How To: Fish a soft plastic frog bait for bass fishing

No one fishes with a frog as lure, except when it comes to the non-living kind. This soft plastic frog bait is the perfect lure for bass fishing. They look lifelike, but won't make you feel like an awful fisherman. Watch as Wade Bourne of MyOutdoorTV shows you how to fish a plastic frog bait.

One of the hottest lures in bass fishing today is the soft plastic frog like the Berkley PowerBait Bat Wing Frog or the Stanley Ribbit. These baits are rigged weedless, and they are fished on the surface over/through thick cove. They look extremely lifelike as they ripple across these likely bass hangouts. They trigger a bass' urge to attack helpless prey. Topwater explosions on these lures are heart-stopping!

One new enhancement for fishing soft plastic frogs is rigging with Stanley's Ribbit Double-Take Frog Hooks. These 2-pronged hooks offer twice the hooking power while still retaining the bait's weedless nature. Following are tips for fishing soft plastic frogs for big bass.

- Use stout tackle. A medium-heavy or heavy action casting rod rigged with strong braided line is best.

- Experiment with different frog colors to see if the bass have a preference.

- Try different retrieve speeds to see which the bass like best. Reel a frog quickly across the surface. Also, try a medium-speed retrieve and a slow, start/stop retrieve.

- When fishing grass mats, steer the frog into holes in the cover, and momentarily pause the frog in an opening to tempt a following bass into striking.

- When a bass engulfs a soft plastic frog, don't set the hook until you feel the weight of the fish pulling your rod tip down. Then set the hook forcefully and try to move the fish from the cover.