Like many of my other recent posts, this one comes after so many visitors landed on the site looking for instructions on actually rigging a plastic frog. I've posted reviews on both the Stanley Ribbit and the Zoom Horny Toad. I did not, however, explain how to rig the hook in great detail in either post. It's not much different than rigging a worm Texas rigged. Looking at plastic frogs, you'll notice that the body usually has a slit on the back and sometimes even on the belly molded specifically for hooks. The hooks are made especially for plastic frogs. A screw-lock mechanism is attached to the eye of the hook which is meant to be twisted into the nose of the plastic frog. That screw secures the frog in place on the hook preventing any slipping unlike regular wide gap hooks. Zoom makes the Horny Toad hooks and Stanley makes both a weighted hook and a plain frog hook. I'll explain how to rig both, but I'll primarily be using the Zoom Horny Toad and Horny Toad hooks in my illustrations.

If you plan on using another hook, like an EWG hook without a screw-lock for example, please visit this post on Texas rigging.

Got the frog? Got the hook? Okay. Let's go.



Hold the frog just behind the head with two fingers in one hand. Hold the hook by the eye and the spiral screw in the other hand with two fingers. Position the screw so that it lines up straight with the nose. Press the screw into the nose of the frog and apply some slight pressure with your other hand with the plastic frog. Begin turning the frog so that it winds onto the screw. Keep turning until the nose of the frog approaches the eye of the hook. Make sure to keep the loop of the screw-lock on the back side of the hook-eye as illustrated in the top photo. Stop turning when the body of the frog is positioned in such a way that the wire on the screw-lock forms a flat plane and at the same time lines up so that the point of the hook is situated directly beneath the body of the frog.

Grab the hook by the shaft side of the hook bend with two or three fingers of one hand and grab the frog with the other hand. Decide where the hook point is going to enter the body of the frog. Now bend the body of the frog in an arch-like fashion and at the same time, push the hook point at a right angle into the body of the frog along the slit designed especially for frog hooks. Push the hook point through, straighten out the body of the frog, and look at the positioning of the hook. The point should be resting completely above the skin of the plastic frog and pointing directly at the nose. Again, the loop on the screw-lock should line up in a flat plane against the nose of the frog and against the eye of the hook.

You can Texspose the point of the hook for added weedless capability, but I find that this isn't always necessary. To Texspose a hook, rig as above. Then once the point is resting against the skin of the frog, pull the upper body of the frog away from the hook point and allow it to slide back down over the tip of the point. This buries the point of the hook into the plastic keeping it away from anything it might get hung up on. When a fish bites, that force is still enough to dislodge the point and push the body of the frog down the hook as intended.