This article was first published April 27, 2025, at fieldethos.com.
Most kids learn to shoot a rifle from a bench or off the hood of dad’s pickup, maybe. Those rifles are usually aimed at paper targets or old tin cans. When targets and tin cans no longer scratch the itch, sites are set on birds and squirrels. Me? I learned to shoot a rifle from the bed of a moving pickup while hunting bullfrogs.
Among my father’s finer ideas was frog hunting at the fish hatchery where he officed. There were nearly two dozen stock ponds down the hill from that hatchery, laid out in a grid on the back side of the lake dam, and three or four of them were full of catfish and grass carp. Lining the banks of those stock ponds were hundreds and hundreds of bullfrogs.
With dad as my wheel man, I’d post up on the tire well of the truck bed like the tail gunner on a B-52 bomber with a bolt action, single shot Daisy .22 rifle in my hands. Then we would creep along at a mile or two per hour, scanning the pond banks for sun bathing, spring loaded bullfrogs. If dad saw one, he’d stop and point it out. If I happened to spot one before he did, I’d tap on the side of the truck, and he would ease on the brakes.
When you’re hunting bullfrogs with a .22 rifle, your aiming point is directly between a frog’s eyes. Hit a croaker anywhere else, and there’s a good chance you’re going to have to go in the water after him. So I learned not to sit around and admire my marksmanship. I’d squeeze off a shot and then shift straight into Nascar pit crew mode, bailing off the edge of the truck bed and diving for a wet and wriggling bullfrog before his death throes carried him into deeper waters. Incidentally, that skill served me well a few years later when I took up turkey hunting.
When dad and I had enough frogs to make a mess, we’d call it quits and clean our catch, using an old pair of pliers to strip slimy skin from meaty thighs. Then we’d scrape off as much of that amphibian slime as we could and drive straight from the hatchery to our preacher’s house because, in a break from sanctified stereotype, Brother Alan eschewed fried chicken in favor of fried frog legs.
In the years that have followed, I have proven myself to be an average hunter. I’ve killed some nice whitetail bucks, sure, but nothing that would ever grace the cover of a hunting magazine. I’ve taken plenty of turkeys, too, but I’ve been busted by twice as many birds as I’ve shot. I have missed by a mile more upland birds than I care to count. But I am proud to say that if Boone and Crockett kept a record book on bullfrogs, I’d be an all time award winner. My name would be mentioned alongside hunters of renown, men like Karamojo Bell and Fred Bear. Because I was a straight up scourge on the local bullfrog population.
You can keep your shooting benches and your paper targets. As far as I’m concerned, there’s not a better way to learn to shoot a rifle than to hunt bullfrogs from the bed of a moving pickup.
Wright Outdoors 