Was going through my tackle and saw there were two sizes for. The beach master Gibbs style needle. What are the weights of these needles and what type of conditions and water aare they good for? Thanks charlie

Personally not a huge fan of that needle. It sinks faster than the ss style wadd. I think the small needlse is 2.5 oz. and the larger is in the 3 to 3.5 range. I love the ss wadd but much prefer the hab's medium and large needles to the BM Gibbs wadd. They do cast a mile though. Maybe the best casting needle I have after a loaded super strike.

I would fish them in rough conditions or on sand if i wanted to scrape the bottom. You can keep them up but when is anything really better than an Afterhours 2 oz. needle when you want to fish a needle on or just below the surface. When is the afterhours 3 oz. "loaded needle coming out"? lol. I should probably get some 2.5 oz to try them out first.

Cms has a couple left and I was going to buy some. Thanks for your opinion. I really like the beachmaster wadd for rough water especially in the fall during a big storm I also use don after hours needles in the 2 my favorite and the 2.5 I also likke the big floating needle that he sells. Have had great luck working it like a pencil during the day. Luds thanks for the help charlie

Afterhours has a big needle - don't remember if it's 3, 3.5 or 4 - but it's a biggun ... and I am pretty sure he has them in multiple sink rates.

You guys should see Salty's "secret" needles. Makes anything you have see look small. I think they are 14 or 16" long and an inch in diameter. Absolutely beautiful. I was at the "inner santium" a couple of days before Xmas.

Big does not necessarily mean deep or rough water. The BM musso style wadd runs right on top. As for their large Gibbs style, I've only fished an eelskin version and that doesn't strike me as a deep running plug.

The disadvantage of heavy medium needles like the BM that cost a lot is that you need to plan on losing several each year.

For all needles, it is more the ratio of tail to front weight that determines where it runs. Heavily tail weighted needles cast far but plane quickly to the top because of the angle they sit in the water. More balanced stuff (like afterhours) that sinks at less of an angle tends to run more level at whatever depth you chose to start your retrieve.

For all needles, it is more the ratio of tail to front weight that determines where it runs. Heavily tail weighted needles cast far but plane quickly to the top because of the angle they sit in the water. More balanced stuff (like afterhours) that sinks at less of an angle tends to run more level at whatever depth you chose to start your retrieve.

Great statement George! All those who would like better success when casting needles take heed.

DZ

Hey DZ, the snowstorm blitz you have in your sig, was that Thanksgiving week?
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Half the problem with needles is that most people won't fish them long enough to get confident with them and then start experimenting with them. Needles just retreive them slow. You don't need action. Well same is true with all lure. They all will pull fish when retreived slow and without any action. BUT when you gain confidence with them you will catch more fish in a wider variety of conditions. they can walk an talk like a pencil or a spook and retreived right in nasty conditions they will also wiggle.The key with them is to use the one that is best for the terain and current where you are fishing. Also don't forget to try matching the hatch ie size and color of the predominant bait in the area. just some ides. Happy New Years all. Ron

Half the problem with needles is that most people won't fish them long enough to get confident with them and then start experimenting with them. Needles just retreive them slow. You don't need action. Well same is true with all lure. They all will pull fish when retreived slow and without any action. BUT when you gain confidence with them you will catch more fish in a wider variety of conditions. they can walk an talk like a pencil or a spook and retreived right in nasty conditions they will also wiggle.The key with them is to use the one that is best for the terain and current where you are fishing. Also don't forget to try matching the hatch ie size and color of the predominant bait in the area. just some ides. Happy New Years all. Ron

Yea man, you're right. I'm not confident enough with needles to use them long enough to develop that confidence.... I guess I should fix that.

Yea man, you're right. I'm not confident enough with needles to use them long enough to develop that confidence.... I guess I should fix that.

I started fishing needles back in maybe 90. It was all Super Strikes back them. Met Habs at Fresh Pond Rocks one stormy September night and fished some of his prototypes. I was never the same again. We smoked big fish on purple needles that sank and hooked fish on almost every cast.

Fish them until you catch on them! They work!!

As for the BM Gibbs style- Never heard a good word about them.
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Hey DZ, the snowstorm blitz you have in your sig, was that Thanksgiving week?
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About two weeks before Thanksgiving November 1987. May have been the best surf striper bite in RI history.

DZ

Original BM Gibbs Wadd from back in the day. Did catch well but not as well as the orginal 1980s SS Wadd (mackeral still in original packaging).

Compare to commorative limited release SS Wadd (BI Green) from 2007.

DZ

I started fishing needles back in maybe 90. It was all Super Strikes back them. Met Habs at Fresh Pond Rocks one stormy September night and fished some of his prototypes. I was never the same again. We smoked big fish on purple needles that sank and hooked fish on almost every cast.

ha, just bought a few habs jr needles. hopefully i have a similar experience

I like needles more than a junkie.
Been my go to lure for years and years, fast , slow , lots of action or next to none it all works at one time or another.:uhuh:

Best way to get in the swing is to take one plug bag with needles in it. no other and head out fishing. you'll learn quick. make a night of it in a spot you like a lot and just plain play with them till you catch a fish. One thing to never forget. Everytime you feel anything different on the retreive set the hook quick. Big fish don't always slam a plug and sometimes that little touch you feel is a nice fish with its mouth open and your plug being pushed by the small wave it creates in its mouth. Took my buddy Lee 3 days till he hooked his ist fish while i was hooking up almost every cast. So don't stop or give up you will catch a nice fish on them.
Ron

Reel good advice Ron.
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Best way to get in the swing is to take one plug bag with needles in it. no other and head out fishing. you'll learn quick. make a night of it in a spot you like a lot and just plain play with them till you catch a fish. One thing to never forget. Everytime you feel anything different on the retreive set the hook quick. Big fish don't always slam a plug and sometimes that little touch you feel is a nice fish with its mouth open and your plug being pushed by the small wave it creates in its mouth. Took my buddy Lee 3 days till he hooked his ist fish while i was hooking up almost every cast. So don't stop or give up you will catch a nice fish on them.
Ron

Thanks Ron, great advice. I'm going to give it a try at my local haunt this year

"For all needles, it is more the ratio of tail to front weight that determines where it runs. Heavily tail weighted needles cast far but plane quickly to the top because of the angle they sit in the water. More balanced stuff (like afterhours) that sinks at less of an angle tends to run more level at whatever depth you chose to start your retrieve."

Old thread, I know. But it took me a long time to figure this out.

Old thread, I know. But it took me a long time to figure this out.

Me, too........although I'm not sure how much it helped me.
I spent even longer figuring out how to make needles swim (i.e., wag during the retrieve). Pretty sure that didn't help me either.

At this point I've come to the conclusion that you can drive yourself crazy over-analysing needles. They all work. Some do better than others in certain conditions/situations but they all have their time and place. I don't consider myself a master of this plug (not like Flap or supposedly BM were) but I follow a few tenets.

If it is rough I throw big, heavy tail weighted stuff since it bobs around less and I assume this is good. In calm I throw smaller more level running stuff (usually with a hackle tail) and fish it slower.

DUH.

What I don't do is fish floating needles, because I'm a conceited idiot and convinced myself they look stupid and shouldn't work. In fact floating needles apparently work great. Mike Mullen slays big fish with his huge versions. Flap's favorite needle was an Eelpunt version that floats level. Both of those models have accounted for fish over #50 which is bigger than anything me and my sinking needles have ever taken. Sauerkraut, who is ALWAYS wrong when it comes to plugs, catches impressive bass on his skin needles that often......float. Bassmaster, in his famous stream of consciousness thread about needles (SOL) concentrates on floating versions.

Let's not forget about level weighted slow sinking needles such as Dave Anderson's flat glide or JLH's deadly stuff. They are basically needle gliders.....sneaky cheats.

And then there is this whole bit about dead drifting sinking needles. I've no success trying this (I just get snagged) but if you read the Bassdozer tome you'll see he was a BIG advocate of dead drifting these plugs (and sinking rebels) in hard current. Maybe a forgotten canal technique?

And how about retrieve speed? Slow. slower, slowest.....right? Or not. In "Reading the water" there is a description of a famous NJ and MV fisherman, Sergei di Somov, fishing needles back in the 50's and 60's commercially and he reportedly ripped them across the water.

Do you "tune" your needles? I don't but Bassdozer says you should (although how this would matter if he was dead drifting them is beyond me).

But what do all those guys know?

The other thing about needles, of which I am convinced but counts for little, is that color matters more often than with other plugs. I'm not sure I understand why, but it seems to me that nights where one color works much better than anything else the bite is often on needles. Which sucks because it means you want to carry a bunch of these things when plugging and inevitably cram 6 into one tube which means they all come out in a tangled mess when you go to change plugs and you end up needing your light which immediately makes other fishermen aware of your presence so they stop using their lights and then you can't tell what they are catching after that so you don't realize there are fish around and so you go on fumbling and swearing at needles when you really should change to a slowly crept darter.

Too bad Lud's doesn't post anymore.

Wow
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Confused more than ever now. Thanks
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Interesting post by George.
I make a lot of needles and usually load them so the rear of the plug is about 30 degrees submerged. Reeling slowly it is barely subsurface.
Yellow & White, Neon green and yellow, white and solid green have been my best producing colors.
Oh yeah, one year I had a can of Martha Stewart green and those needles were killer. RIRockhound busted my balls all season about the "Martha Stewart" plugs.

I use the heavy ss or loaded needles dead drifted in heavy current and I removed the tail hook and use just a cut treble on the belly and a sparsely tied bucktail flag. I usually get hit after touching bottom on the lift, or after the second bottom contact lift. If they're back further I may slightly adjust my cast but it's easier imo to get it down and bump it back to the fish than try to deliver it direct, especially when the reef is falling away under the drift. I.E. the reef drop off is at the same or similar slope angle as the falling needle.

If I have a shallow reef and a moderate current, I use the SS style wadd cast and come tight to the plug then deadstick as well. It's a great search tactic when fishing over shallow boulder fields, or more importantly to me over a defined depth change or structure change where the plug is in the strike zone for a long time.

I don't like the Gibbs wadd
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I love needles! My favorites sink level and stay down on the retrieve. They also have some swimming action but I’m not convinced that action on a needle matters a lot to the fish because the ones that don’t swim seem to catch as well. There are a lot of ways to fish needles but my go to is to fish them slowly and near the bottom in a slow sweep just like I would a dead eel. When I started building my own the goal was to come up with something that I could fish in the same areas and in the same ways that I had success fishing dead or mostly dead eels (slowly drifting them along the bottom). I normally carry/fish two different sizes in two different weights (so a total of four different needles) but they are all shaped and weighted to fish the same way. Depending on the specific area that I am fishing along with conditions and current I alternate between them to stay in the strike zone. I agree with George that color can matter on needles so I end up carrying a dozen or more needles most nights so thankfully I can fit a few of them in a single tube!

I haven’t fished floating needles or needles that come right up to the surface that often or with much luck but I intend to give them some more time this season.

. I usually get hit after touching bottom on the lift, or after the second bottom contact lift. If they're back further I may slightly adjust my cast but it's easier imo to get it down and bump it back to the fish than try to deliver it direct


Fascinating.

So, if I am reading you correctly, you are fishing needles almost like a jig in hard current. Throwing it somewhat upstream, letting it sink, them bumping it along or just above the bottom?
And you are able to do this over rock without too many hangs as long as there is no tail hook?

That's the great thing about plugs. There is always so much to learn.

I haven’t fished floating needles or needles that come right up to the surface that often or with much luck but I intend to give them some more time this season.

Interesting also. That is the primary way I fish them, although only in fairly shallow water without much current sweep (there are also shallow outflow spots where everybody fishes them on top against the current.....which seems unnatural but does work (though you need a tail hook)).

My sense is that you CT guys are often fishing in rivers and outlets. When you are out of your home territory....say at Cutty or Block do you still fish these plugs deep along the bottom?

Love this thread, I'll add my 2 cents...

I use the SS needles, 3 of them, the standard Super N fish, the 5.25", and the Wadd (Standard is Yellow/White, small is Black/Orange, Wadd is Block Island Green).

No matter what is running, as long as there is some sort of current and it isn't dead calm, I ALWAYS get fish whenever I twitch or give the needle a short burst in retrieval speed for about 1.5-2 cranks then stop a second. Straight retrieves only gave me skunks.

It must be the suspension of the plug in the water and it's sink rate because the twitches make this plug produce for me even though it is nothing more than a short burst forward and still is level which mimics the action of a baitfish without being stressed.

I can agree with the colors statements for sure.

I nevah go out without at least three- 1 black or blurple, 1 white w/slightly pink cheeks, 1 parrot, usually 2 of each, one heavy, 1 light.
I usually weight for a level sink rate, but do set some nose up.
My best fish have been on needles about 3 out of 5 trips.

Interesting also. That is the primary way I fish them, although only in fairly shallow water without much current sweep (there are also shallow outflow spots where everybody fishes them on top against the current.....which seems unnatural but does work (though you need a tail hook)).

My sense is that you CT guys are often fishing in rivers and outlets. When you are out of your home territory....say at Cutty or Block do you still fish these plugs deep along the bottom?

I fish them pretty much the same way all over CT, RI and beyond. Most of the time I'm using this technique in areas that I know well and I'm targeting specific pieces of structure and using lanes that I know I can work the plug through without getting hung up too often. I sometimes lose quite a few plugs a season fishing them this way but it usually pays off. Not really caring if I get hung up and lose a few plugs on an outing is one of the big advantages of building them. I’m sure that I would be a lot more conservative and catch fewer fish if I was taking a $25 - $40 hit every time I lost one.

George, I agree with what Jay said, the price of admission is plugs lost.

In regards to what I referenced in my first paragraph, yes bucktails/jigs is exactly how I look at sinking needles. Yes I lose quite a few each year, which is why I build them each year (to be willing to lose them in numbers). Dropping the tail hook has reduced the number of needles I've lost, and in my opinion hasn't reduced the number of fish I catch in the same scenarios.

In regards to place, I actually learned the second paragraph on Cutty. It has paid off at home and other places as well. Both methods work well for me regardless of location, but I am looking for specific conditions which happen daily.
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Really helpful, guys. Something new to try this year. Thanks.