One from today. Not large but fun. I did pretty well on this sandeel looking needle. I intend to make some more this winter. Maple weighted on the bottom in several spots. Real nice swimming action. Fish were not abundant today but what a beauty weather wise. Fished in a t shirt it was so warm and calm.

Nice work Paul!:wave:

steelhead
 

Just found this thread.

A friend of mine, John, more well known to you guys as "steelhead" has been nice nough to keep me ankle deep in some quality wood this season.

I wanted to put up a couple of pics to showcase his work.

The spook and pencil are 8 and 9 inches respectively and are some of the best performing ones I have ever laid my hands on.

The spook is the perkiest for it's size that I've ever used and can even jump out of the water if coerced enough. It did some work on some rather large Rhody spring bass chasing bunker. The pencil is very unique as well. I can just about stop reeling and just bounce the tip and it will dance in place.

Both are covered in battle scars.

The danny's are a couple more of the most recent additions to my collection and are a little less abused. I had some the same size and shape in yellow for the spring and they are remarkable slow rolling movers and poppers to say the least. The wide belly on Johns danny's is part of what makes them so unique and functional.

Keep up the good work john and can't wait to see what you turn out this winter!

Somebody needed to toot his horn. His stuff is getting really good. :)

thanks to you S-B guys for helping him out along the way too!

Thanks for the "Toot" Merch. Your thoughtfulness and powers of observation helped me along the way on the Danny. I got a bunch more downstairs right now. :) There's going to be a bit of lip fiddling on a couple.

BI fishing trip .. took my blue/white needle ..

A couple of my favorite plugs from this year.
Hey, they started out pretty
A black and gold Senior Musso surface swimmer about 7-1/2"
and a white musso surface swimmer about 6"

A couple of Pencil poppers

This one caught a striper almost every cast one night from a breachway. A few bluefish too. Enough fish so I was sore the next day from climbing down.

early- stubby needle was great
mid-season- top water and eelskin needle
September and on -9" lobster needle was the only thing I wanted to throw

lost all of them eventually though

Scott,
You lost the lobster needle? Too bad, I know you had fun with it.

Good to see a picture of it next to a good fish.

I guess you'll just have to make a few more.

You should shoot steelhead a line and ask him what kind of needles he makes. I'm thinking you'd like to hear what he has to say.

I also know he just got a new airbrush setup and judging by the care you put into finishing your stuff I'm also guessing he'd like to hear what you have to say.

;)