The football head jig isn't new to the bass fishing scene, but it's prominence in angler's tackleboxes across the country is. It's not viewed like other jigs. Because of it's properly balanced head it's more suited for casting applications rather than flipping and pitching applications. Where most jigs are pointed or rounded on the nose, the football head has a perpendicular approach.
    

     With more and more fishing pressure on lakes and rivers across the country, anglers are looking for new things to throw at their local bass. But jigs still catch tens of thousands of bass every year. So one would have to think that putting a jig where you normally put other baits like carolina rigs and crankbaits would be the best of both worlds. Not only are you throwing a proven winner but in a way you're throwing a bait in places where bass aren't used to seeing them, thus it's something the bass haven't seen. All the ingredients for success, huh?
     So what makes the football head jig so special compared to other jigs in this scenario. It's partially the ability for it to always be upright on a straight drag. Some jigs, by their design, will lay on their side and not appear natural when just pulled on a straight drag much like you would do with a carolin rig. But a football glides effortlessly. Now a good football head has the hook positioned properly so that your trailer is always flaring in back. Gatorbugs, for instance, have a 60 degree flateye Gamaktsu hook that gives the jig a "scorpion tail" look in the water. By that I mean the the hook is upward causing the trailer to raise up off the bottom like a crawfish would when it was being attacked by a bass.
     But dragging a jig can be . . . well a drag. But the football jig also has a unique ability to wobble on the fall. Now a 3/4-ounce jig is going to sink like a rock, thus it will have a lot less wobble than say a 3/8-ounce jig. A better football head design would be to put more weight on the hook shank so that the jig falls more veritically and the tapering ends of each side of the head would make the wobble more pronounced than other jigs. This can be a real asset if your doing something like slack lining or stroking a football jig on deep drops.
     The real draw for me right now with a football head jig is the fact that smallmouth love them. If you get it around one, it really gets their attention. I've only been experimenting with my own football jigs since last summer, but I've found them to be smallmouth killers even when I fished Beaver Lake. Back then I would thread a hula grub (skirted grub) on to a straight-shank 1/2-ounce football jig and fish it on long gravel points and humps and catch smallmouths where I had caught them on carolina rigs after the bite stopped on the rig.
     Now on Kentucky Lake where drop fishing is the key to everyone's success from about May until October, finding my own niche for throwing football jigs has been pretty fun. Surprisingly some big smallmouths move up when the sun starts heading down and they will eat a football jig in a foot of water in the blazing nights of summer. That's what is so endearing about the jigs. I've caught bass on them from one foot deep, and I've caught them in water deeper than 40 feet deep. They've caught bass in brush piles, from rock piles, from docks, in flooded timber, and most importantly on the long do nothing tapering flats, points, and river ledge bends.
     Fishing them is really simple. Seriously, I'm thinking about throwing them as far as I can and pull them a foot or less at a time. I want to feel the jig scratching the rocks. I mean that seriously. If you pay attention and get in tune with your jig and move it slowly, you really can feel it "scratching" the rocks on the bottom. If I'm fishing cover or big rocks in relatively shallow cover, I drop down to a 3/8 or 1/4 ounce football jig. The lighter jig will pull through the cover just like any other jig. A big football jig will too but it has more of a tendency to find those hard-to-get-out-of nooks.
     I really love throwing them on lakes like Beaver and Table Rock where there is lots of flooded trees on deep creek channels. I will throw up into shallow water. I will slowly pull the jig up through the tree branches. When I feel it clear the the last branch, I open my bail and feed it line so it can fall back through the branches on the other side. It takes some getting used to but the key bites come when you drop it back. What will happen is similar to a spoon bite. The jig will just stop falling before it should.