needle plug balance and beyond

[ProfessorM]

Interesting post. I rake sand eels and from my observations in shallowish water I find sand eels to be very fast swimmers and can move very rapidly from one submerged burrow to the next at lightening speed. They fly into the sand at reckless abandon. In deeper water they tend to stay in large schools for the strength in numbers theme and move together. I also have seen them sit horizontal, suspended, like you said. I like to make my needles sit sort of flat , suspend, because I fish in fairly sandy shallow water from a tin boat and I tend to twitch the lure more than reel it right in. The singled out injured bait look. I guess it has to do with where I am using the lure.

[steelhead]

I've been chewing on the retrieve part of the equation, too.
Add in weight of the swivel, weight/length of line, angle of retrieve, etc. It gets interesting real fast. It sort of says, slight tail eight to me.
Yep. Tagger, I guess I just got to throw them. Only so much can be done in the "Fish Tank".

[Flaptail]

A needle that casts well, comes to the sutface easily and cuts a clean v-wake is all you could ask for and will catch as many fish as any other no matter how much theory and engineering goes into a plug.


Confidence in what your throwing and knowing just how to work it is probably the biggest factor in a plugs success as a fish taker more than anything else.

[GattaFish]

Originally Posted by steelhead

I think where I'm going with this is that ideally, I want to have the cg/cb be the same. That gives me a very dynamic instability and perfect balance. From there, I can tune the sink rate and attitude of the plug.

not quite...... When the CG and CB are the same position you have total Neutral Static Stability. Very little to no action unless acted upon.

Neutral stability is Great for a metal lip,,, not so great for a needle your trying to swim on a retrieve.

Try not to get to deep in all this...

Originally Posted by Flaptail

A needle that casts well, comes to the sutface easily and cuts a clean v-wake is all you could ask for and will catch as many fish as any other no matter how much theory and engineering goes into a plug.


Confidence in what your throwing and knowing just how to work it is probably the biggest factor in a plugs success as a fish taker more than anything else.

Bingo....

[steelhead]

The discussion has helped me understand the physics of it all, which was what I was looking for. A few basic building blocks. It's been very helpful. From here, it's application and applying the art of building the plug and learning which needle is more appropriate for a particular situation.

Flap and Tagger, I'm going to have to give that v-wake more consideration this spring.

[Tagger]

Originally Posted by steelhead

Flap and Tagger, I'm going to have to give that v-wake more consideration this spring.

I know where Flap is coming from with the v wake,, wich is very effective in shallow boulder fields.. Just want too add I've done a bunch of fish 30 plus letting plug occaisionaly tic the bottom also.. Slow sink , very good to me . except fishing with Flap ,, then he out fishes me too ..