(Editor's note: The following is the latest installment in a series of fishing tips presented by The Bass University. Check back each Friday for a new tip.)
Fred Roumbanis learned to fish on the California Delta and Clear Lake, two fisheries with lots of big fish and heavy vegetation, so it was only natural for him to gravitate to hollow-bodied frog fishing. As he competed against the likes of Ish Monroe, Bobby Barrack and Gary Dobyns, he learned that not only is it a fun way to fish, but also that it produces trophies and big limits. His personal best on an amphibian tipped the scales at 13 pounds.
Nevertheless, he knows that while frogging is fun and often productive, it can often lead to heartbreak. If you don’t dial in every aspect of your game, at some point you will get your feelings hurt.
“The frog is your opponent,” he said. “You never take your eye off that frog. You never take your eye off that opponent. The moment you do, that’s when the big one hits.”
Before you even get to that point, however, you have to get the right size, color and model topwater in front of the fish. He said that the biggest misconception about frog fishing is that the bait always represents a frog. In fact, he explained, more often it might replicate the activity of a shad or bluegill. In Mexico, it might be a tilapia. There are a wide variety of colors available, but if forced to rely on two, Roumbanis would choose black and white, not because they match baitfish, but more significantly because of the profile they offer. Black, he said, “shrinks the profile,” which may be key when bass are hesitant to strike. White, on the other hand, looks bigger, so that’s the one he’ll most often start with in order to try to catch bigger fish. While there are a variety of other greens and browns that he employs, one shade that many anglers overlook is red. He believes that sometimes bass key in on crawfish skittering on surface cover like hydrilla, and that’s when the red one is deadly.
He's recently worked with Stanford Baits to design a signature “Boom Boom” frog that employs all of his preferred attributes, including a stout Mustad hook that won’t bend, internal rattles and wider-than-usual legs because he likes to make his frog “sashay.”
He said that frog fishing is all about windows of opportunity. He’s caught frog fish in January in water around 50 degrees, but in many scenarios the key bite doesn’t come until later in the day. “Once everything starts waking up, that’s the time to throw it,” he said. His confidence allows him to go long periods without a bite. “A lot of times I’ll fish a frog all day long for a 20-minute window.”
Like many anglers, Roumbanis often uses a high-speed reel for his frogging, which enables him to retrieve his lure quickly after a missed strike and fire it back out there, but there are times he’ll slow down to a 6.5:1 gear ratio so that he doesn’t overwork the frog.
“That’s to slow me down,” he explained.
If you want to learn some of the other keys to Roumbanis' frogging system, and learn what “frog hair” is and why it’s important, check out his full video, filmed on location at Anglers Inn El Salto, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
