Megabass is known for its high quality hard-baits. In particular, I don’t think anyone with a modicum of bass fishing experience has never heard of the Ito Vision 110. The jerkbait that is the measuring stick for this genre of lures. But have you heard of the Megabass Pony Gabot Frog? Yup, another hollow body, topwater frog. The real question is whether or not this bait can live up to the considerably high standards of the Vision.
We got hold of a couple of these at ICAST this year after talking with some of the pro’s at the booth. Considering that was in July, we were really looking forward to getting them on the water just as soon as we got home ‘cause it was prime time for froggin’ at a couple of lakes we frequent.
How big is the Pony Gabot
The Pony Gabot is a relatively small offering. It measures 2 1/2 inches in length and tips the scales at 3/8 of an ounce not to mention how narrow the body is. Not a heavy weight in this class to be sure.
But being firm believers in the old saying, “It ain’t the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”, we had to give it a chance to prove itself.
Some interesting tweaks
There are some interesting tweaks to this frog that got our attention prior to using it. The shape of the mouth is designed to spit water but also serves to stabilize the body against rolling on the retrieve as well as allowing it to pivot in place so that walking the dog is easier.
The hooks are positioned close to the body but not at a downward angle. This is supposed to increase the hook-up ratio.
Look underneath the frog and you’ll see a line-tie on the rear weight that was put there to permit anglers to attach a spinner blade to create more flash. One top of the frog close to the double tail, you’ll find a small, molded in hole that can be left as is from the factory or punched out to allow even easier compression of the bait when it gets hit.
The plastic is very soft out of the package and sports excellent color schemes. The Pony Gabot uses a twin tail design with the tails being side by side very close to each other and shorter than the vast majority of frogs out there. So short in fact that we didn’t even consider trimming them prior to our first cast.
Like all Megabass baits, this comes with detailed information on the features of the lure as well as instructions for use.
How we fished it
We fished this on a 7 foot, medium heavy rod with 50 pound braid tied directly to the line tie. Our thinking was to use the Pony Gabot in the same way we use other frogs although it is meant to be thrown in heavy cover with the occasional opening such as matted grass. We also have fished it around stick-ups and through lily pads paying close attention to utilizing its pivoting action to cause a commotion in any clear spots.
As far as the action is concerned, the Pony Gabot is everything its cracked up to be. It walks the dog easily, pivots in place very well and does spit water as your working it. One of the best features of this bait is it gives you the ability to work it at different speeds. Walk it fast or slow, pause for a second or three between twitches. Varying your retrieve is a breeze.
It elicits vicious strikes from bass. When they hit this bait, they aren’t playing around. Based on our experience with this frog, the bass are flat out trying to kill it!
You’ll see in the pictures that the body tends to turn out when a fish takes it which allows for excellent hooksets. Our hook-up ratio has been very high with this frog.
The Con’s
All this functionality comes with a price though. After three fish, our frog was starting to sink shortly after it hit the water. This was a bit frustrating considering Megabass’s reputation for quality.
We may have gotten a pre-production model which might explain this. Our solution was to seal up the body around the hook and poke through the preset hole on the top of the bait. Once that was done, we continued to use the frog and catch more fish.
One of the things that we have learned over the years is that Japanese lure manufacturers tend to produce baits to fit a narrowly defined, specific situation. Some might call this myopic but the flip side is that given certain conditions, you select a bait that has been produced just for that need as opposed to a broader application.
Specializing a lure in this way eliminates tendencies that could otherwise be negative if they didn’t fit precisely into what a bait was meant to do.
The Pony Gabot does what it was designed for very well which is to be thrown on top of heavy cover with sparse clearing. If your intent is to use it for other than this, you could be disappointed. It was not meant to be an open water frog.
We aren’t big fans of having to mess with a bait to keep it working but the reality is that sometimes, the bait is worth some extra effort ‘cause it does get strikes. This happens to be one of those.
The Megabass Pony Gabot will set you back about $16 in most places which is a little pricey for a hollow-bodied frog. However, this little ribbit has some advantages not found elsewhere.
| Megabass Pony Gabot Frog | |
|---|---|
| Overall Rating |    |
| a good specialty frog | |
See ya’ on the water …
