Hey, Keith here. The water is warming, the lily pads are filling in, and one of the most exciting bites in all of bass fishing is right around the corner.

The top-water frog bite!

For most anglers, the routine is the same: dig into the tackle boxes and tie on your favorite SPRO exactly how it came out of the box.

But if you want a bigger impact, making small customizations to your frog can help you put more bass on the bank.

I made a trip with bass angler Jason Pittman and what I took from that trip has changed the way I fish with frogs. 

Today I'm breaking down how to get more out of every frog you throw this spring.

There is nothing else in bass fishing quite like throwing a topwater frog.

My earliest memory of fishing with frogs goes back to when I was about 12 years old, casting one of my dad's old Scum Frogs up and down the bank of a drainage canal near the house.

It was May, and the frogs were starting to chirp along the bank as the sun went down.

On one cast I landed the pork frog right on top of a small patch of lily pads. I wanted it to barely crawl off the edge and hang there for just a second.

When it finally spilled over the edge I heard it. A sound I have never forgotten.

SLLLURRRP.

I set the hook and watched a big bass run into the lily pad patch, blow up out of the water, and spit the hook.

I just stood there on the bank staring at the spot where it had been.

But from that evening on I was completely hooked on frog fishing.

My affinity for frog fishing hit another level when I made a trip with Jason Pittman of Covington, Louisiana, on the Abita River.

Pittman dedicates two full trays of his tackle box to hollow-body frogs alone.

He started the day throwing a Smasher Frog made by Prototype Lures.

Over the course of that morning he tied on five different frogs, every one of them modified before it ever hit the water.

It was less of a fishing trip and more of a crash course from someone who has spent years obsessing over this bite.

Pittman never fishes a frog the way it came out of the package. Here are the customizations he swears by.

Trim one leg. Cut half of one leg off or remove it entirely. That imbalance causes the frog to turn side to side more aggressively on the retrieve. Thirty seconds of work that pays off on every cast.

Bend the hooks. Use needle-nose pliers to gently flex each hook point upward at a slight angle. The bait stays weedless but the hooks have a much better chance of catching a bass's lip when it crushes the frog.

Use baby powder. Silicone legs stick together and melt against each other after a day of fishing. Dust your frogs with cheap baby powder before storing them and they will stay in fish-catching shape for years.

The first couple hours after daylight are almost always the most productive window.

Bass are active in low light, when water temps are at their coolest. They've been tight to cover all night and will move out to feed along the edges of pads and grass lines.

As the sun climbs, bass push deeper into shade and tighten up to structure.

This is the time I like to skip my frog back into the darkest pockets under overhanging trees and docks.

The evening bite, from about an hour before sunset through last light, is the second-best window of the day.

Some of the best blowups of my life have come in the final 20 minutes of daylight.

On overcast days, all bets are off.

Cloud cover keeps bass active much longer, so you can throw a frog from morning to evening and stay in the fish the whole time.

Frog fishing demands a specific rod setup. You need it medium-heavy with a fast or extra-fast tip, in the seven-foot to seven-foot-three range.

The medium-heavy power gives you the backbone to drive hooks through a compressed plastic body and muscle a bass out of heavy cover.

The fast tip lets you work the frog with a natural walking action without the rod loading up on every twitch.

Pittman uses a KastKing 7' 3" medium-heavy paired with a 7.3:1 MegaJaws reel. That high gear ratio is key because when a bass blows up on a paused frog, you can expect slack in the line. 

You need to take that slack up fast before you set the hook.

Spool it with 50-pound braid. No stretch means every bit of force from your hookset goes straight to the hooks.