[Ed Brabant]

One of the biggest things you need to remember when fishing any top water baits is to have paitents. Most of the time when you miss a fish on a frog, rat or other topwater baits is you end up pulling the bait out of the fishes mouth. What I taught my son was when working a buzz style frog is count to 3 1-2-3 and set the hook. When you are in the slop hold the rod at 11:00 face your bait as you work the bait over pads , hydrilla, coon tail or what ever the cover is and when the fish hits lower the rod so it is pointing at the fish as you reel the slack in then set the hook. It is about the 1 2 3 count. I use a flipping stick with 65 pound braid when I fish through and around heavy cover. If you use braid that is that strong make sure you loosen your drag a bit. Braid will not strech. I have blown up 2 flipping sticks and my son 4 because the line won't strech. All the shock goes into the rod. And remember paitence. I would stick to the texas rig. If you are in open water you can put the eye of a trebble hook on your hook before you bury it in the body. That will act as a stingger hook. Good luck and remember paitence paitence paitence.