Techniques -- Fishing a Needlefish - sinking or floating

[BassBuddah]

I like the sinking needles when bass are on sandeels. Cast out deep, and retrieve as slow as you can without getting snagged, try to keep them in the top of the water column, Deadly.

[DarkSkies]

Needlefish, one of my favorite fall plugs. I like to fish black most of the time because I hit the night surf mostly. Sometimes color makes all the difference in the world, as I have seen guys nail them by changing to olive when the hits on black slowed down.
What BB said, I like sinking needlefish most of the time, but will use a floater if the surf is rough and I want to slow it down to the max. Even so, sometimes they want a faster retrieve, you just have to experiment.

[nitestrikes]

Depenging on the size of the needlefish, sometimes I take the last treble off, replace with a siwash, and put a chartreuse or black open eye feather on it, 5/0 or 6/0. Bass hit from the front, but sometimes this action with the feather puts them over the top for more strikes.

[stripercrazy]

Big bass want big food. Go against the grain, throw a long one out there and crawl it in. You might not get many hits, except for the big ones.

[skinner]

Depenging on the size of the needlefish, sometimes I take the last treble off, replace with a siwash, and put a chartreuse or black open eye feather on it, 5/0 or 6/0. Bass hit from the front, but sometimes this action with the feather puts them over the top for more strikes.

I do this to a lot of my plugs. The feather or bucktail ones seem to outcatch the others, but it could be the confidence I have when throwing them.

[DarkSkies]

Update - I'm still fishing needles this time of year, mostly at night, very slow. I like big needles, the bigger the better. Some sandeels are 12" long, my needles the same size. They're also good for big surf when you want to punch it out there.