We anticipate frogging season every year and this year has been no exception especially considering the number of new frogs available. It’s always interesting to see what changes the manufacturers come up with to make this genre of lures more productive.
Terminator followed their Walking Frog with the new Walking Frog Jr. A smaller, more compact hollow body frog that has borrowed all the best features from its larger sibling.
Jr. is 2-1/2 inches in length, 1/2 oz. as opposed to 3 inches, 11/16 oz. for the regular Walking Frog. It utilizes the same body proportions with the wide, deep head and narrow, shallow tail as the original. Jr. uses a slightly smaller VMC hook, the same round rubber leg strands and a down-sized version of the curved rear weight that sits flush with the body.
This weighting configuration helps the Walking Frog Jr. in a couple of ways. Due to it being positioned behind the rear hooks you can cast Jr. a surprising distance for a relatively light frog. It also keeps the bait true in the air and assures that it will land right side up. You might think that this would cause Jr. to sit rear end down in the water when at rest but it doesn’t. It sits a little low but very close to horizontal.
How It All Works Together
Between the weight and the design of the belly, Jr. walks very easily. You can twitch it fast for a more compact side to side presentation or change your cadence to allow the bait to travel a bit more to each side. You won’t get several inches of travel but for a frog, you can attain more of a glide than with many baits out there.
The colors available for Jr. are one of the most complete palettes around. We have had a great deal of success with those that offer a hint of orange on the belly. There are two out of the available 16 that have this from the factory. Terminator has some that are solid colors and some are translucent. Whatever colors work in your area, you will probably find it on this frog.
The Walking Frog Jr. comes with legs that can be used as is out of the package or trimmed to fit your needs. We routinely trim the legs on a hollow body topwater bait to about the size of the body. This seems to eliminate some of the drag from the legs and allow the bait to move better and the legs to flare more naturally.
The double hook on the Jr. has a nice upward angle out of the package with the hook points resting so close to the body so that, like the original Walking Frog, this bait is great around, over and through the worst slop in the lake. It also provides the sting needed for an excellent hook up ratio.
The Rigs
We have fished this frog predominately on two rigs. The first being a 7’ medium heavy rod with the reel spooled with 40# braid. We used it for fishing the slop, pads and through sparse stickups. The second was the same except the line. In this case we used 17# co-polymer for more open water situations.
In both scenarios the Terminator Walking Frog Jr. elicited as many if not more strikes and the hook up ratio was well above average.
Our test baits have held up well to repeated strikes and fish catches. Both in terms of the paint jobs as well as the structure of the bait. We have not had one rip or tear, nor had a hook point turn or break.
The plastic used for the Jr. is a little bit on the stiff side but that hasn’t interfered with how effective the bait has been. On the contrary, it has done much better in terms of longevity than several other baits that we have tested.
This frog does a better than average job of not filling with water. While we haven’t had to squeeze it out every cast, we have had to do it intermittently. There is a small hole in the rear of the bait that helps it drain as well as compress when bit. While it doesn’t completely alleviate the issue of water getting inside the bait it does cut down on the inevitable “peeing” bait.
The finer points
The Walking Frog Jr. responds best when you initiate the walking action on semi-slack to slack line. Because it’s a smallish frog, you want to be sure that your rod tip pops are short so that you don’t drag it across the water which will over power the ability of the frog to walk.
Probably the single most common operator error when using a bait like this is just moving it too far. A more subtle approach is what’s necessary. The added benefit of is that Jr. will stay in the strike zone longer while appearing more frantic at the same time. Just focus on small twitches and only take up slack line as it becomes necessary to stay in contact with the bait and get the best results.
The Terminator Walking Frog Jr. is not only a smaller version of the original but in our estimation, an improved version.
| The Terminator Walking Frog Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Overall Rating |   |
| a dependable, predictable bait | |
See ya’ on the water …
