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This was my first year not doing any frog fishing. I got too caught up in fluke fishing this summer. I used to frog fish obsessively and got pretty damn good at it. The trailer hook isn’t necessary.
If you ever get a chance to go for snakeheads….that is frog fishing at its finest. You can find northern snakeheads in PA, NJ, Virginia, and Maryland. Bullseye snakeheads in Florida. They are mean and fight super hard. I’ve seen them break off 65# braid. Bowfins are similar enough though if you can get them to eat frogs, although their mouth is bony so a mean hookset and good pressure is needed.
I am not far from Pittsburgh, so nothing like that here. I have seen bowfin in Wilmington, but I couldn’t get them to bite. I use the trailers to make sure I get a hook in them. Imo it doesn’t mess with the action of the frog and is just a nice extra chance to ensure a hook-up. I have used without and I miss too many strikes. Although, that frog fish from Carolina this year was without a trailer hook if I recall. I think I lost the one I was using a few casts prior when it got tangled in a cypress tree above me-it’s tight casting in a lot of places around this lake.
But yeah, other than that one (over 5) and one other decent bass during the first kayak bass tourney of the year that was 18.75 inches and 4 lbs, my year sucked. They just weren’t hitting, the weather with really heavy rain ruined a few weekends that I could have fished-the last one, the rain started while I was 30 mins into a 45 min travel time to the lake at 5am and when I pulled down to the ramp, I watched clouds of mud flowing into the lake and I called it before it began. Then, I got injured at work dealing with an extremely violent patient and dislocated my shoulder and that ended my year in late summer and I completely missed the fall bite. What’s funny about the kayak tourney is that I helped plan it. A guy reached out to me and said that he saw all the big fish I post on a local forum and he wanted to set up a tournament with me. I told him my work schedule and told him it had to be on Saturdays because I work Sundays. And he got it backwards, so I was only able to fish a few of them and even then, a few hours of each since I have a bad back and can only sit and fish for about 3-4 hours. I was in the lead when I left and it lasted for a few hours, but I came in second that day.