THE FROGGO LURE

K Topfer

A few years ago I developed a new surface lure.

I believe this homemade lure has serious advantages over any commercially available surface frog lure.

I was fishing a surface lure called a frog on many of my local waters here in West Yorkshire. I had found that the hook up to take ratio was VERY low A lot of the fish would either take short or simply be lost due to the lure acting as an ‘unhooking’ lever

The reasoning behind this was two fold. 1) Reason One was, the sheer size of commercially available surface frogs. I believe that they are too large.

2) Reason Two was they have a weed free twin hook located at the back of the lure. The hook lays at ninety degrees to the bogy of lure on a slow retrieve and thus when the fish attacks the lure they do not always get hooked up.

OK let’s make a Froggo.

THE HEAD

The design process began in my workshop.

I started by creating a head using a piece of balsa wood, I usually use balsa due to the ease of which it carves. This was then tank tested (in the bath) to see if it swam correctly.

FROGGO HEAD DETAIL

The aim was to get the front of the lure to rise upwards like the planning hull on a speedboat to create a cantilever effect. This -I hoped- would drive the propellers into the water at the back of the lure.

The shape finally arrived at could best be described as a ‘wedge with a curved back’.

I then took a length of standard spinner-shaft wire and made a spinner style end loop.

The wire was then passed through the frogs head which was glued into place on the wire.

THE BODY

I then added a standard spin-‘n-glo style body and beads at each side to create bearings.

SPIN ‘N GLOs

(Tip: The little round balls are called “Corkies” and could be used to increase attraction and/or buoyancy)

FROGGO BODY DETAIL

THE FINISHING TOUCHES

Sleeving silicon tubing over the joint between wire and treble hook easily solved the problem with the hook.

FROGGO HOOK DETAIL

(Tip: You could use coloured tube for that bit of added flash)

The tubing allows the angle of the hook to be changed, e.g. if fishing in very shallow weedy water the hook can be bent upwards so it is actually out of the water. The treble hook was deliberately left on a long wire my thinking being when the fish came in at an angle, or came short on the strike, the hook be in its mouth.

The lure was completed with the addition of some very fetching frog graphics and moving dolls eyes that give it a life like effect!!!!!

THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING

The first outing with the lure proved very interesting.

The first take came short with the fish managing to shake the lure - much to the amusement of my buddies(?) as the theory of how this lure would stop all this had been explained to them on the journey to our fishing venue. However he who lasts last laughs loudest and longest – the final tall of that first outing was no less than 2 doubles falling to the Forgo, one approx 12lbs the other at 14lbs, two smaller fish at 6 and 4 lb.

I believe since then that Froggo has accounted for MANY a bonus fish.

.The personal satisfaction for me comes in inventing your own pattern, even if the paint finish is not to a commercial standard.

Catching memorable fish on “your own” lures all adds to my enjoyment of our sport that is “Lure Fishing”.