Here comes one!
I'm on Kentucky Lake and one of the staple lures for this lake is a football head.
They’re sucking the plastic off there. They bite it so good that one knocked slack into
it. I knew I had a bite because I couldn't feel my lure anymore.
Little guy.
A football jig is a great presentation. What I like about it is I don't like to tie a Carolina
Rig. You have to tie a swivel on so there's two knots there, tie your hook on
there's another knot there, so I've got three knots, I've got weights sliding and beads,
and I mean it takes awhile to sit down if you break one off you've got to sit down for
ten minutes to re-tie your Carolina Rig.
I like a football jig. It's got a weed guard on it. They have kind of evolved now with
the Hardheads and the Biffle Bug system that Tommy Biffle came up with. That's what I'm
throwing today is one of those Gene Larew Hardheads and a Strike King Menace Grub on
there.
It's just a compact profile. I can drag it around and maintain contact with the bottom
the whole time.
There's one! Nice! I'm fishing these hard spots; places where the current or just the
way the bottom lays makes a nice clean rocky hard bottom which is easy for these bass to
feed on.
One of the things I've found fishing out here is if a spot has a bunch of brush on it,
it's not good for having a school of fish on it. For some reason if there's a brush
pile on it or a lot of brush and cover on it, it’s not as conducive to hold a school
of fish that’s going to feed on shad. I think they don't like it because you've got
baitfish and they're kind of disoriented by the wind, the current, or whatever is going
on there. A school of fish will run up there and chase those shad and I think if they have
to dodge a brush pile and weave around all that stuff while they're rushing a school
of baitfish is not what they're looking for. It's a good place to catch a big fish out
of cover.
So what I've got here is just a Hardhead with a Strike King Menace Rage Grub. You can put
whatever plastic on there that’s some kind of kicking legs crawfish imitator. I bet you
could even put one on there that looked more like a shad. Put a white one on there.
You can see that head is loose there. That head just drags around and every time it bumps
a rock that tail is going to kind of kick around behind it.
These tails flap as you're just steady reeling it, but I’ve just been out here dragging
it today. Its so compact and has such a good profile that it will come through that rock
real easy without getting snagged up. One of the things I do too is you notice that
hook is not buried up in the plastic. Where I'm fishing doesn't have a lot of cover like
a lot of wood and grass that I’ve got to worry about. So I just leave it out so I get
good hook penetration on a fish that bites.
I'm firing it out here across these hard spots and I just want to drag it across their feeding
zone. That's all I'm doing. There's a bunch of fish on this little high spot here and
I'm just trying to let that bait get down there. They're down there about 13-14 foot
and I let the bait get down to the bottom, control the slack in my line by turning my
boat into the wind, and then I'm just going to drag it or if I want I can just slow reel
it. It's just like a crankbait; you're bumping it along keeping it moving and I don't let
it still.
It's down there and it will bump stump or hit big rock and you're still getting a reaction
bite even though you think you're just dragging a worm along the bottom.
With that head on it that tail is free to kick around and every time it hits something
that tail is just going to kick around and I think that's what triggers those fish.
Another thing I like with these football heads it that I actually won a little jackpot tournament
here just straight reeling a football head. This was before they had the Biffle Heads
and all that. I just found a little hard spot out in deep center middle of the lake. You
would just take that football head and let it get to the bottom, (it was only 9-10 feet
deep at the time) just straight reel it just a slow reel, and I mean they would clobber
it. I caught 24 pounds in a 4-hour tournament just straight reeling a football jig. But
now with the Biffle Heads, Hardheads, swing heads, and things like that they're just better
designed actually for that same application. I think you get better hook ups, you can put
different plastics on it, and there's not a skirt so it's more streamlined like a baitfish
would be.
As far as your rod, reel, and set up for fishing these jigs I like 15-pound fluorocarbon. I
think this is 15pound sun line on here. I like a 7:1 reel and a medium heavy action
rod. This is a Legend Extreme St Croix Medium Heavy action rod. But that fluorocarbon doesn't
have a lot of stretch and 15 pounds lets me horse some of these fish especially on a long
cast. You'll get a lot of bites on a long cast. I keep my drag pretty well cranked down
because I want to get a good hook set when they are way out there and then I might back
it off as they get closer to the boat if I’ve got a big one. But it's fairly straight forward;
a standard 7 foot medium heavy rod, 15 pound line, and a quick reel just because sometimes
when they bite this thing they take up the slack and you've got to catch up to them because
they're real aggressive they're up there rushing shad. He comes up and grabs a baitfish
you've got to wind on him because he's coming at you to have a chance to get a hook in him.
Football jigs are a great way to catch bass in the summer!