W2F Blog

Often described as structure, knowing how this cover lays on structure key to fishing

You could be setting the hook better while bass fishing

There are certain types of bass fishing that really turn you inside out as an angler. One of those techniques is frogging in grass mats. Turning inside out is not always a good thing. Frogging can be the most exhilarating and breathtaking way to catch bass. And frogging can also be the most frustrating situation anglers can experience in bass fishing.

To limit the frustrations and maximize those magical moments, we tapped two expert froggers and got some nitty gritty tips on what separates the most productive mats from the seemingly endless supply of matted grass on certain fisheries.

Bassmaster Elite Series pro Chris Lane is originally from Florida but now makes his residence in Guntersville, Ala. He has spent nearly his whole life fishing, much of it around matted grass with hollow-bodied frogs. Jimmy Mason is a former Elite Series pro now professional guide on Alabama lakes like Guntersville, Neely Henry and more. Both have spent thousands of hours with a frog in hand figuring out the puzzle. Their knowledge can really help shortcut your fishing.


Mason idled out through a by covered in matted vegetation. "There's the cheese I've been looking for," he said. "These mats look really good here."

Don't worry if you don't know what a cheesy mat looks like. Heck I had no idea what he was talking about either at first. But basically Mason was referring to a bubbling of moss, thick weed and clean grasses that creates an almost foamy flexible layer on the surface of the water that supports a frog well but is easy enough for a bass to nose up through and slurp down something. It’s the combination of dying grass and still fresh grass that makes the map seem to be molding like some old cheese. When the mats are “cheesy” they are getting right.

The matted vegetation needs to have an almost dry consistency for the frog to walk and slap over the top of it as you fish it. It will give you a more effective racetrack for ripping your frogs over the top of it and for some reason the bass really gravitate towards those types of mats more than others.


"Sometimes a mat can be too wet," Lane said. "I don't like it when the frog just slides through it. I want it hooking and grabbing and popping on the mat. Sometimes when you have some rain or fog and condensation, like a cool morning in the fall, the bite might not be good until the afternoon when the mat has had time to dry up."

Mason often looks for what's under and around the mat to pinpoint exactly where he'll start the probing for bass hiding underneath. He'll also use his ears to listen for "Rice Krispies."

Often a ditch, creek channel nearby, a long point or hump can make an ordinary mat a lot better. And he often finds some of his best mats in the prespawn period before he ever sees the grass.

"Those spots that are really good lipless crankbait spots in the in early spring can turn into some of the best matted frog spots in the fall," Mason said.

That's because the structure and surrounding contours make the location prime. The matted vegetation cover just gives the bass a security blanket to make them feel safe and comfortable enough to “raid the fridge” so to speak in the comfort of their own house.  


Once you find the right looking structure under or near the grass mats, the next thing is to pull in and start fishing and just listen. The mats will sound like they are popping, creaking and clicking. That sound is small baitfish, bluegill and other aquatic vertebrates stewing and feeding on the underside of the mats. That clicking sound sounds like Rice Krispies in a bowl of cold milk and will get the bass in the mats looking up.

There are other little nuances about reading a mat of grass that can tell you frog fishing is going to be good there. One of those tell-tale signs is a blow hole.

“I’m constantly looking for blow holes,” Lane said. “I want to see where bass have been coming up and busting through the mat to either get at other frog lures or real prey.”

As Lane coasted down through the mat he pointed out holes all in the mat where he felt bass had popped through. These holes were about the size of a small coffee can. There were some holes that had a similar sized path out to open water where a bass had likely blown up on a frog and been hauled out by an angler.

There were little small trails through the grass mats and occasional openings in the mats. These edges seemed to really draw the bass into predictable places within productive mats. That’s the key to fishing like vegetation. Find small nuances that give you more specific isolated targets within the sea of cover.

Once finding active fish, it was just a matter of getting them to react to the frogs. Both anglers are fond of the Snag Proof Frogs. Lane in fact designed the new Snag Proof Guntersville Frog just for matted grass fishing. The legs are small molded plastic wings that house an oversized rattle in each foot. The rattles give the rear of the frog a little more weight and Lane likes the way it keeps the frog popping and scooting on the mats.


Mason has been throwing Snagproof Frogs for a long time and often experiments with the smaller frogs when the bite gets tough. But he’s also become pretty fond of the new Yum Pad Crasher frog and has had a lot of fun playing with that new frog this fall. It features very lifelike profiles and standard rubber legs that match the lifelike finishes of the frogs.

Both anglers experiment with their retrieves but like a fast cadence to start. Lane worked his Guntersville Frog with a nonstop pitter patter cadenced across the mat with tiny little slaps on the mat to move the frog an inch or less at a time.

However there are days where the bass demand a slow methodical pop on the mat, stopping occasionally when a fish boils or rolls under the mat. Often if you will just stop the frog nearby and quiver it in place, the bass will circle back and come suck it down.

Fishing hollow-bodied frogs like this means heavy rods, heavy braid and strong reels with good brakes and wrenched down tight drag. A little tip action can make you a more accurate caster, but you want to get the frog in the bass’s mouth and the bass back into your boat and that requires a lot of back bone, trolling motor off-roading and some digging and excavation work at times to get the bass out of the mats.

Frog fishing can be extremely rewarding. Often there are small windows where it’s best, and you’ve got to capitalize on when the mats are in prime condition and the bass are underneath them. Don’t skimp on the line or your frog choices. Snagproof, Spro, Strike King, Yum, Koppers and others all make great frogs now and there is a color for every type of water out there now.

Don’t miss your windows for some exciting bass fishing in heavy matted grass. The strikes are exhilarating, the bass are often large and the fights monumental.



More fall fishing articles:

As most have seen now, three bass fishing tournaments in recent weeks have been won on The Alabama Rig. That’s at least the ones we know about. First an FLW Outdoors BFL Regional was won on it, winning a Chevy truck and Ranger boat. Then Paul Elias really put the Alabama Rig on the map with his win on Lake Guntersville in the FLW Tour Open. And most of the top 10 also got nice checks thanks in large part to the Alabama Rig.

Last week The Alabama Rig struck again with Dan Morehead winning the Everstart Championship on Kentucky Lake. Much of the field was throwing the rig with various swimbaits for the four days of the event. While the catch rates didn’t keep pace with those of Guntersville, this tournament saw a lot more weather fluctuation and heavy pressure systems that put the fish further out of reach. Finally on the final day, Morehead was able to coax more than 19 pounds of bass to the boat with the use of TAR.

The knockoff count is already up to four that I’ve seen not including the “homemade variety.” But knockoff is a loose term in this situation as what we’re talking about here is an Umbrella Rig, and they have been around for ages. In fact, one umbrella rig seemed castable to me so I took it to the lake this weekend to see what the hype was firsthand with the new “castable umbrella rig” craze that is sweeping through bass tournament fishing like gossip in a high school.

Brian Wilson, owner of Cumberland Pro Lures, and a regular co-angler on the FLW Tour has been making umbrella rigs for striped bass fishing for years. He makes them in all different sizes. One thing he realized was that his biggest smallmouth on Lake Cumberland every year were fishing his umbrella rigs for stripers. He had the request 5 years ago for smaller rigs that could be cast around and pulled in shallows for stripers. This year he took his smallest one and threw it in his bag for the FLW Tour. He thought it could work for bass fishing, but it never came out in a tournament.

Then Paul Elias talked about The Alabama Rig and he got nauseous to the point of throwing up. He knew he’d made an error not pulling the castable version of his umbrella rigs out sooner.

Fast forward to Sunday, and we finally took his umbrella rigs to the lake to see if something other than stripers might like it with all the craze for castable umbrella rigs on the lake this past week. It's nothing like the Alabama Rig but the premise is still there. If he could cast it for stripers with bucktails, why couldn't he cast it for bass with other lures.


We fished a couple of pockets without a hit. Throwing the rig is not easy. Mine had five 3/8-ounce jigheads with Berkley Hollow Belly swimbaits on them. Wilson’s had five ¼-ounce jigheads with Zoom Swimmin Flukes on them. We fished a couple of ledges  and finally hooked up with our first bass.

It wasn’t much. But it was a start. We decided to make a move. Already I was learning more about fishing an umbrella rig like this. It takes some time to get your speed down with the rig and that comes with how heavy your swimbaits are, the line you choose and gear ratio. To slow and you get the rig stuck on the bottom. Fish them too fast and often you’re presentation isn't appealing or you’re not in the strike zone long enough.

Water clarity was another issue. They need to be able to see or feel the rig. But this is where I’m a little confused. The clearer the water, the better our bites seemed to be. Which is odd to me after thinking about it. We’ve harped and preached about concealing our line and using fluorocarbon because fish can’t see it. Then I pull five swimbaits through the water hanging on a steel harness with swivels and snaps and leaders and more. The fish didn’t care, as we soon discovered.


Our next stop, we pulled up to rocky bank and started casting. We were there five minutes when the boat shook a little. I turned around to see Wilson’s rod tip nearly in the water. Something was pulling hard. He eased it up and we lipped it, a solid 5-pound largemouth bass. We fished the area some more but the wind was blowing us around pretty good with 20-mph gusts.

We ducked back into a protected area and started heaving the castable umbrella rigs around. You have to learn to lob the bait with a slow back cast loading and the uncoiling into a launch sequence that mimics pulling the string on a trap thrower. We found that braid likes to bind on occasion and can send your rig into a piled mess not far from the boat.

The umbrella rig does not cast well in the wind and has a tendency to catch baits on the arms if you cast directly into the wind. Sometimes you can pop and twitch the rod and get it straightened out. We also found that losing a rig with five heads and five swimbaits is a painful pill to swallow. Ugh.

We worked our way to the shallows, reeling faster and faster as we did. We started boating bass, keepers and shorts together. The beauty of these rigs is that they give an offering that is not overbearing to a just keeper bass. Yet the school of bass is a big enough presence to attract very large bass.

My theory on this is similar to the effectiveness of big trout swimbaits like the 12-inch Huddleston Deluxe thrown out west on those fisheries with very large forage. This is a larger offering with the individual forage being the size that the predator fish really relate to.

Our fifth stop was where we saw what could happen. We cast the rigs out and worked them back to the boat at a good clip. I looked back again to see Wilson’s rod doubled over.

“Another big one,” he muttered.

We eased it to the boat and I lipped her and brought it aboard, another bass close to 5 pounds. We were pretty impressed and a bit perplexed about the whole situation.

Tons of thoughts were racing through my mind. Would those bass have bit something else there? It’s possible a single swimbait with a big profile like the Bull Shad would tempt these big bass. Maybe they would like a jerkbait like the Megabass Ito Vision 110 in the same circumstances. Could they find them in the wind and waves?

Back to casting. By this time we had both been at it for four hours. Casting the rig over and over again takes total commitment. I have arthritis pretty bad in my hands and would have to sit down and drink a soda every now and again to take a little break. I don't usually have to do that with any other technique I fish.



Moments after the last big fish another one. A bruiser of a bass loaded the rod and we fought and wrestled him into the boat. This fish was just shy of 7 pounds, a fat-bellied beauty of a bass. And we were convinced the umbrella rig was doing something to trigger better fish to bite in tough conditions.

We lost two more great big fish, and as a bonus, we got into a couple areas that yielded several nice stripers. Those striped bass weren’t what we were after, but they were a nice fun bonus on a day of experimenting and testing.


After the day was over, we had a 3 pounder, a 2 ½ pounder, a 4 ¾ pounder, a 5 ¼ pounder and a 6 ¾ pounder for a 22 pound limit as well as several other shorts, stripers and just keepers to boot. Had we landed the two big bass we lost, we would have most assuredly had one limit worthy of bragging rights for a bit.

But I find myself conflicted more after throwing it, than I was before I threw it. Not conflicted about whether it’s sporting or not. I mean you cast that rig for 10 hours like we did and let me know how you feel afterwards. It’s not like you can just go casting on the bank, and you’re going to magically catch them.

We stopped on more places and did NOT get a bite than the places where we did get a bite.  I also think we might reach a point quicker where the bass become conditioned to seeing it than when other new baits first hit fisheries. Because there is so much hardware associated with these versions of umbrella rigs, I can see the bass getting more conditioned to it.

Then there’s this weird sensation I’ve gotten since throwing a small umbrella rig. I was as tired as I’ve ever been after a day of fishing, yet the next morning I wanted to go throw it again and not anything else. Because I had seen the power of what it could do when the conditions were right.

But that’s just it. It’s like any other lure in your arsenal. The conditions have to be just right. It just so happens in the fall of the year, the bass suspend around bait. An umbrella rig looks like a pack breaking off from the school and easy pickings for the bass.

And it’s not going to work on every fishery. I think certain fisheries with big populations of bass and more importantly big populations of forage that cause bass to behave this way will make it an ideal offering during times when the bass are setup on the bait.

But there are going to come times when the fish aren’t suspending around the bait like cover. And I feel the castable umbrella rigs are not going to be as effective as other triggers and lures in our arsenals. But only time will tell. I suppose we need to see some big weights caught on something other than one of these castable umbrella rigs before we will know for sure.


To see more about the Alabama Rig, visit thealabamarig.com.

To see more about the Cumberland Pro CURE (Castable Umbrella Rig Element), visit Cumberlandpro.com.