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Posts: 1000
| Hi Everyone,
Over the years I've heard that there can be an awesome bite for a lot of species during the fall frog migration to water. I always took it with a grain of salt, but last night the frogs were everywhere and we saw at least 7 different muskies within 50 feet of shore.
Anyone else heard of this? |
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| Never heard of it but did notice a lot of frogs on shore near the water last week when I've never seen frogs there before. Easy meal for fish, so seems believable. |
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Posts: 8828
| I've not heard of that. Depending on where you are located, the muskies you are seeing might be staging for the cisco spawn, and the frog migration may just be occurring at the same time.
Otherwise, it's a real possibility that the frogs are what's bringing them in. Frogs are definitely on the menu for many species. If I were you, I'd consider rigging one up just to see.
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Location: Contrarian Island | yup, heard of it and heard of guys targeting muskies and doing well during it. |
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Posts: 576
Location: Elk Grove Village, IL & Phillips, WI | Yes, the fall frog migration is real! Yes, muskies do feed on the frogs along with many other species. |
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Posts: 83
Location: Des Moines Iowa | I think Doug Stange has mentioned fishing walleyes during the frog migration several times in In Fisherman articles. |
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Posts: 19
| We tapped into the frog bite on Devils Lake in ND for walleyes. They were literally stuffed with frogs when you opened up the stomach while filleting them. Casting cranks in 2-6' of water. |
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Posts: 1000
| interesting. we're seeing it in the metro. mostly 28-35 inch skies, but did manage a 38 and 39 within minutes of each other on a single 6 colorado bucktail slow rolled high |
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Posts: 3156
| there is a frog migration and it can be an awesome shallow bite,,,Rod Ramsell retired Minn DNR muskie biologist used to do an awesome seminar on this,,hopefully in the future we can lure him into doing this again at our MI chapter,,if you ever get the chance to talk to him its a fountain full of info. |
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Posts: 286
Location: Eagan, MN | Others are right. It does happen and muskies do target them just like other gamefish. I've even seen it myself, fishing very shallow in marshy bays here in the metro in early November. It's a fascinating pattern, if you can tap into it. As additional evidence, a musky guide I have long known in Price County Wisconsin told me of an unusually fat musky he caught in November in a shallow back bay on one of the flowages there. This fish expired and was harvested for reasons I cannot remember. What I do remember was him telling me that, when opened up, the fish was full of fresh frogs. He laid them out and counted a dozen of them, if memory serves. What I wouldn't give to see a musky hunting frogs like that!
BrianF |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I know that large numbers of frogs in the water can make the muskies very hoppy.
Sorry, could not resist. |
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Posts: 1530
| sworral. ya got 1 leg up on us
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One more joke like that and we all might croak !! |
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Posts: 2309
Location: SE, WI. | Few guys from Iowa getting some ski's on these croakers!
Edited by jdsplasher 11/5/2014 7:13 AM
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Posts: 496
| Do you guys use a quick strike rigs on your frogs , what size frogs work best ? |
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Location: E. Tenn | the "mini" version should be perfect..
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babullfrog.jpg (58KB - 323 downloads)
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Posts: 2309
Location: SE, WI. | many moons ago, on pelican lake, we used to just put a light weight treble through the thigh of the frog, with a small cork about 3 ft up from frog:)... It was amazing to see the water open up, swoosh! Like the dussa...:) JD
Edited by jdsplasher 11/5/2014 9:58 AM
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Posts: 1000
| Yeah the two that I caught were just tankers. This is really interesting. Might need to try a JMac or a bass jig next time I'm out. Thanks guys! |
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| How long does the migration last typically? |
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Posts: 286
Location: Eagan, MN | From what I recall reading in the In Fish article published years ago, the window is pretty short, occurring just before ice up as the frogs congregate at the banks of the water just before going in for the winter. Apparently, there a certain key spots around these bodies of water where the frogs will congregate en masse. To truly exploit the pattern, you will want to find these spots, which can sometimes be done by being observant for squished frogs on the roadways going around the lakes. If memory serves, the frogs will often go into the lakes to overwinter in a night or two. That is when phenomenal catches are said to have been made. The mystery is how gamefish know when and where to go to intercept these tasty morsels on the specific nights they tend to go into the lakes. I kept the article and have it around here somewhere, but have read it so many times that most of it has stuck with me. Brian
Edited by BrianF. 11/5/2014 12:14 PM
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| Tastes like chicken |
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Location: Home of the 2016 World Series Champion Cubs | I think you're all jumping to conclusions here. |
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Location: Smith Creek | Someday we'll find it, the muskie/frog connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me. |
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Posts: 141
Location: Minnetonka | I like to think that muskies enjoy walleyes as much as I do, but struggle to hunt them in open water along the bottom. I image that when the walleyes come in for the frogs, the muskies come in behind and have therefore eliminated two escape directions. Similar to how they corral cisco schools along steep breaks in the fall. They can't go towards shore or away from it. Only left or right along the shoreline... This could also be the crack talking, of course. |
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| Fraud migration?
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Location: oswego, il | If you use frogs use a fiberglass boat, they are hard on aluminum ribbets. |
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| jdsplasher - 11/5/2014 8:11 AM
Few guys from Iowa getting some ski's on these croakers!
is that rats that are trying to look like frogs for the halloween? |
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Posts: 576
Location: Elk Grove Village, IL & Phillips, WI | "Fraud migration?"
We're on the same page right?
Edited by KenK 11/5/2014 4:59 PM
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Posts: 3908
| Try a bass-size firetiger johnson spoon tipped with a white berkley twin tail grub using a light sevenstrand leader. Throw it on shore and drag it in. Most piers are out this time of the year, the few that are left are gold. |
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Posts: 285
Location: NE Wisconsin | Years ago I fed a muskie off my dock for over two years. It loved minnows and perch, but would only hit frogs and would spit them out. Northern pike and LMB would eat them. Maybe he had different tastes. |
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Location: Kildeer, IL | Haha Ken! We're totally on the same page. |
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Location: Elk Grove Village, IL & Phillips, WI | We used to buy the live frogs that they sold at Aqualand, in Wisconsin between Star Lake and Boulder Junction, to throw in their musky pond. Normally blasted as it hit the water and sometimes the muskies would jump out to get it to beat their neighbors to it. They could have used some "frog protection". |
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