Berkley Football Jig: The iconic football jig design gets a lot of input from Gary Klein who helped Berkley implement several features that he has utilized on various custom jigs throughout his career. The Berkley jig features a wide, recurved head with a flattened underside, which is designed to make it easier to crawl the jig with an attractive stand-up position over rocks and through hard cover. I found the medium sized weedguard did a good job warding off snags and we caught a lot of fish in Florida pairing this jig with a MaxScent Chigger Craw for slow dragging. If I had to pick a favorite in the entire lineup the Football Jig would be it. No other style is as versatile as this configuration and having the addition of PowerBait in the skirt adds an extra element where highly pressured fish have seen, and smelled, it all.

My favorite jig in the lineup? The versatile Football Jig

Berkley Flipping Jig: The Flipping Jig is also in Gary’s wheelhouse and features his original broad Arkie-style head design that is intended to glide over the surface and slip easier in and out of cover. The jig’s flatter profile makes it easier to work the bait under low hanging structure and I found this to be a good power fishing option.

A look at the massive head on the Heavy Cover Jig versus the other styles

Heavy Cover Jig: Pair a massive bullet shaped jighead, zero-degree line tie, and a stout hook and you get the Heavy Cover jig. This jig is available in a heavier 1 1/4oz. size and is designed to penetrate the thickest vegetation. I can visualize applications where this jig can be effective, but I also view this as much more of a niche jig as punching weedless can provide similar results with even less hang-ups. There were a few times fishing with Hank Parker and Gary where the thick vegetation was not on the surface and this jig, paired with a MaxScent Creature Hawg, helped get down and through vegetation better. I carry one of these jigs in my box now but find myself using the football jig much more often.

The Skipping Jig features a wider flatter head and bulky skirt to better skip over the surface

Skipping Jig: Skipping jigs properly is hard, and it takes a lot of practice. I’m often hesitant to do it because of the many backlashes that I’ve had to pick out as a result. But for those anglers like Gary who are specialists with this technique it can be deadly effective at delivering a jig where the fish are holding and unlock bites that are not easily accessible to many anglers. Gary worked with the Berkley engineers to create a jig with a wider and flatter head, and bulky skirt, to skip across the surface of the water more easily. When I fished with Gary he made skipping look easy, delivering the bait with many skips right into the pocket. I would pick up the same combo and be able to skip the jig only a few times, and over a much shorter distance. I feel that the Skipping Jig is easier than most jigs to skip, but the design by itself will not automatically make anyone look like a skip-hero, but to those willing to put in the time has the potential to be a great tool.

A look at the jig's skirt flare

Finesse Jig: This is when you know Berkley went all in with this product line. A finesse jig is often a “nice to have” but is certainly a welcome addition for highly pressured or clear water, or simply when a little more finesse presentation is required to coax a bite. Everything is downsized on this jig including the head, skirt profile, weedguard, and lightwire Fusion 19 hook. In Florida we encountered a massive front on two days which knocked the fish down and the bite cooled down just like the temperature. In this situation moving slower and the more subtle presentation of pairing the Finesse Jig with a chunk or twin tail grub was the ticket.

The Swim Jig features a bullet style head and zero degree line tie

Swim Jig: When it comes to faster moving jigs Berkley turned to Bobby Lane, a Florida Pro with the experience of fishing thick mats and weed beds. This vegetation was par for the course when we fished Toho together and I was able to see the Swim Jig at work. The head on this jig looks much more like a fish with a pointed design, recessed 3D eyes, and a zero-degree vertical line tie and medium weedguard help this jig go right through the thick vegetation.

Need a smaller bait to match the hatch? The Finesse Jig offers a more compact and streamline profile

This jig pairs well with a Keitech Swing Impact swimbait or Berkley’s own version, the Power Swimmer which also doubles down on the PowerBait. Key to a good swim jig is the lure’s ability to swim on keel even with a paddletail trailer and this jig does this well. In the lineup this is my second favorite jig, and together with the Football Jig enables anglers to target fish with jigs throughout the water column.

Swim Jigs can be fished with both casting and spinning gear

Finesse Swim Jig: This is basically a smaller version of the Swim Jig and is available in smaller sizes and exhibits a smaller skirt flare. The Finesse Swim Jig is a good option for pairing with smaller grubs and matching the hatch when there are smaller baitfish prey.

Nathan Ragsdale, Assistant Category Manager at Berkley lands a 8lb. tank!

Price and Applications: Berkley keeps pricing simple with their new jigs and all styles and sizes retail for $4.99 each. This is a reasonable price with the average silicon jig retailing between $4.29 to 5.49 dollars. Overall, the build quality on the Berkley jigs is quite good. The jigs are not hand tied and are banded firmly in place to the jigheads that were specifically designed to house the skirts that they are paired with.

The best way to store all these various PowerBait jigs? Plano's jig box has you covered. Plano is now also part of the Pure Fishing group of brands

The quality of the finishes on the jigs is also very good and not only do they match the skirting, but the swim jigs also have recessed 3D eyes that held up well throughout tests. Unlike many smaller manufacturers that rely on 3^rd party components Berkley produces and sells baits in such high volume that they can both design and build with proprietary hardware, including their own PowerBait infused skirts and Fusion 19 hooks.

Bailey Eigbrett and Joseph Webster demonstrating how fish of all sizes can be caught on jigs

Conclusion:  Berkley could have poured a jighead and added a PowerBait skirt and called it a day but instead they worked with their Pros and went deep. Berkley could have also just launched one or two jigs to test the water but the fact that they went all in with a complete lineup of seven different jigs is inspiring and gives anglers a lot of different scent infused jigs to draw upon.

PowerBait is the single biggest differentiator in these new jigs but the detail in design of the Berkley jigheads combined with matching skirts that flare well is what makes them particularly attractive to anglers that enjoy fishing these class of baits, and relish the unmistakable tick of a good jig bite.

Even an abnormally cold day in Florida couldn't stop the bite at the Bienville Plantation

There are a lot of great jigs in this new lineup to draw from, and each with design features created to help anglers be more successful in each particular jig technique. With such a reasonable price I would recommend starting with the Football Jig and Swim Jig to see how your local fish react to the lures, build confidence on the series, and expand from there. It is good to know that Berkley has many of the specialized jig applications covered from the start.

Berkley's new lineup of PowerBait jigs are quality fish catching tools. The infused PowerBait skirts inspire confidence in both anglers and the fish we target

Like any other bait these jigs are not magic, and just because they are infused with PowerBait doesn’t mean that fish will routinely swim up and crush them, but they are very effective jigs. Watching the Pros at work with these jigs and fishing them over the last six months in my home water helped cement a few thoughts on these baits. The new Berkley jigs are designed to help anglers of all skill levels be more effective. In the hands of Pros like Gary Klein, Bobby Lane, Hank Parker, and Joseph Webster they are downright deadly. Watching Bobby work the Swim Jig tight through structure or Gary skip the Skipping Jig under an overhang and see them both be rewarded with strikes only reinforces that these jigs are most effective when skillfully presented. On the flip side I personally built confidence on these jigs when the bite was tough and successfully drawing more bites, or witnessing fish hold on to the jig versus spitting it back out immediately after inhaling it. Out of the package the Berkley PowerBait Jigs are a quality offering. Spend the time to select the right jig and trailer combination for the application or work them in combination with live sonar to unlock the full potential of these PowerBait infused jigs and they might just have you thinking there is a little bit of magic in these skirts after all.   

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