Collegiate Times

Thomas Mitchell, a senior mechanical engineering major and founder of Virginia Tech's Frog Gigging Club, pulls a frog off his bamboo pole and gig.

A rubber-legged Cyclops stalked the water’s shallow banks in the night.

Thomas Mitchell, president of the Frog Gigging Club at Virginia Tech, sloshed along the pond’s edge wearing chest-high waders and a headlamp. Four novice gigging participants watched from dry land as Mitchell, a senior mechanical engineering major, scanned the calm surface for the reflection of a frog’s gleaming eyes.

Junior psychology major Carolyn Funke held the weapon that would be used to pin the amphibian.

Frog gigging is the hunting of frogs with a pole to which a multi-pronged spear, or “gig,” similar to a trident, is attached on one end. Mitchell capped his approximately nine-foot-long bamboo stick with a nearly two-inch-wide, three-tined spear that he ordered on eBay.

Before the 10-minute drive on U.S. 460 West to the gigging destination, sophomore chemical engineering major Ann-Marie Callsen, present out of mere curiosity, sought an explanation.

“Why do people gig?” she asked Mitchell.

Her fellow amateur “giggers” chuckled.

“For frog legs,” he responded.

“To eat them?” Callsen asked.  

“Yeah,” Mitchell said. “It’s not just for fun: spear a frog and — laugh?”

Comedian Larry the Cable Guy sparked Mitchell’s interest in frog gigging during spring 2009. Mitchell said one of Larry the Cable Guy’s jokes involved an analogy to frog gigging, and the curious phrase inspired online research.

Mitchell’s first gigging outing was in April of last year with senior mathematics major Dat Tat Hoang, during which they snagged four frogs. Hoang prepared the legs for grilling, Mitchell said, in a marinade that contained around 10 ingredients including soy sauce, curry powder and garlic.

“It’s fun,” Mitchell said. “I mean it’s a unique thing. We have a good time and have a tasty meal at the end.”

The most successful gigging method, Mitchell said, is walking laps around the water body. He told the rookie giggers as they paced to listen for the guttural croaks of frogs.

The vocals suggest their vicinity, he said, but the frogs aren’t easy to pinpoint. Their eyes hover just above the water’s plane, and a sweeping headlamp reveals their positions.

“It takes a while to train your eye,” Mitchell said. “At first you can’t really tell the difference between just droplets of water and a frog eye that’s sticking out of the water.”

The headlamp serves a purpose beyond the search.

“If you keep the light on them (frogs) while you gig them, it kind of stuns them,” Mitchell said. “It’s easier to sneak up on them.”

About 10 minutes into the perimeter stroll, Mitchell spotted a frog. Funke shuffled carefully to the wet edge with the gig in hand. With a firm stance, Funke shifted the pole into both hands and, with Mitchell coaching, gradually moved the trident toward the frog.

“Now get a little closer,” Mitchell said, “and then you’re just going to push it right through him and hold it down.”

Funke thrust the gig but didn’t connect. Mitchell said she was off just slightly to the left.

“He’s going to peace out now,” said sophomore chemical engineering major Molly Boal, laughing. “You would too if you almost got speared.”

Mitchell told Funke that next time she could prepare for the blitz even more slowly than before.

“They don’t spook that easily as you saw,” he explained to her. “I mean, here we were talking like two feet away from them.”

Thereafter the giggers circled the waters for more than an hour but exposed no frogs, despite the symphony of musical throats. Mitchell said they didn’t have to leave hungry, though, having found a dead fish and a bobbing apple.

Hailing from Rustburg, Va., junior marketing major Chelsea Hover tried frog gigging once during high school.

“The last time I went,” she said to Mitchell. “I didn’t go out until, like, 2 a.m. Is it early to go out at 10?”

It was Mitchell’s first gigging trip of the year, and he said the time wasn’t the biggest issue.

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A version of this article appeared in the Apr 27 issue of the Collegiate Times.