Try Rod, Reel For Bullfrogs

CATCHING FROGS SIMILAR TO FISHING; USE NET OR HOOK AND LINE

Frogging season opens in Missouri on Wednesday.
Frogging season opens in Missouri on Wednesday.

— The folksy poet who penned the traditional song inviting his “honey, oh baby mine” to join him at the fi shing hole probably had in mind catching a mess of catfish and not frogs.

Those whose taste runs toward a plate of frog legs could take a lesson from rustic anglers and take cane poles, not gigs, to their favorite frogging waters.

Frogging season in Missouri opened Wednesday. Frogs span the gap between hunting and fi shing in Missouri. If you have a hunting permit, you can take them legally with a pellet gun, longbow, crossbow, hand net or bare hands.

Missouri regulations also allow the use of .22-caliber rifles and pistols. However, these are not allowed on some conservation areas.

With a fishing permit, you can use a hand net, gig, longbow or hook and line. Gigs and pellet guns are the most popular methods, but not necessarily the most eft ective or eff cient.

The bullfrog, North America’s largest native frog, is prey to a variety of animals other than humans. Consequently, it is as skittish as a minnow in a piranha tank. Getting close enough to spear a smart old croaker is no small achievement.

Shooting frogs is a chancy proposition, too. Unless hit just right, many frogs makeone last leap and disappear into mud and vegetation before they can be claimed.

Luckily for frog-leg fanciers, bullfrogs and green frogs - the only two species that can be taken legally in Missouri - both are voracious predators. Their mouths are as wide as their heads and they will eat anything they can jam into their capacious gullets with their front feet.

Drop any kind of fishing lure, or even a bare hook, within a foot of a frog and jiggle it around awhile and the hungry amphibian isalmost certain to glom onto it. After that, it’s just a matter of reeling it in.

A savvy frog angler can put a limit of eight frogs in a bag in less time than it takes a hunter to paddle once around the pond, missing or losing frogs.

Perhaps best of all, catching frogs on hook and line doesn’t fatally injure them. Undersized specimens can be released, making room for those sporting heftier drumsticks.

The bullfrog is North America’s biggest frog, measuring up to 8 inches allscrunched up and ready to jump. A good-sized bullfrog can weigh well over a pound, so a stout pole and line in the 10-pound-test range are recommended.

Male frog calls fi ll the air above Missouri lakes and streams with their songs on summer nights. That is a big help to hunters trying to locate them. The bullfrog’s tune is a deep base chant that sounds something like “Jug-O-Rum, Jug-O-Rum.”

Green frogs are less musical. Their songs sound like someone plucking a loose banjo string.

Outdoor, Pages 7 on 07/01/2010

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