It's Football (Jig) Season! (Technique Highlight)

What's up everybody it's Polish Pete I'm in our studio in Golden Valley Minnesota And this is another technique highlight this one they brought to me because this is one of my confidence techniques This is football jig fishing. This is one of the first ways I learned how to fish structure offshore structure The football jig does two things for you want to get bit and two it tells you what the bottoms like So if you struggle with your electronics or you have a new body of water and you want to learn with the bottom composition of your body of water There's two things that are really going to help you out this technique highlight I'm talking about and also on the pro On the pro if you go to your Navi onic section to look for flats or transitions on those contour lines and you're mapping That takes a little bit of time but one of the cheating little secrets there for a pro if you go into our bottom hardness layer Not all lakes have it because this is socially These are social maps so they come in from the consumers out in the field So not all the lakes have it but some lakes do and that'll actually show you hard bottom areas of the lake That is where you want to key in with a football jig And then that the what I like to do with the Navi onic's portion of our of the pro app is go look for points That's low hanging fruit stuff if you look for points and go off the edge of that You typically can find some hard bottom and some rocks if you look for flats next to drop offs and like fish the area right in between There's a lot of times a big transition of a whole bunch of lines are close to each other and then a flat portion because Something happened there right there's some rock and it broke off into a sand transition or You know, it can be different types of bottom composition But a lot of times what you're looking for is just to change in that bottom composition and Preferably hard stuff gravel rock Chunky rock boulders all that kind of stuff. That's all that stuff works for the football jig So before the recide imaging my way of finding rocks on my home lake leg when it's onka was with a football jig And the easiest way to start off with these is getting yourself like a three quarter ounce football jig This one here's from Picasso doesn't matter the brand of your choice But you go with one of these and get yourself start off with a pretty stout rod something like this to Tula XT and the Seven-six heavy this one I think even might be an extra heavy but this thing's Big time bang for your buck and if you put braided line in a leader on this you 're going to feel Absolutely everything down there in the bottom and I do recommend you start off with that braid to a leader You don't need it a lot of expert anglers and Football jig anglers will go to straight floral eventually, but I'm just saying if you're new to this technique Try that braid to a leader learn that not take your time to learn to all bright nod or the Alberto not FG not preferably if you could learn that one Take the time learn that puts a 20 pound floral carbon on the end of some 30 pound braided line and go out there and throw it and Let it sink to the bottom. It's three quarters So you're gonna feel it hit the bottom. You're gonna feel it dragon If you're not feeling anything you're on a soft bottom if you're feeling it hard almost like you're getting bit You're hitting hard objects. You're hitting rock. You're hitting pebbles. You 're hitting that transition in the bottom hardness area I also say that that age you with that braid to a leader initially because if you're around vegetation on a vegetation Edge you'll be able to clean your jig off very easily and a lot of times you get your bites as that jig comes through that vegetation and First contacts at hard bottom. That's because those fish are either outside of that edge or in that edge of weeds And they're looking at that hard edge where they see some crayfish or some bugs or something and they come out in the ambush it so That braided leader's just aiding you and learning where your jig is and what type of bottom it's on Now trailers for a three-quarter ounce football jig like that to start off with two times I would say I have a lot of faith and smelly stuff So if you look like this Berkeley Maxon if you go to like a larger size chigger crawl like a four inch That'd be a perfect one to go on the back of this three-quarter one Maybe cut a little chunk of it off, but it's gonna smell really really heavy It's gonna be something that they pick up and move with while you're learning how to fish it and keep it They're gonna bite it and hold on to it a little bit longer But honestly another good one is something like a rage cross something with more of an aggressive paddle to it So it's got flat flanges on the ends it kicks a lot harder This causes a bigger disturbance and it'll draw a fishing from a wider area The chigger craws would be awesome to make fish that are tough to get to commit to bite Maybe even cooler water temperatures get them to bite that this rage cross to me This shines when you're covering water and you're learning how to fish the jig you can get a lot of fish on the fall I'm when you're moving it when you're breaking it through the vegetation just banging it into rocks those legs are gonna kick like crazy All right next up we're gonna kill I should say before I move on to that For all the different football jigs I'm gonna talk about if you're gonna throw it on casting equipment There's no need to overthink it get yourself a really really fast one You're not fishing the jig with the reel you're fishing it with the rod So all you're using this reel for is to cast it where you want it and to pick up the line after you set the hook on a fish Or get that football jig back to the boat. So eight one to one or faster to me There's no reason to go slower with a football jig I know a lot of people like to do that because they crawl it really really slow to me That's what I use the rod for. I'm gonna use that rod to move that jig and that eight one to ones there no matter where that rod is If I get a bite I can clean up my slackline get a hook set and fight that fish back to the boat really really fast With a football jig, I don't like them jumping a whole bunch So speeds your friend get that fish in the boat as soon as possible All right Next up is something more popular nowadays untrend in the football jig world is going to the smaller tungsten football jigs This one here happens to be a beast coast little baby dozer as you can see it's a much smaller football jig Then the lead version and three quarter that I was talking about and you can get these up to three quarter as well But even in the smaller sizes these are what shine they do really match the fore inch size a little bit better The craws that they're typically foraging on are more of this size than this big size of the big four inch bait on it So now you want to downsize it maybe to like a three inch sugar crawl like this one here And you're gonna have a smaller presentation and a more finesse presentation Now for the rod you want to downsize it That's the one thing I can recommend with these that I've found to be very true Fishing my traditional football jig tackle with it the big heavy stuff. It's a little overpowering these hooks are small You're gonna run a little bit lighter line you'll get more bites of a little bit lighter line and overpowering with a big heavy rod won't be the trick You've got a bunch of these rods already So I'll save you some money, but if you don't this is a really good one Here's a 7-1 medium heavy of the grunt and the victory lineup from St. Croix But that's siler rod seven foot to seven three medium heavy to me is perfect very versatile rod They're kind of your do-all rods But now you can go with lighter fluorocarbon like a 12 pound fluorocarbon You can go straight on it if you want But once again, I do recommend that braided line like this 30 pound braided line here Fill your spool up with that run a leader on it learn how to fish that jig These little tungsten ones you can feel a lot with the best part about these is you can downsize them You still get that feel in that bottom contact you would out of a big lead three quarter I still think these get the bigger bites sometimes. I've got big ones on these but when you're head hunting This is a good one But if you go down in size like that you want to downsize these to your downs ize your trailer downsize your line a little bit and downsize your rod a little bit Makes sense, right? Lastly the big hot trend in football jigs is open water football jigs. That's open hooks too There's no brush guard as you can see on this football jig This one here is actually another beast coast offering. This is the open water sniper But we have a bunch of different football jigs that are either unscurdied I don't know how many others skirted a few other skirted non-weave guarded football jigs we have but this is very popular I have found myself having more success fishing these with a spinning rod Uh, it's not ideal all the time but to me it does get the fish in the boat a lot more I can feel a lot with it and run in lighter line. I think I'm getting more bites and here's a little hint too I have found myself fishing pretty unique trailers with the little open water ones things like a z-man Hula stick or a TRD a little bit of sanko things of that nature. It's more of a stick bait presentation These actually float up like this and they just have the little tentacles on them and the Hula stick here And these do get bit really well. It's almost like power and ed rig fishing. I know I said it But it is kind of what it is right? It's a jig head on the bottom and it's standing up with a worm presentation, but uh, but I also do like the smaller craws and things of that nature as well These are bite getters. They're absolutely perfect when you're trying to find active schools of fish You're covering water on a big rock flag expansive rock flag And if there's a lot of boats fishing in area, this can be key So places like we have around here like Lake Malax that are getting a ton of pressure certain times here This is a perfect option for these little tiny football jigs like this open water sniper now for the tackle you would need for that To fish it right here. We have a seven four medium. This is an enforcer from the megabass roachy lineup This is a perfect rod for that. It's long enough. I can reach out and make a long cast this thing and drag it across a rock flat But it's not too stiff that I'm overpowering that hook or overpowering those fish or the big stiff rod I can get away with what I would consider a kind of perfect line for it It'd be like a 12 pound test floor carbon again with a filler spool material like 15 pound braid here like this X-Brite this stuff launches if you're not familiar with it. It's brand new. It 's Japanese line This stuff is fire. It will cast super far put yourself a leader on the end of that And you can feel all over that rock flat and and pick off those fish that are getting pressured from a lot of other boats Lastly the spinning reel is important in this scenario This is where this can be a controversial take but a lot of people in my opinion Don't take advantage of the fact that a larger spinning reel will pick up your line faster and it will cast further as well And it also has larger drag surface I know you guys have heard me talk about this stuff before the four thousand- size spinning reel But in this particular scenario, it's it's awesome to have because if you have slack line out there or a bone your line on a long cast Of something like this jig you can clean it up and one turn of the handle with this because you're picking up Double the line that you are with a smaller spinning reel. So yes It's a big spinning reel But it goes on a really long rod really well. I promise you it bounces out great And it will pick up line faster. It'll get more fish in the boat for you So that's a lot of stuff But you got three different styles of football jigs right now. They're the popular ones I definitely recommend start off with the big lead ones like I said a big rod and big line and go find With the bottom of your legs like and if you want to speed up that process go check out omniapro [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]