I traded some baits and someone sent me about 50 football jig heads (no trailers). How do you guys fish these?

I like putting a trailer on them (rage craw usually) and dragging them on the bottom. Can be fished shallow or deep and work year round. Also catfish sometimes want to nip at them as well. Caught a few blues and flathead with em

Put a craw or even a lizard on and throw it around deeper structure. When I was learning to jig fish I used a plain weedless jighead and Rage Craws. It will get more bites on average than the skirted jig and trailer.

What weights?  I like hula grubs on 1/4-3/4oz heads

Love throwing hula grubs on a football head around rock piles and humps. 

I like a 3/4 oz.   I throw it on a 7’6” heavy rod with 20 lb. Fluoro.  I use it on deeper rock (9-15’) and for isolated lay downs in 4-8’.   I cast it as far as I can, let it hit the bottom, then drag it back keeping my rod tip low to the water.  The fish will pin it to the bottom then suck it up.  I always give them a second to get it.  I will also just shake my rod tip keeping the jig in place.  I did really well football jigs last season.  I actually just posted about football jigs asking if there was a better jig for what I was doing and many confirmed the football jig is best for bottom dragging.  I had heard/read that some are saying to just use a structure jig and football jigs are outdated.   There were good posts talking about the benefits of football jigs.   I am glad because I bought around 50 over the winter.  

Thanks all. Just to clarify, are you just leaving the hook exposed? These do not have a weed guard. They are at least 1/2oz. I’ll have to weigh them. 

They're worthless. Please send them to me for proper recycling. 

1 hour ago, Cbump said:

I traded some baits and someone sent me about 50 football jig heads (no trailers). How do you guys fish these?

Weight and hook size / brand?

Tom

48 minutes ago, Cbump said:

Thanks all. Just to clarify, are you just leaving the hook exposed? These do not have a weed guard. They are at least 1/2oz. I’ll have to weigh them. 

I use both with and without the weed guard.   I do leave the hook exposed. 

43 minutes ago, Fishin Dad said:

I use both with and without the weed guard.   I do leave the hook exposed. 

Same

They are half ounce. 
 

1 hour ago, Cbump said:

They are half ounce. 
 

Nice, yeah, all they need is some skirts and trailers. Siebert Outdoors has a really nice selection of skirt colors so you can have a nice variety of looks depending on the water. For 1/2oz, a MHF 7’+ rod will do. Some people like a really long 7’6”+ rod for footballs. I mainly use a 7’2” MHF Expride B for them. A 7 or 8 speed reel, 40 or 50lb braid, and a 15-20lb Fluoro leader and you’d have a perfect football setup. 1/2oz is great for shallow to medium depth dragging around structure

I don’t really want to mess with skirts. I have a ton of skirted pitching jigs already. I think the hula grub would be great on these. 

Swimbait 

Bellows Gill

These also shine on 1/2oz footballs 

20 hours ago, Cbump said:

Thanks all. Just to clarify, are you just leaving the hook exposed? These do not have a weed guard. They are at least 1/2oz. I’ll have to weigh them. 

I use a 2 1/2” length of straight finesse worm, split the tail end “1 1/4”, screw a Hitchhiker Medium spring into the flat cut end and after tiring on to jig clip the spring into the jig hook eye. The split tail end should be inserted into the hook point.

This makes a good weed guard and adds color plus movement...win win.

Plain football jig works good with Yamamoto twin tail Hula Grubs.

Tom 

PM If you want a sketch and my Horizontal Jigging article.

On 6/25/2023 at 8:18 PM, WRB said:

Weight and hook size / brand?

Tom

I found out they are 4/0 gamakatsu light wire. 1/2 oz. 

I would only leave the hook exposed if I never wanted to see the jig head ever again 

@TnRiver46 Yes Sir ?

So I either t-rig plastics on these or they are almost useless. That sucks. No wonder he sent them to me lol

They work well with craw plastic or big worm rigged weedless