Some Needles

[Eric Roach]

Just finished this batch before heading off to Block Island for four days.

These are all slight variations in an attempt to replicate a favorite and very productive waking/swimming/darting needle from last fall.

8.25" long, 3.2 oz.

[Eric Roach]

Those are Mustad single-wire double hooks (manually splayed) on the green-over-white needles. The tail hook on the black one is a VMC single-wire double, which was a defect in a batch of hooks received at M&D's (wish they made them on purpose).

Trying some doubles this year to see if it helps with hooking damage to the fish, and hook rash on the bellys of the plugs.

[blondterror]

sweet.... how do you weight them...

hope the fish gods are great to you @ Block!

[Muskyslayer96]

ER,

Look great!!!!!

Good luck with them

MS

[O.D. Mike]

Eric,
Like the paint and the recess eyes!!! Good luck on the block!!!

[numbskull]

Nicely done

[Raven]

slayers .......each one

[chefchris401]

Those look great man.

Interesting hook set ups, wonder how that will effect hook ups.
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[saltydog]

WOW,
4 days hope you have more.
GOOD LUCK GOOD FISHIN

[Eric Roach]

Originally Posted by blondterror

sweet.... how do you weight them...

hope the fish gods are great to you @ Block!

Thanks, looking forward to some days & nights of rock-hopping.

All needles have approx .45 oz slug of lead about 1" forward of the "hip" of the lure. Roughly the same weight is in the rear. For the black, wired needle it's a centered weight; the others have (2) .225 oz slugs at about 1.5" and 1.875" from the rear.

I trialed a green-over-white one before painting & e-Texing; it waked and even "swam" under a steady retrieve or when swung in light current. It also darted well with twitching -- even a walk-the-dog action at and just sub-surface. It was just a tad less buoyant than I wanted...Something the e-Tex probably exacerbated.
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[Eric Roach]

Originally Posted by chefchris401

Those look great man.

Interesting hook set ups, wonder how that will effect hook ups.
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I know, me too. I'll report back.

I have enough time on similar needles I made last year to get an idea how the double (screw eye) / siwash set-up might compare to the treble (swivel) / siwash set-up from last fall.

Actually, I switched to a flag instead of a siwash last fall and did quite well -- all the hook-ups were on the belly hook.
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[Eric Roach]

Thanks to all for the feedback, and thank you for all the help learning to build.
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[Eric Roach]

I got a handful of PMs asking for specifics on the needles, I have the specs' on my home PC -- I'll post them when I get back.
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[Lower]

These are really nice! Have fun fishing them!

[Eric Roach]

Sorry it took so long to post this.

The Block was a good time; mostly had bluebird conditions but we caught (no large for me). Had a great time with some really nice fellows from the Connecticut Surfcasters. It was a pleasure to meet Kevin, Dave, Tim and Arim (sorry if I misspelled that); and as always, it's great to fish the Block with Tom and Jeremy.

For once, Tom didn't bring a northwest gale with him.

Out of the four needles, two didn't swim as I liked (too buoyant), but the others caught. This is the weighting scheme for the through-wire that sinks, but wakes (and darts) well.

E

[johnny ducketts]

holy schematic!, that's rad

[ProfessorM]

look great and nice blueprint of the plug. Very helpful to those that want to make a few.

[numbskull]

What is the software that lets you do that?

[Eric Roach]

Originally Posted by numbskull

What is the software that lets you do that?

I use the drawing tools in Excel.

The grid has 1/8" x 1/8" cells. I adjust the pic' size so it prints to scale, then spray-adhesive it to Lexan and cut to use as a Vega template.