On the top ESPN/BASS and FLW pro tours the past two years (2006-2007), a paradigm shift has started in the baits used and spots fished by top pros in prestigious televised tournaments.

Top pros are increasingly learning to probe deeper offshore spots for untapped bass. The pros are discovering new lures to them (like football jigs) will win deep tournaments. Consequently, the football jig has grown in popularity among local tournament and recreational anglers who pick up new techniques and tactics from the pros on TV and in magazine articles.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE FOOTBALL JIG VERSUS OTHER JIG STYLES

More streamlined jig heads (most all other jig head shapes) will snag more on rocky bottom types than will the football jig. Even if a football jig does get lodged in a snag, it will not lodge as deeply, and can be unsnagged more easily than other jigs, especially if you are able to backpedal to get right over the snagged jig in order to get it out the same way or same angle that it went in.

Many other jig heads will roll on their sides, putting the hook right on the bottom. Due to its oblong sideways head however, a football jig really cannot roll over. A football jig tends to keep the hook straight up most of the time, and it is hard to envision the hook snagging when it's upright. A hook tends to snag when it's rolled into the bottom or when the hook's rolled into a limb - but the football head tends not to roll over as much as other jigs.

STANDARD WEIGHT SIZES

The 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2 ounce sizes are great to use in rock bottom areas because the oblong head shape helps keep the jig head perched atop bottom rubble without slipping and sliding down deep into small cracks and openings amidst the debris.

HEAVY FOOTBALL JIGS REALLY COME INTO THEIR OWN

Where football heads really come into their own, however, is with the heavy 3/4 and 1 ounce sizes.  The heavy heads really define what football jig fishing is. The heavyweight heads separate football jigging from all other types of jig tactics. The 3/4 and 1 ounce jigs have a big presence, they displace a lot of water and create a disturbance that doesn't go unnoticed by deep bass. They sink fast. They hit the bottom and hit any underwater obstacles hard, causing a fast-snapping reaction bite at times. Think of an apple tree. If a light leaf fell off the top of the apple tree and fluttered silently to the ground, you would hardly pay attention. You might not even notice at all. If a ponderous apple fell off the tree top and smashed the ground hard, you are very likely to turn your head to see what just happened there. That's why a heavy football jig works so well. It gets attention plummeting down and thudding the bottom hard, and when fish turn their heads to see what's happening, your football jig is on the scene, appearing edible or alive.

IS THE FOOTBALL JIG A CRAWDAD IMITATION?

Many anglers pigeonhole the football jig as a crawdad imitation. Yet the football jig isn't exactly a true copy of a crawdad - or anything else. A bass may not know what a football jig represents, except that as the football bangs the bottom and crashes head-on into bottom debris - even when it just lays there immobile - it appears like something that is not a perfect, healthy specimen, therefore an easier meal to catch than a perfectly healthy craw or minnow.

So the football jig imitates nothing in particular and everything in general. Depending on the color of the jig head, the color and kind of dressing you apply (you may dress it with a silicone skirt plus any kind of soft plastic or pork trailer - or just use soft baits like hula grubs, creatures, beavers or craws alone without skirts) and depending on the action that an angler uses, a football can give fish the impression of a craw, a panfish, a shad, a young-of-year walleye, trout, etc. So when you know that bass are feeding heavily on one particular kind of food source, it can help to try to match the hatch. For example, when bass are feeding heavily on shad, it can help to use a silver jig head, with a silvery white dressing (skirt and/or soft bait). Yet above all, a football jig is just something non-descript and moving - an easy target that bass strike.

HOLD DOWN THE HEAD-SHAKING OR ELSE!

In deep water, bass are notorious for racing to the top to leap out of the water as soon as they are hooked, often dislodging a heavy football jig when they jump. This is often unavoidable. It is almost impossible to reel in slack line as quickly as a fish can rocket straight to the top. Even if you do reel fast enough to keep the line tight as the fish races to the surface, it is never truly a tight line. Instead, there's a bowed "U" shape due to water drag tension. It may feel tight to you perhaps, but there's always enough slack in the U-bowed line for a fish can to rattle its gills and dislodge a heavy football jig by streaking up and leaping out instantly upon hookset.

It's all part of the excitement of fishing football jigs. Please enjoy.