The Art of Frogging (Michael McIntosh, Jan 27, 2025, Sports Classics Daily)
I can’t decide whether to think about catching frogs as hunting, fishing or something else. There is more than one way to skin those particular cats. I’ve shot them with a .22, caught them on fishing rods, gigged them, and simply grabbed them as they sat looking dour and self-satisfied.
Shooting frogs certainly is effective, but not all that much fun, and I don’t care to shoot bullets around water. Gigging requires a bit more skill and stealth; you don’t throw the gig like a spear, but rather reach out and stick them, so you have to get close. Grabbing can be hair-raising at times. More on that later. Force me to choose a single approach and I’d have to go for a fishing rod. More on that later, too.
However you do it, frogging is largely a nocturnal affair, at least in my mind. They’re out and about during the day, of course, but those are targets of opportunity. Serious frogging always raises for me images of clear, starry skies on sultry summer nights. In Missouri, where I lived for nearly 30 years, the frog season opened on July 1. If there’s a more miserable time of year to be outdoors, I couldn’t name it. Heat and humidity do not combine into an environment that’s comfortable to me. But the prospect of frogs makes up for the sweat.
Probably the oldest form of frogging is simply grabbing them as they sit on a riverbank or the shore of a pond.