Football Jig

Round, football-shaped head that stands the bait up on hard bottom for dragging deep rock, gravel, and offshore structure.

Also known as: Football Jig · football head jig · ball head jig · offshore jig · drag jig

The big-fish bait: a jig and trailer has won more bass tournaments than any lure ever made.

• Flipping, casting, football, finesse, swim: five heads, five jobs
• The trailer sets the fall — craw for slow, chunk for glide, paddle for swim
• Heavy rod, braid or 17-20 lb fluoro: the hookset has to move a big hook
• Bites come on the fall and the first hop — watch the line

The football jig's round head is designed to ride upright and deflect off rock rather than wedge into it, standing the trailer up off bottom like a feeding crawfish. It is fished almost exclusively in open water — main lake points, humps, ledges, gravel flats, and offshore rock piles in roughly 8-25 feet — rather than in wood or vegetation, where the round head has no advantage and hangs up more than a flipping jig.

What separates it from the rest of the family is the emphasis on bottom contact and deflection over weedlessness. Anglers make long casts, let it settle, and drag it slowly with sweeping rod motions, feeling for the transition from mud to gravel to rock where offshore bass stage. Most bites come on the pause after a drag or a deflection off a boulder, not on a hop.

It shines in summer and fall when bass group up offshore on classic community holes, and it is a premier smallmouth bait on deep, clear rock. It also fails on cover-heavy banks and in vegetation, where the round head snags constantly — a flipping jig or Texas rig is the better call there.

Gear runs medium-heavy to heavy fast-action casting rods with 12-20 lb fluorocarbon depending on depth and clarity; heavier line in stained, shallower water, lighter fluorocarbon for deep, clear smallmouth water where bottom feel and stealth matter more than horsepower.