pick up and move to another area closer to the main lake.”
If this young angler can find grass on the main-lake points, he’ll really work that area over before moving on.
“If I find grass on the main-lake points I’ll work it over with a (Rebel) PopN Frog,” said Cameron. “A lot of times the bass will be close to the main lake and ready to feed up after the spawn.”
And Cameron’s ready, willing and able to give them what they want.
When SPRO first came out with their popping frog the grass had just started emerging along a siphon canal near New Orleans, and Cameron located a 200 to 300 yard stretch of grass where the bass were really stacked in there.
“We really killed them on that SPRO popping frog, and our best fish pushed the scales to nearly 30 pounds,” he said. “We caught a few in the 6- or 7-pound range and a bunch of 3- and 4-pounders that day.”
It didn’t take the MSU fishing team angler long to figure out that fishing a popping frog was the ticket.
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