Flat Football Jigs for Bass Fishing
You've seen football jigs before, just never like these!
Our flat football head first appeared a few years back originally as our shakey jig head style with no collar and no weedguard, just a coil clip to hold a worm. Our flat football head shape worked so well that it is now available with a triple cone cut collar and fiber weedguard. Our flat football shape is becoming increasingly more popular with anglers, and several other brands of shakey jigs and football jigs now have the same flat face as ours.
In addition to our flat face, our triple cone cut keeper collar is something new too, at least on freshwater jigs. It has been fairly common on saltwater jig heads, but rarely seen on freshwater jigs. Although now, several other brands are recently starting to use our triple cone cut collar on their freshwater jigs too.
Our flat football style is like our original flat shakey jig, except with our triple cone cut collar and fiber weedguard.
Our flat football jig is the same design and concept as our flat shakey jig - with the addition of a medium/heavy (not extra heavy) resistance fiberguard and the addition of our triple cone cut keeper collar.
The triple cone cut keeper collar is lengthened to make more room for the skirt collar to seat in between the head and the first (of 3) cone cuts. The second and third cones are to keep a soft plastic trailer firmly in place. Each cone has 360 degrees of gripping hold - or 1,080 degrees of grip total. There's nothing else that grips quite like it!
The flat football jigs are best used with medium/heavy gear from 10 to 16 pound test mono or fluoro line. The hook is stout, but it is not intended for heavy flipping gear or for braided line.
Our flat football jigs come in 3 sizes as shown: 3/8 oz (5/0), 1/2 oz (5/0) and 3/4 oz (6/0) sizes.
Football jigs are the "off-road vehicles" or "ATV's" of jig heads, meaning the wide head lets them rumble and crawl across rough bottom, gravel, rocks that would snag more streamlined jig styles. The broad-shouldered football shape is too wide to drop into small cracks or crevices. With football jigs, the hammer head shape helps keep the jig from falling into cracks or gaps between rocks that eat other jigs alive.
If a football jig does drop into a larger crevice, the head will be too wide across to fully wedge all the way deep down. The crosswise football shape does not let it get too deeply snagged, so you can usually shake or jiggle a loosely-stuck football jig out of snags.
The "T" formation (that the head and the collar make) helps the jig resist rolling over, and the "T" shape causes the jig to perch on top of rugged bottom rubble rather than wedge its nose into debris. The football jig is at its very best on hard bottoms, gravel, sand, shell, in any and all rocks (especially round "river-washed" rocks as opposed to square chunk rock). Speaking of rivers, the football shape is incredible to bounce bottom in a flowing current or tide.
Where a football jig is not best to use, a football is usually not as easy to fish as an Arkey jig in brush, standing timber, stumps, laydowns (or whatever wood), and the football jig fouls miserably in most vegetation.
The shape of this flat football jig in photos may look different depending on the camera angles at which photos are taken, but these are football shape jig heads with a flattened face plate. Available in three sizes: 3/8 oz with a stout 5/0 Mustad Ultra Point hook; 1/2 oz and 3/4 oz sizes both have a heavy 6/0 Mustad Ultra Point hook.
- Triple Cone Cut Keeper Collar. Each of three cones on the keeper collar have 360 degrees of gripping power. When a skirt is used, the first cone keeps the skirt securely in place. The second and third cones provide an additional 720 degrees of grip that will keep a soft plastic trailer bait in place better than any other collar style.
- Trimless In-Line Fiberguard. The fiberguard is precisely sized so you never need to trim it, and it is angled low, what I call an "in-line" fiberguard, so it is in line for a perfect hookset. The fish really doesn't even need to depress it. Just fan it out a bit before first using it - and you're good to go!
- Stand-Up Action. Obviously it can stand up, but the overall action due to the flat face plate is a lot more versatile than just standing. The jig only stands at rest. When the line is pulled, the "pull point" of the line tie eye lifts the head up so it crawls or glides across the bottom with a tight line. When you stop pulling the line, it noses down and stands up again. Most people refer to this tail-up standing posture as a craw in a defensive stance. Every time you stop pulling the line, it noses down on bottom and stands up again. However, this is also exactly how fish feed, by nosing down over a meal on the bottom. Even bass feed this way, by putting their noses down, their tails high up, in order to pluck a meal off the bottom. So the tight-line, sliding, gliding and then sudden stand-up action and nosing down when the line is relaxed, that's exactly how fish feed on the bottom - and if there's one thing that infuriates bass, it is to see a smaller critter brazenly feeding in front of them. It causes a pecking order instinct reaction from the bass to peck or strike the jig that's "feeding" out of turn.
- Plowing Action. Another action, found only on this football jig due to the flat face plate, is plowing the bottom. When you drag standard football jigs across the bottom, they can really only bounce. There's no other action. Think of standard football jigs as four wheel drive trucks that can drive across rugged terrain. When you drag this flat football jig across the bottom, it plows and pushes. Think of that off-road truck again, but this time envision a snow plow on it. That's the difference between this and all other football jigs.
- Lifting Action. The angled face plate also causes lift, and that's a very good thing. Constant rising off bottom and settling back to bottom are what small fish, crawdads and other bottom creatures do constantly. It's their major mode of movement. Most do not just drag their carcasses across the bottom. The lifting and falling glide of this flat football jig mimics the most common rise-and-fall movements of all bottom creatures.
- Slamming Action. As this flat football jig lifts off bottom, it does not lift too far. So it will slam the flat face plate head-on into any hard objects that are raised slightly higher than the bottom. This sudden full frontal impact shock - or "slamming" action is an incredible strike trigger.
Between the triple cone cut keeper collar, the in-line fiberguard, the medium/heavy Mustad hook, the stand-up action, nosing down on bottom in a feeding posture, the plowing action, lift-and-fall glide, and strike-triggering slamming action, it's clear that this is no ordinary football jig. That's why we say,
"You've seen football jigs before, just never like these!"
3/8 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Black Blue
1/2 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Black Blue
3/4 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Black Blue
1/2 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Brown Purple
3/4 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Brown Purple
3/4 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Brown Sunfish
1/2 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Brown Sunfish
3/8 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Dark Green Pumpkin
1/2 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Dark Green Pumpkin
3/8 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Green Pumpkin Olive
3/4 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Green Pumpkin Olive
1/2 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Green Sunfish
3/4 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Green Sunfish
1/2 oz Flat Football Jig ~ June Bug Bluegill
3/4 oz Flat Football Jig ~ June Bug Bluegill
3/4 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Pale Watermelon Red
1/2 oz Flat Football Jig ~ PBJ Flash
3/8 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Watermelon
1/2 oz Flat Football Jig ~ Watermelon
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