oh man this is a fun topwater bait right now and it's one of my favorite frogs to use and trust me
i have a ton of different frogs i can choose from but right now this one from z-man the top water
pot frogs wins the day so let me show you how to rig this bad boy up where to fish it and how to
fish it to land some largemouth bass first let's start some basic rigging this guy was designed
to push water as you can see his little mouth is cupped here so it's made the fish on top so what
you're gonna need to do in order to rig this up you're gonna need a four to five hook i personally
do not skimp on my hooks anymore uh i've had too many experience with my hooks bend out on
big fish and after those moments i'm like no never again so i buy top-of-the-line gamakatsu
real stout hooks and i just set the hook like a mother so this is a four out hook this is going
to be your offset shank worm hook so i'm going to open these up so this is going to be considered an
extra wide gap as you can tell it kind of goes way down here versus a straight shank it's going to
have an offset bend and what you're going to want to do is hook this up so you're going to want the
hook to end up like this at when you're done in order to do that if you want the hook to pop up
on the top when you first start this off you're going to run the hook out the bottom so what you
want to do is kind of go in about a quarter of an inch pop it out so it looks like that you're going
to run this all the way to the offset bend and that's that's kind of how how it's going to sit
in there and then you're going to measure up kind of where you want that hook to be hooked in there
so this thing isn't wonky like this or it's too stretched out and so that's gonna be for me
right about there now you can see popped out right in the slit like it was designed to do
and a lot of times what i'll do is i'll just kind of skin hook that a little bit so it doesn't pop
out on a lot of my casts and there you have how to rig up the z-man pop frogs on a 4-ought extra wide
gap hook and this is another especially if you're a beginner getting into frog fishing this is why
i like to swell because these z-man products as you can see are very elastic and so if you haven't
dialed in how to hook these up and the margin of error these are really nice because they do start
so much uh versus a lot of the other plastics they don't give a lot of margin of air for putting your
hooks in there all right let's talk about the line you're going to want to use with most frog fishing
you're going to want to use a 50 to 60 pound braid that's what you see here and the reason you want
braid one great sensitivity you're going to feel anything you're going to transfer a lot of power
very quickly because there's very little stretch in braid and also if you catch a fish like we're
at right now in the pads this braid is going to cut through a lot of the pads and it's going to
be a lot easier to land that fish so i use 50 pound power pro i'll throw that link in the
description below if you're looking for a great braid out there that's got to perform for you now
when it comes to a rod and reel i'm going to have this thing hooked up here in just a minute as you
can see i'm just waiting to get this video done so i can get out there and slam some fish but i have
a this is a lose mach 2 speed stick the gear ratio on this is 751 so it's going to be pretty fast so
for every time i turn this one time the spool is going to go around seven and a half times so it's
pretty high speed ratio they go up to like nine in the nines it's just the way i like it i don't like
sitting there with a low gear around the five ones or six because i get to sit there and spin
it really really fast it's a lot easier for me to slow down a higher gear ratio reel than it is to
do the opposite and then what i'm going to want is a medium heavy rod i'm going to transfer as much
power into setting that hook as i possibly can on a pot frog so where do you fish this thing i'm
only reaching in the back of my kite crate for two reasons if i'm over top of grass and vegetation
or if i'm in intermittent pads like you see behind me i'm gonna throw this in the pads pop it through
it's gonna stay on top because this elastic is highly buoyant and i'll show you a different way
you want it to go down in the water column in just a moment we're basically gonna pop this it's gonna
push water it's not gonna be great at pushing water because this is super soft it will push
a little bit of water for you and then whenever i hit a pocket i'm gonna sit there and this is just
gonna float kind of give it a little tug tug try to get that reaction bite from those large
bass that are sitting under those pads now pro tip if you've never bought z-man products before the
melting point on these are a lot lower than the other plastic and it doesn't react well with other
plastics that you buy so when you buy these and you store them do not let them touch another type
of non-z-man product because these things will start to melt it's weird i don't know why they do
but they do and also something to keep in mind if you do store z-man products together if you have a
white frog and a green frog and you put them side by side they'll start leeching their colors into
one another in a matter of like an hour and so keep that in mind so you're not you don't spend
a ton of money on this store them the wrong place melt your plastics or leech your colors
some guys and girls out there they don't like z-man products because of how light they are which
makes casting and accuracy a bit of a problem another thing about this particular lure is since
the legs are so long and dangly it makes it very difficult to skip this lord all right let's talk
about the pro what i like about the pop frogs kind of z-man product here is that you're only trying
to bury one hook into the mouth of the large mouth bass with a lot of your hollow-bodied frogs
you're trying to bury two which just makes it a lot more difficult you need a lot more power
and you really need to set that correctly in order to land that bass so i believe the hook-up ratio
with these are a lot higher than with these especially if you're a beginner and haven't
mastered kind of setting the hook on a hollow body frog might want to go with something this to kind
of enter as an entry-level frog to start frog fishing what i like about this versus these this
material is a lot more squishy which is going to make it a whole lot easier for the bass to get it
into its mouth as fast as possible interestingly enough um this is not how i typically fish
the pop frogs it is the most common way and if you're just entering into it it's how it's
designed to do but i usually will use a weighted hook when i'm fishing the pop frog because i don't
think it does a fantastic job of pushing water and i like to actually fish it a little bit below
the water column in order to do that you're going to need a weighted hook so that's what a weighted
hook looks like so this does a couple things for me this is why it efficient this way one because
z-man products are so light i can cast this thing a country mile and get it where i want to do it
i can actually skip it a little bit better than if it was weightless and also what i like about
this is whenever i let it pause it start to sink and these tails just go absolutely crazy
as this thing is sitting to the bottom and a lot of times fish will come and smash it as this thing
is floating and it's giving me that natural action of the legs as they flicker through the
water although this is great for bass that's how i primarily use it um z-man says this stuff is great
for striper fishing striper great for redfish or even trout so if you're fishing for those type of
fish this might be the jam for you we all love topwater blowups and though i fish this usually
lower in a water column there is one i always bring out for the top of the water column it
is the finesse frog which i actually did another video on i'll throw that in the description below
actually i'll just show that right now hey guys thanks for watching good luck out there see ya bye