Froggin' in Northern Calif and howdy
Found this site when I googled “frog Gigging”.
I am from northern California, which is about as alike toLos Angeles as Miami is to Billings, Montana. We are huntin, fishin, country folk up here. We hunt ducks, geese, quail, turkeys, deer,elk, cottontail, etc., catch crawdads and frog gig. At least some of us do. Frog gigging is a dying art!
My nephew lives up on the Oregon border in alfalfa countryand it is full of ditches and loaded with frogs. Our one night record is 108 huge frogs andthe most pissed off wives ever. Sorry! We drank a little whiskyto keep warm for 12 hours straight and cooked a snack of about 30 frog legs forbreakfast.
I have a couple of tips for the gigger. One is to drive into the area of the ditchesand turn the pickup off and sit and listen. Especially in the early summer when they are courting some foxy babe frog. You can here them a mile away and they guide you to them with their lovesong. The second huge tip is to use a “HTFB” (High Tech Frog Bucket). This is one of those fish baskets with thespring loaded tops. There is nothingbetter to hold the frogs. Also, sharpenyour gig every time so when you jab them when they are floating and not againstsomething, so the gig penetrates easily.
I love frog gigging. Matter of fact, I think I generally have an issue with wanting to stabthings. My favorite stabbing hobby isspear fishing. I am 58 years old and Ihave had that hobby for 40 years. It isthe best of two worlds – hunting and fishing. I dive mostly on the north coast of California and it ain’t forsissys! The water is rough and sometimesyou can barely see your hand in front of your face. You can’t spear fish when its that murky butyou can still dive for abalone. It is weirddiving 20 or 30 feet when you can only see gray until the bottom jumps intofocus. You aren’t allowed to use scubatanks for abalone and must hold your breath. We usually take a spear gun and spear fish at the same time if we have10 or more feet of visibility. It is afun sport once you get some experience under your belt and get comfortable withyour equipment. I wrote an article on itthat is for the beginners and folks that want to see what it is like. It is about 3,500 words so I ain’t going tore-write it here but if you want to read it, it is in the blogs at http://www.fishnfools.com. Did I mention the great white sharkissue? They are there and they are 20feet and can turn you into a turd pretty readily! The water is so murky, you wouldn’t even seethem coming. Their main food source oncethey are grown is seals and a person in a black wet suit, similar in shape andsize, is often mistaken for one. Ishouldn’t say often because it is highly more likely that you will get killedin a car wreck on the way to the ocean to dive or get struck by lightening thanto get bit by a shark and even then, most people survive. I have a defense for them. If I see one, I turn the water brown allaround me!
Anyway, I don’t know why I was thinking frogging at thistime of year. Up there where we usuallyfrog will be about 10 degrees this weekend. I might go duck hunting, but that is a pain in the arse when you have to wade in shin deep mud,in waist deep water and break 1 inch ice to go get your ducks! I am getting too old for that crap! Turkey and pheasant season opened so maybe Iwill road hunt those instead.
