I went out and purchased a set of the ZOOM Horny Toad Frogs that Chuck7 reccommended, and selected the BullFrog color that was mentioned as well. The store was out of the Horny Toad hooks so Ipurchased some frog hooks with spiral attachments at the hook eyelet and they turned out to work pretty well.
I recently purchased my first, decent, rod and reel. I havent gotten to fish it much and I was wanting to give the combo a chance to prove itself. I havent had a chance to do much fishing in the past two weeks and was geeting the itch pretty bad so I told(asked
) the wife I was takingour sonout for snow-cones and alittlebit of fishing. She agreed with the stipulatation that I have him back home by 7:30. By the timewe got finished with the snow cones, we didnt have enough time to make it tomy new found honey hole and so we went to a nearbysmall lake that I never really fished much/hard, just to let my son wet a hook and talk about nothing.
When we got to the water, nothing was breaking on thesurface, it was about6:30 pm, and I had to have Caden back at home by 7:30 for school in the morning. I threw my favorite little wounded minnow but got nothing but a fewlite hits by a perch or two most likely. I then grabbed the fail safe Rapala and fished itfor about20 minutes with no luck. Its now 7:20, and I have to getmy son home by 7:30,but I rememberedI had this little ZOOM Horny Toad that I wanted totry out, and sinceI only lived 5 minutes away from the lake, I could make atleast 2-3 casts right
? I tie theHorny Toad on and let her fly. First two or three casts were really just trying to figure out how to cast the thing properly so I needed just a few more casts to see if it really worked now that i had the practice casts behind me
. I throwit out about 25 yards (man, this thing is easy to launch) and make a pull-pull-pause retrieve. On the second set of pull-pull-pause's, the water boils,my lure dissapears, and the line is running. I yank back hard on therod only to see the line continue to be pulled out, then abruptly stop. I watched hopelessly as my lure bobbpedback up to the surface of the water as I reeled it in. I quickly realized that it was the first time i acutally caught a fish on my new rod and reel setup and I never adjusted the drag on the reel, so the fish just took off running and eventually spit the lure out,never having experienced the jerk that comes with taking one of my baits, hehe.I reelthe lurein, look it over, and see the hook still lightly embedded into the frog with no damage done to thefrong. Itake a good long look at the reel, set the drag appropriately, or atleast to what i think is appropritate, look at the watch which now says 7:30, and cast out to the sameplace with the same retrieval procedure. Sure enough, half waythrough the retrieve, the water EXPLODES! Iquickly but gentlyreel and add tension to the line until i can feel pressure on the other end, then jerked the rear right out of that fish.This fish was fighting mad, and from what I could tell from my end of the rod, it was muy grande(atleast for me). Iactually thought that I caught a really nice bassat first, but when this thing danced across the water, I could barely make out a red tail and new something wasnt right. I have to admit though, this was one of the best fighting fish that I have reeled in, right up there with Steel Head Salmon. I finally get it to the shore line and now I am confused. I reach down to pick him up by the lip and quickly realize that he has some little needle sharp teeth spread sporatically through out his jaw structure. What I thought was a large mouth bass at first, turned out to be a Bowfin Fish. I didnt even have a clue that they were in this small lake, much less in my immediate vacinity. Regardless, this thing put up a heck of a fight, and did a brief, but nice, dance across the water making allkinds of ruckuss. I might have to start looking into Bowfin Fishing now, it was that good
. Anyways, just wanted yall to know that the ZOOM Horny Toad is a nice lure that worked quick for me, and provided great results. It was by far the biggest fish I have caught in that lake, and it held up pretty well considering the nice little needles that this fish was using for teeth.
PS, women dont think 7:55 is anywhere near 7:30, even after you explain what you caught and how it happened
Thanks again Chuck7 for the top water tip.
Rod: H&H Graphite
Reel: Abu Garcia 5600D5
Lure: ZOOM Horny Toad - BullFrog color
Line: 10 lb test, clear