Entry 233-5
Greg Hackney’s Lure Choices
Editor’s Note: Strike King pro, Greg Hackney of Gonzales, Louisiana, has fished his entire life and fished professionally for about 5 years. A regular on both the BASS and FLW circuits, Hackney is ranked No. 14 in the world for 2007 on www.bassfan.com.
Part 5: The Sound of the Rage Toad Calls Bass
Question: What’s another new lure that Strike King has come out with about which you’re excited?
Hackney: I’m really excited about the Rage Toad. Now I know that there are a lot of frogs on the market today, but the Rage Toad has a unique sound unlike any other frog. The sound is very subtle if I reel it slow. Or, I can speed up the retrieve and cause it to make as much racket as a buzzbait. The Rage Toad also leaves a bubble trail that will allow the bass to track it down and eat it. I don’t believe there’s any frog on the market that can compare to the Rage Toad.
Question: Around what type of cover are you fishing it?
Hackney: I fish the Rage Toad anywhere. It’s an extremely-versatile frog. I can fish it on a clear-water lake or a dirty-water lake. The bass don’t necessarily have to be shallow to want to eat the Rage Toad. 
One of my favorite little tricks is to throw the Rage Toad on schooling bass – probably one of my best-kept secrets. If you listen to the Rage Toad as it comes across the surface of the water, it sounds like a scurrying baitfish. I think that action agitates the bass. I’ve found that a bass will bite the Rage Toad on the surface when the fish won’t take any other type of lure. In the summertime, when the weather’s really, really hot, and the bass are sulking, you can get a bite on the Rage Toad when you can’t get a bite on anything else.
One big mistake many anglers make with the Rage Toad is they mistakenly believe that it should only be used around grass or thick cover. However, most of the time, I’m fishing the Rage Toad on open water above cover. I like to fish it over submerged vegetation and underwater stump fields, on the outside edges of grass, under boat docks, down sea walls and along the edges of riprap.
This is not just a grass lure like most frogs are. I fish it in a lot of places that most people will fish a buzzbait, because it’s a totally-different-looking lure with a totally-different sound than a buzzbait. Yet it has the drawing power that you expect a buzzbait to have.
One of the big advantages to the Rage Toad is that there are a lot of lakes throughout the nation where the bass haven’t seen a Rage Toad. So what this does is offer you a unique lure to present to the bass that the fish have never seen. When you go to a lake where the fish have never seen the Rage Toad before, often within 10 casts you’ll understand why I’m so high on this bait.
