Rapala pros walk Terminator frogs all over bass in Mississippi River tournament
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The word of the week in a recent Bassmaster whack-fest on the Mississippi River was “Frog.” And a Terminator Walking Frog Jr. helped several pros sprint to top finishes in the Elite Series event in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
“There’s no funner way to catch ‘em, I don’t think, than to do that,” says Terminator Pro Ott DeFoe of hooking and landing a big bass after it blows up on a frog. Many of the anglers he competed against apparently agree. If you tuned into Bassmaster’s live coverage of the tournament and weigh-ins, you saw anglers fishing frogs – and heard commentators discussing frog fishing – hour after hour.
“At least five of the anglers credited variations of topwater frogs as getting them to Championship Sunday,” Bassmaster writer Craig Lamb reported in the tournament’s live-blog coverage.
A Terminator Walking Frog Jr. was the amphibian of choice on Championship Sunday for Rapala pros Randall Tharp (3rd place) and Jacob Wheeler (5th). DeFoe finished 13th in the 107-angler field. At 2-1/2 inches, the Walking Frog Jr. is half an inch shorter than its big brother, the Terminator Walking Frog.
“When bass are feeding on smaller forage, they’ll often eat the smaller frog better,” DeFoe says.
That was often the case in La Crosse last week. Bassmaster cameras captured numerous images of 2- to 2 ½-inch frogs hopping around onshore and atop shallow aquatic vegetation all over the tournament venue, which comprised Mississippi River Pools 7,8 and 9.
Both the Walking Frog Jr. and the 3-inch Walking Frog feature lifelike detail from nose to skirt. They’re both tail-weighted to increase casting distance and stability on the retrieve, and each features a custom VMC® frog-gap hook, lifelike round-rubber legs and heavy-duty welded line ties.
Another topic of dock talk and Bassmaster coverage during the tournament last week was how some leading anglers were cutting holes in the back of their frogs in order to drain them of water between casts. Too bad those anglers didn’t know Terminator builds that feature into all its frogs.
“Having as little water in your frog as possible on every cast is a big deal to keep the action right, so we engineered a neat little trick that clears out any water for every cast,” explains DeFoe, who helped Terminator design its frogs.
A water-logged frog is hobbled by added weight and unbalanced action, throwing off its cadence and causing big bass to take a pass. “Most hollow-body frogs have a tendency to take on water and bog down a bit with the added weight,” says DeFoe. The Walking Frog’s design eliminates this issue, making it a hawg hunter’s dream.
The preferred equipment for frog fishing is a fairly stout rod, baitcasting reel and 50 or 65 pound Sufix 832 braided line.
Terminator Walking Frogs were designed tip to tail to convert blow-ups into hook-ups. They are available in eight color patterns: White Camo, Cocoa Camo, Black Camo, Hot Mud Camo, Brown Leopard, Yellow Leopard, Lime Leopard and Green Leopard.