Favorite Topwater Frog

Do you have a favorite topwater frog bait?
I’d like to try a couple of these newer frogs with swimbait type legs (lots of action/noise) for mid to late summer bass.

Spro Bronzeye Flappin Frog 65.

It ended up being the only frog I threw after I got used to it. Obviously it is easy to just reel it in, but I also got comfortable popping and walking it.

Caught a lot of largemouth and a few smallmouth on Vermillion with it in August.

You’d think color would not matter that much but I had multiple days when color was the only difference. Red Ear was my top color, second was Killer Gill but it was a distant second. Something about that yellow belly on the Red Ear.

Just a all black spro

I only have two colors, both in spro bronzeye. White and black.

Frogs haven’t produced consistently as they use to for me in the past.

Bass only see the bottom of it. They don’t care what the pattern on top is. That’s nothing but a marketing ploy.

In spro the best color ever made is natural red. Do not buy the all white one, more of a pike magnet. They work down south but I’ve seen white get outfished too many times in MN by a more natural color. Stick to black, green pumpkin, and browns. The new Berkley swap lord is a great frog. It’s got better colors than spro, walks better, and less problems with the skirt wrapping around the hooks. I haven’t bought a spro frog in a long time, with the exception of their popping frog. I make a secret frog that can’t be beat in heavy mats, but I can’t talk about it here.

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gim wrote:

Bass only see the bottom of it. They don’t care what the pattern on top is. That’s nothing but a marketing ploy.

Yep, I’m only looking at the bottom side of the frog for color but I gave him the specific colors. We had multiple outings this year where you could not get a bite on a white or black belly but the yellow belly got lots of hits.

It’s one of those things now that everyone in the boat has a different belly color on until we decide if color matters that day.

More times than not this last year, color did matter.

you mean people actually go fish for bass!!!!!!!!

Caught many walleye on frogs as well late in the season.

Been about 10 years but I liked the scum frog big foot.

Tru Tungsten Mad Maxx can’t be beat when the wild rice is laying over on the surface of the water. That is the only time of the year I throw my remaining stock.

Snagproof Bobby’ Perfect Frog Gen 1 and 2, I’ve caught more bass on these than any other frog, and it isn’t even close. My stock of these is starting to run low as well.

Z-Man ToadZ

Terminator Poppin’ Frog is my goto for a poppin’ frog

I really like Swamp Lord’s soft texture. I like regular Terminators in really thick reeds.

Honorable mention to Terminator Jr’s, LiveTarget,Bully Wa 2’s and Teckel Whackers

Wotta Frog.

Northland Reed Runners are a great frog! Also Spro.

You guys do realize this is a walleye site, right?

Talking bass is akin to political or religious posts.

The mods should kill this thread.

The Berkley Swamp Lord became my “go to” frog this past summer. It pushed aside Bobby’s Perfect, Pad Crasher, and Bronzeye.

Better hooks, super soft, walks well, and great colors.

I’ll have to check out the Berkley Swamp Lord.

Quite often a pike with ruin them after one swipe because the teeth rip the body and then they don’t float anymore.

Swamp Lord is probably the number 1 now. The first one I bought held up to a number of big pike even. They have a gasket so don’t take on much water. These are way better than Spros.

The old bobby’s perfect were great mat frogs with awesome colors. These haven’t been made for several years as the factory shut down and the name was sold off. The new ones are nothing special.

When it comes to popping frogs the spro is good and I’ve also heard great things about the gambler poppin’ frog but haven’t tried one yet.

The terminator frog always looked to hideous to me. I never got sucked into buying any of those.

And as already mentioned, the spro flappin’ frog is a cool bait. It made of a different material, and has the coated nano-hooks or whatever gamakatsu calls them. It is more of an open water frog and works similar to a horny toad.

Bearcat89 wrote:

Caught many walleye on frogs as well late in the season.

You got any videos of that? That would be a crazy pattern if it was somewhat repeatable

I’ve caught a few walleye on Zara spooks over the years. Never got one on a frog though. And when it comes the distance one has dragged a frog through the soup I’m in the 99th percentile.

Swamp Lord, eh?? There goes $30 bucks. Can’t just have one with all these damn pike around.

Do you guys trim the ‘legs’ on those things? You know, one shorter and one longer to help it walk??

Live Target

You don’t need to trim legs on a swamp lord, they walk great right out of package. One more advantage they have over spro, which always need a haircut before fishing.

Live target is a great frog, the current color selection is terrible though.

The Teckel USA Honker Frog is my go to frog. It has metal flipper legs and when it sits at rest the nose of the frog points up. Perfect hooking position. They run about $15 a piece. I fished a bunch with them last year and never lost one.

I have one of these but rarely used it. How do you fish this frog and in what cover type?

Bartman wrote:

The Teckel USA Honker Frog is my go to frog. It has metal flipper legs and when it sits at rest the nose of the frog points up. Perfect hooking position. They run about $15 a piece. I fished a bunch with them last year and never lost one.

I’ve never tried the Honker. I like the Teckel Whacker aka Reaction Innovations Swamp Donkey, and the Teckel Sprinker, the original plopper frog. The Teckel Maracker is hands down the worst frog for hooking up I’ve ever used. I have caught one bass on the thing, and that had to be after missing more than 2 dozen blow-ups on that frog. A couple of years ago I set out a goal of catching at least 1 bass on every type/model of frog I owned. It was 34 different frogs at the time and that crappy Maracker was the last one on the list. I threw it off and on all season. I’d miss a few bites then set it down in frustration. I finally got a bass on it at the end of the season. .

I use the Teckel Frog in Rice and reeds

Thanks for all the great feedback.
You just created a cool Christmas wish list.

I took the liberty of grouping these frogs into several categories.

SKIRT LEGS – WALKING
– Spro Bronzeye Frog 65 (skirt legs); Red Ear (yellow belly), black, white, natural red, green pumpkin, browns
– Berkley Swamp lord (skirt legs, shrink tube gasket at body hole)
– Snagproof Bobby’ Perfect Frog Gen 1 and 2 (skirt legs)
– Terminator Jr (skirt legs, walking)
– Bully Wa 2’s (skirt legs)
– Teckel Whackers (skirt legs, aka – Reaction Innovations Swamp Donkey)

SKIRT LEGS – POPPER
– Spro Popping Frog (skirt legs with a popper head/face)
– Northland Reed Runner (skirt legs, popper)
– Gambler Poppin’ Frog (skirt legs, popper)
– Terminator Poppin’ Frog (skirt legs, popper)

PADDLE FEET
– Spro Flappin Frog (paddle Feet, coated hooks)
– Scum Frog Bigfoot (paddle feet)

SPINNER FEET
– Teckel USA Honker Frog ( metal flipper blades & barrel swivel legs, rests nose up)
– Teckel Sprinker, (single paddle foot spinner, original plopper frog)

LIVETARGET BRAND
Livetarget brand offers all styles of frogs including swirl tail legs, single & treble hooks

VINTAGE-RETIRED
– Wotta Frog (vintage, wood legs, 3 treble hooks, dive lip)
– Tru Tungsten Mad Maxx (retired, skirt legs)

My search winners are:
– Berkley Swamp lord (skirt legs, walker, shrink tube gasket at body hole)
– Teckel USA Honker Frog ( metal flipper blades & barrel swivel legs, rests nose up)
–

I think the most important feature of any bait is the confidence you have in it. Thanks to the collective wisdom here on this forum, I’ll be able to fish these baits with confidence. Now, to pick out a few colors in each model.

edit: deleted the Zman Toadz, it’s a soft body plastic bait.

Oops, just realized the Zmzn Toadz isn’t a topwater frog, it’s a soft body plastic bait.