The Best Frog Lures for Bass, Expert Tested

There are few things on this earth as exciting as a big bass blowing up on a frog. Any angler who has ever caught a bucketmouth on a frog knows the thrill of their bait getting crushed by an exploding bass. That’s why frogs are one of my favorite baits to throw, especially during the summer. When that time finally rolls around, I reach for my trusty frog boxes and don’t let them out of sight. Over the last 25 years, I’ve had the opportunity to test an endless number of frog baits, from hollow-bodies to soft plastic toads. Below is a list of my favorites, including a couple of new options for 2026.

Best Hollow-Body Frogs

Best Soft Plastic Toads

How We Picked the Best Frogs

I referenced my two decades of frog fishing experience in order to pick the best frogs and toads. Some of these baits, like the Dean Rojas Poppin Frog and Strike King Sexy Frog, are responsible for dozens of my biggest topwater catches. There are other newer baits that have also proven their worth on the water recently, like the Toad Thumper Swamper Walkin’ Frog. Lastly, we categorized these baits into two main groups: frogs and toads. The frogs are all hollow-body baits, and the toads are all soft plastic baits designed to be reeled continuously.

Best Hollow-Body Frogs 

Hollow-body frogs are designed to float and be worked along the surface in a side-to-side or popping manner. These baits typically have skirted legs and a two-pronged, pre-rigged hook. This is what we’re looking for when evaluating hollow-body frogs:

• Hook strength and construction
• Action 
• Walk-ability 
• Skip-ability 
• Color choices
• Durability 
• Ability to keep water out

What makes the SPRO Dean Rojas Bronzeye Frog 65 so great? It has everything you want in a hollow-body frog. It holds up to heavy abuse but will also collapse when a bass smacks down on it for a stellar hook-up ratio. The hook itself is a two-prong gaff, well-suited for hauling big ones out of the thickest cover. There is a ridiculous selection of 52 colors to choose from. And the bait is one of the easiest to walk. At 2 ½ inches and 5/8 ounce, this can be cast far while still being a good size to catch big bass and little ones alike.

There’s no doubt that the SPRO Dean Rojas Bronzeye Poppin’ Frog 60 is the greatest of all time when looking at popping frogs. I’ve caught more big bass on this frog than any other hollow-body frog I’ve ever thrown. The cup of the mouth catches just enough water to create a nice gurgle and spitting action. This bait can be popped straight back to the boat or walked left and right, nearly in place, when it comes to a piece of cover. The hooks are stout and sharp, and the flat belly makes this frog extremely easy to skip. If I had to take a guess, I’d say almost half of the big bass (over 4 pounds) that I’ve caught on a frog have come on the Dean Rojas BronZeye Poppin’ frog in Midnight Walker (black).

The Strike King KVD Sexy Frog is the easiest to skip of all the frogs I’ve fished with. This is solely due to the flat belly. Rolling this bait over on its back, you’ll find the absence of the deeper V hull that you see on other frogs. The Sexy Frog has a more gradual curve to the belly. The deeper V-hull on the SPRO Bronzeye Frog makes it a little easier to walk, but harder to skip. I can skip the Sexy Frog two or three times as far, and much more consistently. Depending on how a V-hull frog hits the water, it may dig in or ricochet straight up in the air, only skipping a few feet. But I can skip the Strike King Sexy Frog 10-plus feet back into and under cover, cast after cast after cast. 

I got a few of these frogs (and the popping versions) sent to me last summer, and I had immediate success with them—especially the Toad Thumper Swamper Walkin’ Frog. It walks easily, skips pretty well, and has a great hook. It also has a silicone-like seal around the hook hole to prevent any water from entering the body. It comes in 10 different colors and retails for $10.

The Nishine BQ Frog walks easily, skips reasonably well, and has a solid hook. I like the upturned eye, which helps keep the nose up. Nishine also molded a plug onto their hook, but instead of using silicone, they used lead. The lead plug is hourglass-shaped, with the wider portion outside the frog and the narrower inside. This makes for a complete seal. When you squeeze the bait flat, the air goes out, but it takes a few seconds for air to seep back in. This can slow the process, but you won’t have to do it very much since water almost never gets inside.

The Snag Proof Pad Rambler was released at ICAST 2025. This frog looks a little different, with a more slender profile and a single tail coming out of the back, as opposed to the two legs we see on most hollow-body frogs. It resembles a mouse more than a frog, especially in the Gorge color. The tail is made primarily of rubber strands with tensile mixed in, which adds a little flair and flash to the bait. It comes in 12 colors and sells for $14.

The Gambler Walking Frog was my favorite new bait last year, and I still love it in 2026. While this bait has a lot going for it, like its ability to skip, a soft-body design, and a solid hook, two features stand out. First, the iridescent strands of tensile in the legs. When the legs get wet, they perfectly mimic the color on a bream’s body. But what really sets this frog apart is the dab of silicone used to plug the hook hole below the belly. This is a simple but genius way to fix an age-old problem. Since the first hollow body frog hit the water, fishermen have been squeezing water out of it. Not anymore. In the 20 or so hours that I’ve spent fishing with this frog, I might have had to squeeze water out of it a half dozen times.

The Berkley Swamp Lord is just a touch heavier and longer than the SPRO Bronzeye 65. While the difference would seem minuscule on paper, the Swamp Lord has a noticeably larger profile and presence in the water. This bait has a fantastic double-frog hook, a great color selection, and keeps water out of the body. With a flatter belly, the Swamp Lord skips really well, too. There’s also a popping version of this frog that’s worth checking out—the Berkley Swamp Lord Popping Frog. I like both styles of this bait.

The Booyah Pad Crasher is another popular hollow-body frog, and a great deal for the price. Introduced in 2012, this bait has become a favorite among anglers and pond hoppers. With seven colors, there’s something for any situation. It’s a no-frills frog that walks well, gets bit, and has a good hook.

The design of the G-Ratt Popping Frog 60 is similar to the SPRO Rojas 60. With a proven profile, four color choices, and a solid double-frog hook, the G-Ratt 60 is a great choice for those looking for a poppin’ bait. It comes in three colors and retails for $13.

Best Soft Plastic Toads 

Soft plastic toads are designed to be reeled continuously. A toad does not typically come pre-rigged with a hook, but instead is paired with either a screw-lock frog hook or an EWG (Extra Wide Gap) hook. Here’s what we look for in a great soft plastic toad:

• Durability
• Color selection 
• Action 
• Scent 
• Sound

The Zoom Horny Toad is the best all-around toad on the market. The fast-flapping, spitting action created by its flat, V-cut feet makes it perfect for buzzing across the water. I find this action works particularly well from the time bass come off of beds and start guarding fry through the summer. This is also one of the best, if not the best, toads for putting on the back of a buzzbait. The shape and bulk of the body make it ideal for slipping onto the buzzbait hook and skipping under cover. I’ve fished the Horny Toad the longest out of any of the baits I tested—my most distant memory with it involved a 4-pound fish catch I filmed on a VHS camera in the early 2000s. This is an old-school favorite of many anglers that has yet to be unseated by any other toad.

The Frog Factory Ribbit Frog (formerly known as the Stanley Ribbit) is the best bait out there for situations where you want a slow-moving, low-gurgling toad. These baits are effective around the spawn when the water is just warming up enough for a topwater, and the bass prefer something a little slower and less aggressive. The vertical orientation of the feet enables the bait to be fished slowly. The Ribbit’s feet generate a gurgling sound and a slow movement. Believe it or not, I actually caught a 6.49-pound largemouth on this bait in a club tournament on West Point Lake in 49-degree water.

If you want a chaos-creating, loud-slapping, big-bite-inducing toad, the Strike King Rage Tail Toad is your pick. This is the loudest toad I’ve ever fished, which is due to the large legs. Although these legs lie flat on the water, they incorporate the Rage Tail design element that many Strike King soft plastics are known for. There are two small flanges on each leg, one on the bottom and one on the top. These flanges catch water and send the legs kicking and flapping, creating all sorts of noise. When bass are in a foul and malicious mood, this toad can generate ornery and aggressive strikes. It is especially effective when fishing through sparse to relatively dense cover, like lily pad fields. You’ll want the pads to be far enough apart that you can keep your bait in the water and moving most of the time so it can generate noise and action. That noise is enough to pull fish from long distances, and it does this far better than any other frog can.

During my first outing testing this lure for a product review, I caught a bass between 5 and 6 pounds on Lake Seminole and instantly fell in love with it. The shape of the feet is similar to that of those on the Zoom Horny Toad, so there’s naturally a similar spitting action. But the legs are slightly larger, and the material is slightly tougher. So the bait doesn’t move as fast or have as crisp a sound. This equates to the BF Toad landing between the Zoom Horny Toad and the Stanley Ribbit.

Add to that the larger profile of the BF Toad, and you basically have a mix of the Rage Toad, Zoom Horny Toad, and Stanley Ribbit, with a larger profile bait that can be fished through dense cover without moving too fast, too slow, or making too much noise. It’s the Goldilocks of toads, if you will, and the best newcomer I’ve seen in the last 5 years.

Go Catch Giant Bass on Frogs

In case you couldn’t tell, I love a frog bite. Whether we’re talking hollow-body frogs or toads, my ears perk up and my blood pumps whenever I hear the term. Just the thought of a big one slurping down a frog is enough to get me excited on the coldest winter day. Good news? Winter is a distant memory now, and the bass are in the perfect mood to knock the dust off our frogs nationwide. The above list includes the best of the best I’ve found over two decades of frog fishing. So pick one up and go catch a lunker.

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