Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reaves. From Coon Hutton to
Trot Line and in just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share
my stories and country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country
Life is proudly presented as part of Meet Eaters podcast network bringing
you the best outdoor podcast and the airways have to offer. All right friends,
pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two to teach you.
Froggiggin. If there's a more identifiable country summer nighttime grocery
gathering endeavor than Froggiggin, I don't know what it'd be. What other activity
combines water, the darkness, a flashlight, sneaking up on prey and going home
with a toe sack full of goodies better than Froggiggin. I dare say none. There's
different ways to do it but the end goal is to get a mess big enough to get
the grease to stinkin. I'm gonna tell you where to find them, how to catch them,
how to clean them and how to cook them up. Better get you a snack before you
listen because you're gonna be hungry when we get done but first I'm gonna tell
you a story of how I came to hooking holes in Frogs on the history channel.
In 2011 we were setting up the table eating supper with an unknown number from
Los Angeles ring on my cell phone. I didn't answer. Had to be a wrong number. I
didn't know anybody in Los Angeles. We finished eating and they called back. Now I
have to admit I love wrong numbers and texts from wrong numbers. They're like
a bird nest on the ground. They're easy pickings. Like the time I got a random
text from someone at a conference who was bored and it went something like this.
Is this the right number for your new phone Lisa? This is Janet. This conference
is so boring. I wish I hadn't excused to get out of here. I'm sitting down
front and I can't turn around to see where you are. Man I remember this like it
was yesterday. It still gives me chills. Here was my response. Yes Janet. Thank
goodness you texted. I had a burrito from the complimentary breakfast bar and I'm
dying. I'm stranded in the bathroom in no TP and my phone is almost dead. Grab a
roll and run to the lobby bathroom. Hurry. 30 minutes later I got a text saying Lisa
I've been to the lobby and every bathroom on six floors. Where are you? I'm not
sure how that played out. I blocked her number after that last one but I hope she
had a good sense of humor. So guess what? My phone rang again. But this time I
answered and a lady asked to speak to Brent Reeves. I said this is him. She told
me her name and said I'm a producer for the BBC. We have a new show that'll be
on the history channel called Harry Bikers. We saw your frog hunting video on
YouTube and would like to pay you to help us film a show like what you feel. I
did have a video on YouTube that I shot a year earlier just for fun that I'd
posted but I made the mistake of putting born on the bow by Credence Clearwater
revival with it and quickly got it snatched off the air by John Fogley's
lawyer or somebody and rightfully so. So I'm thinking to myself this is a
crockable and eventually this lady is going to ask me for my credit card
number so she can help me get rich. So I said I'm not interested in
participating in your scam today and I hung up. She called back and it's a
wonder I even answered but when I did she said Mr. Reeves please hear me out.
We're a legitimate television production company and we want to hire you to
help us produce a segment for the show. It's an American version of a successful
show in England and we're going to be an Arkansas film and several activities
and think you could help us represent your state and your way of life. I started
to believe her but I told her if they were looking for someone to help them
poke fun at people in our way of life that she picked the wrong man to help her.
I wouldn't be a part of anything like that. She assured me that they they loved
what I'd filmed and they wanted the world to see what fun we were having and how
we did it. She didn't ask me if I eat the frogs I caught and I remember saying
yes I'm if I didn't eat them I wouldn't be running around at night job and
holes in them. She thought that was funny as for my address and said she was
sending me $500. Three days later I got it in the mail and ran to the bank to
make sure it was good. It was a few weeks later and after lots of planning and
coordinating the production crew and host showed up for two days of filming.
A month or so after that yours truly was getting frogs on the history channel
with Paul Patronella and Bill Allen. These Texas boys were compadres and
traveled around the US gathering up vitals and with the locals and cooking them
the way the locals did then they flipped the script and fixed the food according
to their style. Paul was a sure enough trained professional chef and Bill well he
was like me. He just a cat that liked to cook except he was really good at it.
They got out of the TV business after a while and Paul owns the bait barn
fisher is down in Brian, Texas where you can order fresh water fish for your
ponds and lakes and Bill that rest was a bit more than a one-on paper hanger.
He's in Brian too and a genuine brain surgeon caliber mechanic at Frank's
motorcycle resurrections and even manages his sons ban the southern degenerates.
That sounds like the recurring theme of my family reunion. It was a lot of
fun doing that show and I can't them boys as friends but they still ain't asked
me to come fish with them and the golf but anyway if you're interested in
watching that episode you can see it for free on the Pluto TV app.
Search for Harry Barker's USA at episode numero uno is finger-licking frogs
with no beard brunt. My buddy Jeremy Humphers helped me with that project I don't
think he's been fishing with me either. But if they're only inviting one of us
tough luck Jeremy get your own podcast. That's just how that happened.
I wonder how many folks to listen to this have ever been frog geek. Even better I
wonder how many folks have eaten them. I just like a lot of the people I grew up
with I love frog legs battered and fried and skill it. My mama didn't eat a lot
of them but she cook us as many as we wanted on one condition. She didn't want
to cook them if they hadn't been frogs. Do you know that you can make a fresh
skint frog leg wiggle and twitch with just a pinch of salt put on them? Apparently
Rig Amortis doesn't sit in as fast with frogs as it does other creatures and
fresh frog legs still have some cells that can respond to stimulus and salt
hot grease they can make them twitch. It would freak my mama out and we could hear
every time it happened regardless of where we were inside or out. First things
first we got to catch them to cook them and there may be no cheaper source of
entertainment when it comes to the equipment you need to start gathering them
up because you really only need a light to see in the dark with the blind and
frog while you're slipping up on it. Now when I was a young and I can't tell you
how many of those old six volt batteries I went through that attached with two
wires to a little light that was rigged up on the head strap. The metal bracket
that that held that light was flat as a flitter and by the end of the night it
made your full head feel like Chuck Norse have been using it for target
practice. I started using my coon hunting light after that and that was an old
carbide light I'd wired up on my cap. I got my first one and I was 12 from
Johnson's hardware store and I paid $8 for it. If you don't know what a carbide
light is you ought to look that up. I was basically walking around in the woods
with an open flame of settling torch burden on my head. Not kidding. You adjusted
the brightness by how much gas was fed to the flame through a valve that was
connected to a small reservoir of carbide that sat under a small container of
water that dripped onto the carbide creating settling gas. Now what parent
wouldn't want their child walking around with a flame that was strapped to their face.
I'd love to have that thing back and if anyone out there has one that works
and they'd part with it get me up on the old gram and let me know. Before we get
to catching them we got a nowhere to look and win. Well the wind is easy when the
frogs come out and 10 times out of 10 the frogs come out at night. That's one
of the ones we're after doing anyway and the one we're after is the American
bullfrog. Frog nerds get your pencils ready and understand I'm not John
Prine and talking ugly and Hawaiian. I'm fixing to speak Latin. Lead
O'Bottes, Catas, Bayonus is the Latin name for our supper. Been batting how
do I do on that. We got to have water in just about any old water we'll do.
Ponds, lakes, creeks, bows and rivers they'll all feel the bill. Slow moving
portions of the streams are best and the ones with clean banks will they're
even better. That show we filmed for the history channel was done on a
menopherm where they kept the pond banks moat and we could slip down the
levees usually spying the frogs a long time before we ever got to them. In the
continental US my research shows that every state except for the peace garden
state of North Dakota has a chorus of bullfrogs. Do you know that's what you
call a group of bullfrogs? Of course.
It's a fit in the dinner fire if I do say myself. I like to hunt them on
bows, slews and canals. You can get small loon and boat or p-roa, kayak, anything
that will cruise along in shallow water and use a push pole, a paddle or a
trolling motor to quietly ease down the edges. That's where you're going to find
all bully. It'll be sitting right near the edge of the bank on the ground or in
the water. Their eyes will shine easy enough but one thing I always look
forward is that whitish colored patch of their throat and most times it's just
as easy to see as their eyes. If the woods are flooded you can find them
setting on logs, big lily pads floating around moss, just about anywhere. The key
to the whole operation is having a steady beam of light directed in that
rascal's eyes to keep him still long enough for you to get close enough to add
him to your limit. Gigman, stay focused on that frog and be ready in case he
starts to get away. But not so focused that you're not aware of your surroundings.
Good friend of mine tells the tale of when he was a game warden and received a
complaint of someone gigging frogs out of season. A frog season usually opens
around the middle April here but this spring had been unusually warm and frogs
were everywhere on this farm and these boys were helping themselves a few
weeks too early and on top of that they were supposedly selling them without
license. There was a big cypress bio that wound through that property and he
said it was covered up with frogs. So after getting the complaint he went down
and snuck into a good hiding spot to sit and watch for him. He did it two nights
in a row, parking, hiding his truck, walking a long way to his hiding spot,
sitting in the dark and watching and waiting and listening for them and never saw
a thing. He went back on the third night it was just about to leave when he saw a
flash of light and heard him coming his way. In a few minutes he saw three folks
in a little aluminum boat going back and forth from bank to bank. The man in the
back was running a little shoulder motor, the man in the middle was holding a
spotlight and the guy up front was gigging the frogs. My friend slipped down from
his hiding spot and stood behind a big cypress tree waiting for the man to get
close enough to catch. The bowel was wide enough that if he announced himself too
soon they could be on the other bank ditched the boat and get away. So he had to
let him get close enough that he could at least identify him if they ran. He
washed him for 10 or 15 minutes as they got closer and closer, going back and
forth across that canal, gigging frogs. Just when he thought they were getting
close enough he saw that beam of lights around the tree he was hiding behind. He
said he knew right then that they'd seen him and he went to step out from behind
the tree and try to get a look at their faces. As he started moving around that
tree he saw a huge bull frog sitting there from that tree he was hiding behind. He
said it was like he was hunting over a decoy. They had no clue he was there
watching them. Picking around that tree he could see them all focused on that
frog as the light got closer and closer and you heard them talking back and
forth about how big it was. He could also see that the only visible weapon they
had in the open was the frog gig. When they got right near the bank and that
gig was on his seconds away from savoring that frog he stuck his arm around the
tree and grabbed the frog gig. Snatched it out of the man's hand and
simultaneously saying, Game Ward! He said it was the blood-curdling squeal of the
man in the front that caused the man in the middle to drop the spotlight and
start screaming too. They both started running out the back of the boat and
overtopped the man in the back who started screaming, what is it? What is it? What
is it? He turned on his flashlight and hollered Game Ward again. They stopped
running through the waist-deep water in mud and crawled out on the bank where
he was standing. He said they was actually seemed relieved that they were only
getting tickets and that a booger man hadn't got him. Oh, Lord. There's three
legal ways to catch frogs and Arkansas and that's what I'm talking about so
y'all be sure and check with your state laws and do watch right. Here if you're
sixteen or older you're gonna have to have a fishing license in Texas you'll
need a hunting license so wherever you are make sure you get what you need. In
Arkansas you can catch them with your hands, use a gig or a spring-loaded
grabber attached to a pole or a bow and arrow and the last way you believe it
or not is to fish for them. Now using your hands is my least favorite for two
reasons and those reasons are number one. I don't like poking my hands in dark
places where cotton mouths live and number two. I don't like poking my hands in
dark places where cotton mouths live. I got snakebit once and I'll tell y'all
that story another day. Another thing about using your hands. You have to
walk right up on them or run the boat right up on them and sometimes you'll make
a racket or hit a stop and spook the frog causing them to jump and get away
even though you got him blinded with the light. Now I've never used a bow and
arrow but that sounds like fun especially if I used archer equipment. I don't
think I'd be slinging frog hairs out of my compound. Probably be a better idea
to get you a traditional bow or a recurve and do some instinctive shooting with
a fishing arrow. They're attached to your bow with a reel or by a spool and you
can shoot them and then reel them in. I can't think of a better way to stay
in practice for archery. It sure beats standing in the backyard shooting a
styrofoam target that wouldn't taste good even if a harebiker cooked it.
Fishing for frogs is an easy way to let everybody have a crack at catch and
supper. If you knew to frog and you haven't developed those long forgotten cave
man skills of chunking spears, let the frog catch himself. Just get your long
cane pole or a jig pole. Attach a few feet of fish and line and tie a crop of
jig on it and dangle it in front of that frog. Frogs are predators and they'll eat
just about anything. Once he bites it just pull him to you and drop him in a
sack and then it's on to the next one. I've got to making some notes and get
organized to talk to you all about frog fishing. I found a whole bunch of
videos of folks catching frogs this way on the interwebs. Forget wildlife fish
and saith and chester, the bull frog tournament trail is where it's at. Plus no
weights and frogs. I've used a griber before. It's a tension loaded apparatus
that folks gig face with too. The protein using a griber is when you gig the
frog you're really just catching it. The trigger hits that frog when you
when you spear him and tension loaded springs collapse in the jaws of the
griber they come together and trap the frog instead of poking new holes in him
that he wasn't designed to live with. Then you just drop him in the ice
chest or in your toe sack and move on to the next one. All your frogs stay
fresh and you can wait and clean them in the morning without any problem. The
cons are using the griber and my experience is that joker will go off if you
bump something in the boat or hit on him at the worst possible time usually
spooking yourself away. And fresh frogs are always trying to get back from
whence they came and you'll spend some of your time re-catching the frogs
to hop out of the bag or the ice chest. I like to catch my frogs once and when
I'm using the gig it ain't like I'm running a sword through them and throwing
them in the dungeon to slowly meet their fate. That would be cruel and
unnecessary. It's just a frog someone say well it may be but there are
creature we've been given dominion over to utilize and joy and respect even
if it is just a frog. When I pull him off the gig I give him a good
what for on the nugget about taking hold of his legs and using the part of his
head where his hat would go for a hammer on the side of the boat. Wham and drop
him in the bucket. Now you got to mess the dead frogs and if you ain't
planning on cleaning them when you get done you better have some ice ready to
keep them good and cold till you get ready to jerk the breaches off of them the
next morning. That's easy too and I'm fixing to tell you how to do it. You
gonna need a dead bull frog any kind of kitchen shears a pair of pliers and a
pocket knife. You know what kind of pocket knife. Grab your shears and cut his
feet off at the ankles then with your pocket knife cut a line across his back
about even with the armpits of his front legs. Take your pliers and grab a
hole to the skin as you just cut and take your other hand and grab him just
above that cut using his front legs for leverage. Pull down with your pliers and
just that easy off comes his breaches. Then I'll take the shears and cut across
his back meets his legs. You should have two legs ready for frying. Some folks
will separate them or leave them together. What are you prefer? Don't matter.
Alright somebody get the peanut old to 325 degrees. We're about to get busy
cooking up our videos. Buttermilk, egg, flyer, salt and pepper. That's about as
basic and it gets and that's all you need to cook up a mess. That's really good
food. I like to add a little crawfish bowl and lemon pepper to my flyer. I
talked about that batter mixture on the catching catfish with trial lines
episode. If you ain't heard that one you need to get your ears over there on that
one and get to listen. Sometimes I'll go with two parts flyer to one part corn
meal if I'm feeling fancy. And I'll use the same spices or combination. There
ain't no rules. Just fix them the way you like them. But when you fix them holler
at me when they're ready. A basic way to make them is mix that egg up in a bowl
of buttermilk. Dip the legs in there and then roll them in the flyer that you've
added spices to and drop them in the grease. You can double up the dipping
process. Legs and buttermilk then flyer back to buttermilk again back in the
flyer to give them that extra crust. Man it's good. If you deep fry them well
you know how much oil you need. If you do it in a skillet about a quarter to
half inch plenty. The best part of this activity is that's one of many ways to
introduce children to the outdoors and the concept of being self-reliant. With
your help you can teach them that darkness can be inviting and wonderful.
Feel with adventure and fun. I hope y'all be inspired to get out with the
little folks and have fun. Schools out and when I was young and school being
out meant that school was in with my dad. There's a whole other world going on
out there at night and it's responsibility of those of us who are familiar
with it to show those that ain't how good it is. We value and look out for the
things we love. Even if it is just a fro. This is Brent Reeves. Soundin' off. Y'all be
careful.