The Many faces of the modern day needlefish plug.
The needlefish continues to confound surfcasters even after 40-plus years of proving their salt. Tim Coleman famously wrote an article in the 1980s about needlefish titled “The Stick With Hooks” and they still carry the heavy burden of that stigma today.
With so much (self-inflicted) pressure put on up-and-coming surfcasters to produce fish for their social media feeds, many of these newer fishermen need to feel the feedback from a thumping metal lip, vibrating paddletail or drumming bottle plug to ‘know’ that they’re doing it right. What’s lost in this pressure to perform is subtlety, which is where the needlefish shines.
On the other hand, needlefish plugs have never been as readily available as they are today, with a wide selection of commercially-made versions and hundreds more customs; it seems the needlefish rabbit hole has become bottomless. The mistake that’s often made is that casters assume that all needles are ‘about the same’ and that they should all be fished about the same way. A slow, methodical retrieve is the accepted norm for needles; this is tried and true, but as well get deeper into the definitions… you’ll see that there’s more than more than one way to skin this cat.
Conventional Needles
The conventional needle could be loosely defined as a needle that’s tail-weighted. They work best on a slow, straight retrieve and tend to plane to surface, leaving a subtle V-wake. There are ‘grades’ within the conventional needle genre, a Hab’s 2-ounce is pretty much the gold standard for what I call a ‘conventional needle’ but you will find others, the Gibbs for example, that are lighter and excel under different sets of conditions. A Hab’s has more traction (heavier rear end) which means it will hang in heavier surf and cast like a rocket. The lighter Gibbs will have more action in the water and outshine the heavier Hab’s in calmer water or subtle sweeps. The difference is in the amount of lead added and the type of wood used.
One The Level
The level-sink needle is a concept that I’m proud to say I think I played a part in creating. For me, the idea was born out of wanting to be able to stop the plug and not have it drop into a tail-down position and sink out of sight. With the subtlety of the needlefish presentation, the ability to stop the plug and ‘hang it’ in the column was sorely missing. Level-sink needles are carefully weighted to sink slowly and to remain in a horizontal positon. This gives these plugs two new attributes: they will stay down and not plane to the surface and, when balanced perfectly, they will feature a very subtle wiggle. Their shortcoming is that they don’t cast consistently well, rushing the release will result in a sloppy flight path, but their finesse and effectiveness supersedes their inconsistent casting. You’ll find great level-sink options from 247 Lures, RG Lures and Atlantic Plug and Lure Co, to name only a few.
In Between
There’s a balance between these two, as well. And odds are high that you already have them in your bag. The Wadd and the Super-N-Fish from Super Strike are essentially just scaled versions of each other, and these were made with belly weights instead of tail weights to achieve more of an in between balance; a more elegant solution during the golden era of needles in the Northeast surf. These walk the line between traction in heavy surf and balance for subtle and natural presentations. All sizes of the Super Strike lineup will work across many levels of surf intensity. Calm to moderate I prefer the Wadd and the smaller sizes of Super Strike. Moderate to moderate/heavy, I’ll take the Wadd or the 1-3/4-ounce Super Strike. In very rough surf, I will use the Super Strike 1-3/4.
The Heavy Heavy
Like the level-sink, the heavy needle is more of a modern invention, although we’d have to credit Steve Campo with paving the way after loading his Super Strikes with mercury to get them deeper. The best description I’ve heard regarding how a heavy needle should swim was written by New England Field Editor, John Hanecak, he said, “I wanted to make a needle that would get deep and that I could fish in the same way that I fish a dead eel.” Heavy needles are not level-sink but they’re close, they need that heavier rear end to keep them swimming in a natural position but they need to be buoyant enough to be fished very slowly at a good depth. The trick to keeping them deep is intermittent drops of the rod tip to allow the plug to sink after three to six cranks on the reel. These needles crush big fish.
