<table> </table> <em>&#8220;I&#8217;ll go hunting those frogs some night. With a light real bright, I can see just right.</em></p><p><em>&#8220;Slip up on the frog like a sly old fox. Grab him with my hand and put him in a box.&#8221;</em></p><p><strong>| Lyrics from &#8220;Ribbitt, Ribbitt,&#8221; a children&#8217;s conservation song written by Mike Fraser</strong></p><p>&#8194;</p><p>HOUSTON, Mo. | It was quiet, only the sound of gurgling riffles on the Big Piney River breaking the nighttime silence.</p><p>But Mike Fraser and his son, Luke, strained to hear something else: the baritone croak of a big old bullfrog.</p><p>It had just turned dark, and insects were fogging the flashlights that cut through the darkness. It wouldn&#8217;t be long now, Fraser said.</p><p>Soon, old Froggy would come out of hiding and start croaking. And the hunt would be on.</p><p>&#8220;During the heat of the day, I think these frogs just lie in the shade where it&#8217;s cooler,&#8221; Fraser said as he sat in his johnboat. &#8220;At night, they&#8217;ll come out on these gravel bars and feed on insects.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s when the frogging can get good. They&#8217;ll start sounding off, and you know right where they&#8217;re at.&#8221;</p><p>Seconds later, that&#8217;s what happened.</p><p>A big bullfrog croaked, and the Frasers immediately shined their flashlights in the direction of the sound.</p><p>There, tucked behind the branches of a tree that was drooping into the river, sat a frog.</p><p>&#8220;He won&#8217;t be easy to get to,&#8221; Fraser said. &#8220;I&#8217;ll have to get out and sneak up on him.</p><p>&#8220;If he hears the boat crunch the gravel, he&#8217;ll be gone.&#8221;</p><p>So Fraser slipped into the shallow water and slowly made his way toward the frog, his flashlight trained on the critter&#8217;s eyes the whole time.</p><p>He finally moved within feet of the frog, then reached out and grabbed it. He dropped it into a mesh bag and smiled.</p><p>&#8220;When you&#8217;re grabbing, you&#8217;re face-to-face with that frog,&#8221; said Fraser, an educational consultant for the Missouri Department of Conservation who works in Kansas City. &#8220;You have that light in his face, and he&#8217;s blind.</p><p>&#8220;But you still have to be quick. One little sound and he&#8217;s hopping away.&#8221;</p><p>For Fraser, such summertime adventures are a tradition.</p><p>He worked in the Houston area for the Department of Conservation from 1986 until 2003, and he remembers many summer nights when he and friends would be out on the Big Piney River, chasing frogs.</p><p>It&#8217;s a way of life in the Ozarks, much the same as float fishing, hiking and hunting deer and turkeys.</p><p>Fraser became so fascinated by that lifestyle that he learned to carve his own paddles out of sassafras wood and began playing the fiddle.</p><p>He was so taken by the music of the Ozarks that he formed his own group, the Shortleaf Band (named after the Shortleaf pines of the region), and began incorporating music into his educational programs.</p><p>He got away from the Ozarks lifestyle when he moved to Kansas City, though he&#8217;s still active with his music. The nighttime frogging trips, the float fishing, the poking around on back roads &#8212; that&#8217;s part of his past.</p><p>But he was able to relive that past last week when he returned to the place he had fallen in love with.</p><p>&#8220;I took Luke frogging for the first time on this stretch of river. He was only 8 at the time,&#8221; Fraser said. &#8220;I remember we grabbed one big bullfrog, then a storm hit.</p><p>&#8220;It was raining so hard that it just looked like a wall of water in front of us. It was scary.</p><p>&#8220;But we got back OK, and I guess it didn&#8217;t scare Luke away. He&#8217;s still floating these rivers and frogging.&#8221;