"Feeling "Froggy"?
(Dean Rojas Signature Bronzeye Frog)
By: "Triton" Mike Bucca
(www.tritonmike.com)
I
guess I would feel a little "froggy" too if I had one
bait that contributed to over $80,000 in tournament winnings on the
Professional Bass trails. Dean Rojas has done just that and his recent
high tournament finishes at the 2004 Bassmasters Classic, 2005 FLW
Championship and the Cabela's Top Gun Championship has definitely
helped with the resurgence of frog fishing as one of the hottest trends
in the tackle industry today. On top of that, the "Dean Rojas
Signature Bronzeye Frog" won "Best of Category for Soft
Lure" category at the 2005 ICAST show held in Las Vegas, Nevada.
This type of success and popularity has sparked many companies to come
out with their own type of frog to get a jump on the frog trend bandwagon.
I recently had
the opportunity to fish at a local lake and talk with Michael Murphy,
Product development
and Assistant Sales Manager of
Spro Corporation/Gamakatsu. SPRO Corporation, short for Sports Professional,
is located near my hometown of Kennesaw, GA. We set out to talk about
the frog and to do some frog fishing with the notorious Dean Rojas
Signature Bronzeye Frog. Michael is the one that actually worked very
closely with Dean to design this new frog and to make it as efficient
and effective as possible to Dean's specs and liking. With Dean's
extensive knowledge of frog fishing and Michael's product development
knowledge, they were a good team to make Dean's version of the "perfect" frog.
DESIGN
I found it interesting to hear the story and the development of this
frog. The story started shortly after the 2004 Bassmasters Classic
on Lake Wiley in North Carolina, where Dean finished 4th place using
a frog to take home $40,000 in cash. Dean thought he could improve
greatly on the frog designs 
that were already available, and most importantly
he knew he could improve on the one thing that most frogs on the market
are notoriously lacking, a low hook-up versus strike ratio. Dean knew
that the key to solid hookups was directly relative to the design of
the frog. Like with anything you design, you start out with a sketch
on a scratch piece of paper and iron out the features you want in your
frog design.
Left is
a picture of the first actual sketch that Dean drew out for the "Dean
Rojas Signature Bronzeye Frog" while
in his hotel room at the 2004 Bass Masters Classic at Lake Wiley.
There are several
things Dean wanted to improve on in a frog design that all others
lack.
First and foremost, Dean wanted a 4/0 EWG (Extra
Wide Gap) Gamakatsu 2X hook, which is the same diameter as Gamakatsu's
Super Line hook. Most frogs on the market use a standard round bend
hook, which according to Michael could lessen your hookups in certain
designs. The notorious "pinky rule" comes into play when
you are dealing with hook selection for frogs. The rule of thumb (or
pinky) for most plastics, is if your plastic is bigger in diameter
than your pinky finger, then you need to use an EWG hook for the sole
reason of giving the plastic room to depress during a strike, which
in turn will expose more of the hook, increasing your hookups. As with
both frogs now out by SPRO, The Jungle Frog (7/8 of an ounce and made
for fishing matted grass) has round bend hooks, but with a very exaggerated
gap with both barbs closer together for the sole reason of how bass
eat through dense vegetation, and the Rojas Frog (5/8oz) with a 4/0
EWG for all around applications for open water and sparse grass situations.
Since the hook was the first thing that was ironed out, everything
else pertained to building the frog around the hook to get the desired "slap" or "walk
the dog" action, profile, hookup ratio and skip-ability that
Dean desired. Every piece of plastic and shape on the frog, right down
to the length of the nubs that hold the living rubber legs outward
were strategically designed. Other unique features included on the
frog were designed to make the frog as
Shown
above 2 of Spro’s Dean Rojas Signature Series Bronzeye
Frog tied on with heavy duty braided line. |
streamlined
as possible, and not as bubbly, so that there would be as little
plastic as possible
to get in the way of the hook, and for the plastic to depress
more easily improving on overall hookup ratios. Other big pet peeve's
that occur in most frogs on the commercial market are that they tend
to fill up with water, land upside down, the weight tends to move
around
inside the frog or fall off, causing instability, and the plastic
body part tends to fall down the hook. All of these issues were solved
in
the Dean Rojas Frog. The living rubber legs, which emit a lot of
action, are also anchored inside the frog to prevent them from sliding
in and
out of the frog. The living rubber legs are approximately 4 inches
in length and were purposely left long to allow the angler to trim
to their desired length.
Not just in GRASS anymore!
Why are frogs effective baits for big bass? Because bass are opportunist
feeders, meaning that if you present a bait in their hiding place they
will blast it. Of course, frogs are high on a bass's food chain
and it also helps that frogs are readily available in and around most
lakes in the United States, so it only seems like a natural choice
in lure selection, however, many anglers still do not take advantage
of using frogs on the end of their line when angling for bass. Most
anglers make a big mistake that when they think of fishing frogs they
think of fishing them in and around matted grass, which in it's
own right is a great place to frog fish, but tend to overlook open
water. As said by both Dean and Michael, Do Not Overlook Open Water!
Michael Murphy
with a nice chunky largemouth that fell victim to the Rojas Frog
on our recent outing |
In fact, Michael was telling me about a time that Dean was catching
Spotted Bass on Smith Lake in Cullman, Alabama in crystal clear water
in depths of over 25 feet. Hmmmmmmmm. I don't know about you
but being a spotted bass guide myself, that just gave me an idea! Michael
and Dean both throw the frog in places where you would normally throw
a top water bait. However, with the frog, it becomes a weedless, skipping
tool that can produce consistently bigger fish. In all my experiences
in fishing for bass, the one thing that I have learned is, you can
never allow yourself to just think inside the box like everyone else,
you must sit back and analyze things from outside the box from time
to time. Sometimes you have to get creative and go against the grain
of what you have always heard or have been told, and just see for yourself
when a technique or bait will be effective. Sometimes it's just
as simple as showing the bass something different than what they are
not used to seeing on a continuous basis, especially on pressured lakes
like we have here in Atlanta, and how many lakes are starting to get
across the United States with the popularity of our growing sport.
One of the good features that I really like about the Rojas Frog
is that it skips amazingly well. This will allow you to get
under those
long expansive willow tree limbs and way up under docks to reach
those opportunist feeders where they least expect it. Take
a look at this
video (skipping.mov) and
see how easy it is to flip skip the Rojas Frog up and under a willow
tree that is overhanging the water.
I also
noticed that you can easily work the Rojas Frog with two different
distinct
actions.
The Rojas Frog has a very unique walk the dog action
to it. You can literally walk the dog with this frog and keep it almost
stationary which allows you to maximize the strike zone. We all know
that the "Strike zone" is a cornerstone of bass fishing,
especially with finicky non-aggressive fish. I feel that the longer
you can keep your frog in the strike zone, the better your chances
are of eliciting a strike from Mr. Bass. The other unique action is
what Michael described as a chugging slap action. This action is hard
to describe in words, but when working the frog using short jerks with
your rod tip the bait creates a slapping effect and gives it a fleeing/escaping
type look. Take a look at this video (walking.mov). We start off walking
the dog then we go into the chugging slap action as the frog nears
the
end
of the retrieve.
FROG MODS
Most of the hardcore frog anglers that I know, especially from the
Guntersville area, are notorious for tricking out their frog with
custom modifications. In fact, I think that there are more ways to "mod" a
frog than any other bass bait that I can think of. The neat thing
about the Rojas Frog is you really don't have to modify anything
to get the frog to work the way it is supposed to, with the exception
to possibly trimming the legs to your personal preference. That's
the way Dean and Michael wanted to design the frog so that the modifications
are kept to a minimum for both the average and professional angler.
However, Michael did state that in open water applications where
you really don't need extreme weedlessness it never hurts to
open the hooks up some for extra hookup insurance. When I say open
the hooks, we are not talking about opening the gap, we are talking
about spreading the hooks apart sideways about a 1/8th of an inch
to have the hooks point slightly outward.
It is interesting to note that when you are fishing heavy grass bass
attack from directly under the bait due to the thickness of the cover.
However, in open water and sparse cover, most of your bass will attack
the frog from the side, which is why it might be a good idea to spread
your hooks out some to help increase your hook ups.
AVAILABILITY
The Dean Rojas Bronzeye Frog will come in a variety of 7 different
colors:
-Green Tree
-Midnight Walker
-Natural Green
-Natural Red
-Rainforest Black
-Rainforest Yellow
-Tropical White
SPRO
Corporation is expecting the frogs to come in to their warehouse
any day now. They already have the first batches of the frogs sold
to Bass Pro Shops (http://www.basspro.com/) and Anglers Arsenal (http://www.anglersarsenal.com).
They expect the frogs to be in the stores mentioned above in the early
parts of October 2005.
