Hahaha. Welcome to the club! it takes practice.

Well the master helped me to tie another froggy fly and this time it landed on it's belly, Yeah!!

Problem was I was using to light of a hook (aberdeen) and far to much foam (fly was too big for the weight of the hook).

But if you want to tie and upside down weedless fly that casts poorly then I have the pattern, LOL!!!

Yes, something to cheer for!

I've tied two nice versions of the hook-up weedless froggy fly and both do as designed by landing hook-up and are weedless. The latest design looks great and works well except the catching fish part Weedless is very often fish-less too...I'd say that at least 50% of the strikes on the hook-up version are lost.. the fish seem to miss the target.. I'm working on a froggy fly with small hooks in the legs and/or an articulated body ahead of the hook instead of on the hook..

Awesome!! You'll be dragging them through the weeds and walking them like a Spro in no time. It's a lot of fun watching the development of the froggy flies. Too bad the top water bite has subsided so badly.

I've continued to experiment with Ben's Froggy flies. I tied one on a size 2 hook so I could comfortably throw it with my five weight rod. I caught 4 bass off of it this evening. All between 1 and 1.5 lbs. What seems to be consistent is the bigger the fly the bigger the bass. For the most part I catch bass under 1 lb. when I tie a size 8, bass over 1 lb. when I tie a size 2 and bass over 2 lbs when I tie one on a 3/0 hook. I've tied so many now that I have built up confidence in certain color patterns and shape. And they don't have to be pretty to catch bass (below is an example of that). I can't wait for the top water bite to actually come back again.

Cool. That frog can fly.

Well I continue to experiment and hybridize Ben's Froggy Flies. Or in Ben's words, "That ain't one of my flies". You know he actually borrowed my rod one time, cut off my froggy fly and said, "I need a good fly". Now that's cold, LOL!!

So I tied up my own ugly version of a chugger hybrid. I have been able to get the bass to come out of the weeds and hit my spro frog but I haven't had the same luck with a small froggy fly and 5 weight. So I knew I needed to go back to the 8 weight with a big fly that made some racket and moved some water.

I fished from 6:30 to 7:30 this morning on one of the golf course ponds. The fly got a lot of strikes in that hour. I ended up catching 4 and losing 3 more after hookup. The last of which took my fly with him. I was using a Davey knot. I have found the knot to work OK with my 5 weight and small flies but I usually use a improved clinch knot with my 8 weight and big flies. This is the second time that I have lost a fly due to a Davey knot on my 8 weight.

I fished with the Spro and didn't get a bite. I fished the froggy on the shoreline and didn't get a bite. All of the fish were caught out in about 4 feet of water over the top of the moss beds. I was able to pull the bass up from under the moss and it out performed the Spro this morning. So even though it is an ugly tie it turned out to be successful.




This is last and smallest of the 4 bass I caught on the fly.

Well the shape and effectiveness of my flies are continuing to improve. I caught over 20 small bass on this fly in the last 2 weeks.

I tied up this beginner froggy fly on a 2/0 short shank hook utilizing the thick silly winks foam from Hobby Lobby. The fly is smaller and easier to cast than the 2/0 long shank hook flies I have tied. And ultimately the size of bass I caught were slightly smaller. In the 1 to 1 1/2 lb. range. Since 6 lbers are small bass and 3 lbers are dinks according to TFFers then these must be minnows or baitfish, LOL!! But utilizing the 2/0 hook minimizes the number of bluegill and fingerling bass hook-ups. Doesn't stop the bluegill from trying though. They sometimes pop that sucker 3 inches off the water's surface.

Here are some things that have worked well for me so far:

Shape: I tied the flies with different heads in order to get them to dive, dive and pop, and float. I had no success with the floaters as they only glided and spit water. The diving action draws a strike. I usually toss it out, let it set just a few seconds and start the retrieve. Quite often the strike occurs after the first pull when the fly dives and pops back up. I have also made long pulls to dive them deep and got strikes.

Color: The yellow foam with green smeared into it has been by far my most successful color. I am still experimenting with light green, tan, black and white but to little success so far. I'm trying to find a night time color pattern. I couldn't get any strikes on my fly the other morning until there was enough light for me to see it.

Legs: I have found the barred grizzly feathers to work best for the rear legs. I think front legs are important but I have found they need to be short. I actually cut the front legs on this fly by half the length.



And here is an example of the minnow



All suggestions on things I should try to experiment with are welcome.

And if you're curious what happens when you tie the froggy on a size 10 streamer hook...

That's cool. a fish is fish, size does not matter. haha.

nice poppers

Thanks jdk, I've only been tying for 3 months so I have a long, long way to go. But it's been fun experimenting and learning. I figure with 45 more years of experience and a touch on the hand from God I should be at least half as good as Mike though, LOL!!!

I love to tie foam flies and hate to tie deer hair bugs, but they work for me.
I wish Dusty wasn't so busy and could comment on this thread because his UDF bug is the best I have ever used for for nasty stuff and get good hook-ups, even if they are a PITA to tie.

Here's one of UDF bugs tied by Dusty:



Here's a couple of mine - the secret is using coarse buck tail for weedless effectiveness
: