Quick review on this thing. As you can see, I got mine in emerald red. I have the 55T in that bullfrog ish color, but haven't messed with it yet.
To put it simply, I love this lure. Definitely one of my favorites now, and I intend to use it unnecessarily more than everything else I own. I only got about half an hour with it today before getting rained on, but that was enough to make me fall in love with it.
For specs, I believe I heard it comes stock with a gamagatsu hook, but not completely sure. Whatever it is is very sharp and very strong, I don't feel the need to replace it even just to satisfy my control freak urge to customize everything. It's strong enough to where I can barely bend the hooks out without getting scared that I'm going to snap them (or my pliers).
That leads to one of the "downsides" of it however, as the hooks come very flush with the bait. They come at a perfect height for pulling through thick weeds if you need them to, as they are perfectly flush with the back, as opposed to sitting half a cm under the arch of the back like the lunkerhunt frogs, which, like I said, would be very good for pulling through dense vegetation if you need it to. For my purposes however, I bent them out as much as I felt comfortable bending them out.
Another thing that I felt the need to fix myself was the legs, as they come about an inch longer than they should be. Leaves a bit to be desired when the bar for stock frogs is set to the ceiling by bronzeyes, but it's nothing you can't fix yourself in a matter of minutes. I did notice the bronzeyes come stock with "pre-cut" legs and slightly bent hooks that aren't completely flush right out of the box, but again, like I said, this can easily be fixed on this frog.
Other than legs and hooks, the overall quality is great. Paint doesn't feel like it's going to come off. I've heard other people say the arms work as keels so I guess that's a plus, I personally just love the feel and texture of it. I'll take it to my secret little channa spot to see how it holds up against toothy things, but I will say it is VERY soft. I personally like this because it is extremely collapsible, and I don't feel like I'm going to miss any hookups at all, especially with the slightly bent hooks. I personally think this model is the perfect size too, great catch all bait. It's right inbetween the lunkerhunt pocket frog and other standard sized frogs. Obviously I'll whip out my bigger frogs if I know there's bigger fish in the area, but for my purposes and style of just going wherever and searching for whatever fish are biting, I personally love the fact that it's not too small to be missed by bigger fish, but not to large to where I'll miss hookups from dinks if I'm feeling desperate for a bite.
As for the color, I personally think it looks cool, but I guess I just happen to have a good intuition in terms of taste in lure color, as allegedly the emerald red was originally made for tournament pros and eventually released to the public because of how effective it is. I have yet to see how it holds up against other frog colors I've worked with, but I guess only time will tell.
On that note, in regards to actually field usage, the action is beautiful. With the cut legs it walks amazingly, and casts a pretty good distance for its size. I'm using 20 lb power pro superslick braid on a 5'6 rod and getting a little over 50 foot casts on it. It's only supposed to be a quarter oz. Walking action is very tight, I've noticed it'll sometimes even spin around on pauses. I've heard fish get more enticed to hit when the lure flips around to look at them, but am not sure if there's any truth to this, yet. On pauses it sits perfectly in the water, like an actual frog, with the legs hanging slightly down and the head and eyes barely poking out. Durability is so far good, it has a noticable gap where the hooks come out, so I feared it may take on water easily, but have so far been proven wrong. Haven't had to squeeze anything out of it so far. Even though I only have around half an hour on it it has been smacked against rocks and concrete, but the finish/paint and overall integrity have held up strong.
I'm sure as I get to use it more it will prove to deliver to the same degree as my excitement and sheer appraisal towards it's performance. Get this lure.
