Tips from Dean Rojas for fishing the Spro frog

[pro reel]

Tony and I got the chance to visit with Dean Rojas for several hours today. One of the things we talked about was how to fish the spro frog and what he does to customize it. For starters, he says that he always uses 80 lb braid and that he has a new braid he helped design from sunline called FX2 that he prefers. He ties the braid to the frog with a double palomar knot. The next thing he does is to trim 1 inch from both the legs of the frog. You would think that if he prefers the frog to have shorter legs that the factory would just make them shorter, but evidently not. After that he also tweaks the hooks. He uses a needle nose pliers and grabs each hook behind the barb and then bends them out just enough that the hook point isn't touching the frog body. He says that doing that puts the hook point on an angle to drive into the roof of the fish's mouth. In open water, he bends it out even just a bit further. To fish the spro frog he develops a cadence of putting a bit of slack into the line and then popping it tight. He cranks the reel just enough to pick up the excess and still have just enough slack to pop it tight again. When you get the cadence just right the frog will walk the dog just like a spook. He says that the shorter legs are a big help in getting the frog to walk right.