by Mitch Lee
Finding frogs had become a great obsession for my dog Mutt and I in the late August afternoons of 1975. Most of the places we hunted around Limekiln Lake were not really great for a hike as they were filled with great expanses of black muck.
But they were of particular fun for us as they offered not only a great challenge for good footing but an unending game of hide and seek with our prey.
Mutt seemed to enjoy the seeking portion of this game even more than I did, although I’m not sure she understood how to sneak up on our quarry.
The frog hunts always started out in the usual way.
Mutt and I would look in the garage for an empty five gallon bucket and an old broom handle I had fastened a net to.
Then, off we went tromping into the dark shady swampy areas where the largest bullfrogs were able to grow fat and old shaded by trees from birds of prey, and in thick muddy places where land animals would have a difficult time fishing them from shore.
One of my favorite bullfrog hunting zones was the old Limekiln swamp between the campground and the old Ellis property bridge on a trail that stretched out through some major marshy ground.
As we hiked along on a seldomly used trail we discovered that the first marshy area we reached was too wet due to rainfall from the previous evening.
We would have had to wade in knee-deep to find good frogs, so we skirted around until we came to a deep swamp.
The air there was thick and the smell of muck and decay was overpowering the many Balsam and Spruce that grew along the edge.
We stepped out onto the swamp edge using hillocks of fading yellow grass plots to see if we could spot any good big Bullfrogs.
Then we heard the croak of what had to be the most granddaddy croaker to have ever lived in any swamp.
Our ears perked up and we slowly worked our way along the shaded edge of the swamp.
At that point neither of us worried about getting the thick black mud on our feet and ankles.
We crept along knee deep in the muck along following the bellow of what must have been a 40-pound frog.
I looked down at my net unsure I had the right tools for such an expedition.
Mutt looked up at me as if to query, “Should we even tackle such a large beast, just the two of us?”
Onward we waded until we thought we must have been within only feet of the Hercules of frogs.
Then, the entire swamp went silent.
I stood still with my net ready for a quick scoop for almost 10 full minutes before witnessing the largest belly flopping dive sound a Bull frog could have possibly made as he launched himself into the deeper waters of the swamp.
The only evidence that he actually existed was the fanning ring from his wake.
The hunt for this mythical granddaddy Bullfrog would go on for many years to come.
—
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller,
lives at Inlet. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com