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By Zeno Hromin
This article originally appeared in the Fisherman magazine
Fall Run "Essentials"
A cool and clear morning with a northwest breeze can get my blood boiling in short order as I can feel in my bones that another fall run is taking shape. With each passing cold front, more and more baitfish are streaming out of our back bays, through the inlets and along our beaches on their fall migration southwards. Hot on their tails are bass, blues and weakfish hoping to fatten their bellies before they reach their wintering grounds.
For me, it means that my lure bag will get a makeover, with jelly worms, small plastic baits and Yozuri darters that had worked so well during summer months being replaced by large swimming and popping plugs. But how do you choose the right ones? There are thousands of lures on the market today and each one might catch fish at one time or another. However our lure bags have a limited number of slots to fit our offerings, so it’s best to stick to “proven and true” lures, fish producers that have fooled many fish over the years and have demonstrated that they deserve to be included in our lure bag.
POPPING PLUGS
These days the assortment of size, weight and colors of popping plugs on the walls of your local tackle store can be mind numbing and to a certain extent intimidating for those just getting into the sport. It is best to stick with plugs from those manufacturers that have produced fish over the years. In the case of popping plugs it’s hard to go wrong with Super Strike’s Little Neck poppers and Gibbs’s Pencil poppers.
Super Strike poppers, made out of plastic, are virtually indestructible and are probably the best casting lure on the market today in their weight and size class. These outstanding lures can be deadly during the mullet run as the fish ‘key in” on schools of mullet swimming in the wash. Another great attribute of this plug is that unlike most other popping plugs on the market today, you can “swim” these lures in the surf without popping them and as many of my club fellow members will attest, they also work great in the dark. In low light conditions retrieve them slowly just below the surface, especially on those days when long casts are necessary to reach feeding fish.
The Gibbs Pencil popper, another old standby has been
responsible for many of cows over the years who couldn’t resist its
tantalizing “dance” on the surface as they thrash side to 
side imitating a
wounded baitfish in distress while the angler whips his rod back and forth while
retrieving only fast enough to pick up slack. The hits on this plug can be
vicious and although excitement gets the best of all of us at times you should
not try to set the hook while working this plug. All you going to succeed in
doing is to pull the plug away from an angry fish ready to inhale it.
The better course of action is to let your rod whipping motion hook the
fish on its own as it attacks the plug. Although poppers are the most used lure
by surfcasters up and down the coast for their ability to provoke surface
strikes, they are also the most misused ones as most anglers generally retrieve
them too fast across the surface, never giving bass a chance to zone in on the
action above him. When possible “swim” your poppers with occasional
“pop” every few cranks. If using
a floating plug, stop and let it rest for a second before continuing your
retrieve. This may
initiate a hit from a fish that otherwise would have let your plug swim
by.
SWIMMING PLUGS
Some of the most popular swimming plugs, Gibb’s Danny, Atom’s swimmers, bottle plugs (also known as casting swimmers) and Scandinavian swimmers such as Bombers and Redfins can be all summed up in a single word,” slow” as in slow retrieve. The lip on these plugs provides a built in action. However they loose their effectiveness when retrieved at high speeds. You need to let these plugs “tell” you when they are working at their best. Bottle plugs, often used in rough surf for their ability to “dig” in crashing waves will telegraph to you thru you rod when they are working properly as your rod will throb in your hands when the lip of the plug digs in the water. On the other hand Danny style plugs, which are used in calmer waters, should be retrieved very slowly over the top of the water leaving a “vee” wake behind them. You must pay special attention to your retrieve and adjust it for each cresting wave. At times you will need to stop your retrieve completely while holding tension on your plug while it is wobbling in a receding wave. Adjustments can be made by bending the “eye” of the plug up for the lure to swim under the surface or bend it down for a top water retrieve. Do not bend the metal lip. Although I am not a big color buff when it comes to my plugs, a yellow Danny or bottle plug is hard to beat when adult bunker are around.
DARTERS
A quintessential Montauk lure designed to be fished in
areas with current, the darter has been responsible over the years for many cows
falling for their “zig-zag” motion. As
they swim from side to side on the retrieve, these lures imitate juvenile
weakfish or squid which are often found in the waters around 
always felt that a color might make a difference in your
success especially at times when gamefish feed on squid (pink), juvenile
weakfish (yellow) or bunker (blue). As with most plugs, your presentation is far
more important than the color of your lure.
However if you can figure out what the fish are feeding on, you will have
an advantage over your fellow surfcasters. One modification that a lot of
sharpies have done to their stash of darters is the replacement of the front
belly hook by going up one size, generally from 3/0 to 4/0 as
added weight in the front helps darter to “dig” better in rough surf.
NEEDLE FISH
Needle fish lures are one of the oddest looking plugs, not
really bearing any resemblance to a baitfish, oddly shaped like a pencil with a
thinned out head and one of the few plugs without any built in action, probably
the reason why most surfcasters shy away from them. But you only have to look at
the recent Fisherman’s cover with 
chamber located in
the back of the plug. I wouldn’t recommend loading the front unless you are
loading the back chamber with equal weight as needle plugs are designed to swim
with their “head up” on retrieve and adding the weight to front of the plug
might make your proper presentation difficult at best. Along Montauk’s rocky
shoreline it can be retrieved just above the rocks with slight lifts of your rod
and even worked over the top in daytime similar to pencil poppers but with
limited amount of popping compared to vigorous motion of you rod while working
the pencils. In the inlets or sandy beaches, you can work this lure in all water
columns, you can cast it further up tide and letting it sink if you want to
explore the depths of the inlet channels or use a faster retrieve to work it
under the surface. They are great imitations of large sand eels and can be very
productive when fish are feeding on a thin profile baits such as eels, adult
spearing, needlefish and sand eels.
BUCKTAILS
You are standing in a tackle store admiring the lifelike
finish on most of today’s plastic lures when the plain white bucktail catches
your eye for a moment. You know
these work ………..but your gaze soon returns to pretty plugs with their
holographic finishes. Happens every day and no matter how many times the fellow
behind the counter tries to steer a angler in the right direction, and unless
you have confidence in the bucktail, you will buy that shiny plugs. “But
how” you say “can I have confidence in a piece of lead with a few deer tails
hairs tied around it when every other plug looks like a real baitfish and a
bucktail looks like, well, a buck tail?” There is no shortcut with this lure
as you have to commit yourself to giving it a chance but the payoff is that I
never met anyone who honestly learned how to use the bucktail and gave it up in
favor of other plugs. The more you use it, the deeper you are going to fall in
love with its fish catching ability to a point that it will become your “go
to” lure. 
For example I spent this whole past month of August fishing with a
single 1 oz red/white Blue Frog bucktail for a total of over 50 weakfish landed
and countless more that I dropped while number of my friends struggled to get
any weakfish using a variety of swimming plugs fishing in the same area because
weaks were feeding on small baitfish. They are so darn versatile as you can go
heavy and bounce it along the sand bottom, or go really light and work it under
the surface, they cover a lot of water when you jig them slowly and you can
adjust the size you want to present to the gamefish by using a short or a longer
trailer such ar pork rind or a plastic curly tail .In addition there are many
different head shapes available, some designed to sink slowly while other go
right to the bottom, most popular being a “smiling bill’ and rip splitter
with plain white being by far the most popular color although green bucktails
can make the difference on those days when water is discoled , usually during or
after the storm.. For most conditions I tend to use Uncle Josh pork rind #240
Striper Spilt Tail but occasionally, when I want to increase the size of my
offering, Uncle Josh #70 Striper Sea
Strip, mostly red or white with preference on the side of red. Although the
bucktail retrieve is fairly simple there is a difference between casting into
the deep inlet channels and letting it sink to the bottom and casting it into
the rocky shoreline of Montauk where a fairly quick retrieve is needed in order
to keep it from hanging up in the rocks. A slight twitch of you rod is all the
action needed and try to avoid exaggerated motions with your stick as this will
cause your bucktail to rise a few feet and away from the strike zone. We all
know bass are opportunistic feeders who will waste little energy trying to get
their next meal, preferring an ambush to a chase, so keep your bucktail in front
of their face and it will become your favorite lure in short order
TINS & SOFT PLASTICS
Tins have to be the most underutilized lures in a surf bag,
probably because of their tendency to attract their share of bluefish.
You can attract more bass by slowing down your retrieve if fishing on the
sandy beach. They are made in so many shapes these days that you 
can find one
that will imitate just about any baitfish present in our water. Some of the
newer products from manufacturers like Spro are so lifelike it’s hard to tell
them from a real baitfish. Excellent casting lures even in a headwind, a steady
retrieve along the sandy bottom is all you need and can be especially deadly
when gamefish are feeding on sand eels, spearing or other thin profile baitfish.
It seems that every time I walk into my favorite tackle store, there is another new soft plastic bait hanging on the wall. Although I am sure most of them work well, I tend to stick with Storm Wild Eye’s because of their realistic finish and wonderful swimming action. These paddle tail lures have produced great results for me over the years with bass and weakfish. Best part is, you can pick the size of your lure to match exactly any baitfish you see being chased in the wash while their colors very realistically imitate baitfish found in our waters. The models larger than 7 inches, although awkward to cast on the open beach, can be deadly when used with just a straight retrieve around the jetties and rock piles where there is always good supply of gamefish hanging around the structure feeding on porgies and small blackfish.
