Bassdozer's Flat Football Jig Heads with Weedguards

by Russ Bassdozer

This shows and tells product photos, product descriptions and information for the lure models and colors that are (or have been) available at BassdozerStore.com. Not all models and colors shown are currently available, and exact specifications are subject to change.

Note: Some of the following configurations may not all be currently in stock. Some may be sold out at this time. Please check online at www.BassdozerStore.com for current availability of specific items below. Thank you for your business.

Bassdozer's Flat Football Jig Heads with Weedguards

Flat Football Jig Head ~ Black ~ Comes in sizes: 3/8 (4/0). 1/2 (5/0). 3/4 (6/0).

Flat Football Jig Head ~ Green Pumpkin ~ Comes in sizes: 3/8 (4/0). 1/2 (5/0). 3/4 (6/0).

Flat Football Jig Head ~ Brown ~ Comes in sizes: 3/8 (4/0). 1/2 (5/0). 3/4 (6/0).

Flat Football Jig Head ~ Black Gold ~ Comes in sizes: 3/8 (4/0). 1/2 (5/0). 3/4 (6/0).

Flat Football Jig Head ~ Watermelon Chartreuse ~ Comes in sizes: 3/8 (4/0). 1/2 (5/0). 3/4 (6/0).

You've seen football jigs before, just never like these!

"Everything I know about or ever needed in a football jig is made possible in this jig design." - Russ Bassdozer

Before making my flat football jig head, I first designed my original flat shakey head with no collar and no weedguard, just a free-swinging wire corkscrew clip to rig a worm or soft bait. As simple as my flat shakey head looks, it is optimized in every way possible to be the best, and I am happy to have received many emails from satisfied customers about their success with that item.

Once I had perfected my flat shakey jig, and had gotten a lot of confirmation back from customers worldwide and all across the USA and Canada, I was sure then that it was a solid design.

So you can see in the following photos how I then evolved my flat shakey jig into a flat football jig with weedguard.

Everything I know about or ever needed in a football jig is made possible in this jig design.

The stand-up flat football shakey head (two on left) was forerunner to the weedless stand-up flat football jig (two on right) with perfect fiber weedguard (needs no trimming) and my signature triple cone cut keeper collar with 1,080 degrees (360x3) of bait-holding power. (Note: Items sold separately. Paint and flake colors shown may not be currently available.)

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 the Flat Football jig head can look different in the photos depending on the 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. (Note: Items sold separately. Paint and flake colors shown may not be currently available.)

These have a premium Mustad UltraPoint round bend hook model.

Recommended Gear: These jigs are best used with medium to medium/heavy gear from 10 to 16 pound test mono, fluoro or braided line. The hook is stout, but it is not intended for heavy flipping gear or heavy braided line.

• 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.
   
• 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 Bassdozer's 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 jig versus all other football jigs.
   
• Climbing Action We just covered plowing action, and it is important to understand that by plowing, I do not mean digging. Just like a snow plow on a truck will not be able to move forward if the plow digs into hard bottom, neither will a flat football jig be able to move forward if its flat face digs into hard bottom. Unfortunately, many other brands of flat footballs are ill-designed that way. They dig rather than plow. Some anglers do not like flat football jigs as much as fully rounded bottom  football jigs for that reason. They like how the standard, round-bottomed football jigs roll over rugged bottom and they feel that flat footballs lose some of that ability to roll over and move forward across rugged bottom. It's true that many other brands of flat football jigs drive all their forward energy into forcing the flat surface to dig and grind into the bottom, and that creates a constant struggle or difficulty to move other flat-faced jigs forward (compared to round-bottom football jigs). Quite simply, my flat face is designed to stand up semi-vertically at rest. When pulled forward, it reverts to a horizontal posture, and the angle of the flat face no longer lays flat so it doesn't grind (instead it climbs) over rugged bottom. It will even climb through brush amazing swell! The flat face of my jig (and the line tie pull point) are designed so it climbs effortlessly across rugged bottom and through brushy cover.
   
• 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 the flat football jig mimics the most common rise-and-fall movements of all bottom creatures.
   
• Slamming Action As the 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.

L to R: 3/4 (6/0). 1/2 (6/0). 3/8 (5/0). Black gold color. (Note: Items sold separately. Paint and flake colors shown may not be currently available.)

Rigging Methods

With silicone skirts, the first rung of the triple cone cut keeper collar holds the skirt in place, leaving two rungs with 720 degrees of grip to hold any soft plastic trailer securely. Without a skirt, the triple cone cut keeper collar has a full 1,080 degrees of grip lets you rig any soft plastic securely.

Rigging methods shown above, from top down (items not included with item for sale):

1. With silicone skirt and Yamamoto's Pro Double Tail (16L series) trailer.
2. With silicone skirt and Yamamoto's Flappin' Hog trailer.
3. With Gary Yamamoto Kreature rigged skirt-to-front.
4. Another good option is Yamamoto's Flappin' Hog - either by itself, or with Yamamoto's mini soft skirt (shown) ahead of it.
5. With Yamamoto's Double Tail Hula Grub (97-series shown) is another awesome option.

Which Rigging Method When?

It's hard to say exactly when or why to pick which one of the five (or many other) rigging methods shown above. Honestly, they're all somewhat similar. Many days, fish may hit them all, in different colors. At other times, you may get a day, a week, a season when you seem to do better with one versus the others, and it may flip-flop back and forth which seems to out-produce the other, but there's really no way to say for sure. Just try 'em. Whatever seems to work best, that is the right thing to throw at that moment!