Good Evening Ladies, Gentlemen, and Purists,
Before you is a document. The holy grail of all documents ever produced in recorded history. It is not a secret; however it is a document that will make even the strongest purist shed a tear. It will have Johnny Utah grinding his teeth and trico mike will crank out as many spey flies as he can to offset the filth he will shortly read. Then there will be some of you who sit behind your electronic fortress and smile as you fucking damn well want to employ….(wait for it) BEADSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! You will offer no response in favor or against, but you will sit there and soak in as much info as your cranium will allow. So when the chrome begin to the flood the Salmon River, I won’t be the only one that sounds like a can of buckshot walking down the river with the beads in my backpack
In all seriousness, there have been some of you who have expressed interest in learning how to “bead fish.” So I have constructed a minor write up on the methods, rigs, colors, and sizes that I PERSONALLY USE AND EMPLOY. This DOES NOT mean the way I do it or the bead colors I select are gospel. But there is absolutely no doubt about it, the way in which I bead fish is hugely successful. To be honest, the only thing that may differ between one bead whore or another is normally egg color or leader set up. For the most part, everyone abides but the same outline.
RIGGING
This is a topic in which can differ the most in terms of beads fishing. But to start, 99% of bead fishermen employ a FLOATING LINE. Bead fish is much like nymph fishing where one needs to “bounce” the beads off the bottom. Early fish will take beads anywhere in the water column, however once the sharks are gone and winter begins to set in, beads need to mimic what a natural bead does as it get dislodged from rocks and that’s bounce along the bottom.
For early season chromers, rigging is not a “technical” and as my dad would say, “doesn’t have to be a piano.” It can be sloppy or unskillfully put together. Unfortunately, early season the past few years as meant critically low flows, therefore one must take a bit more care to their setup than a normal 750cfs early season flow.
The way I fish for chromers (and trout for that matter when nymphing) is put on a FURRLED leader. I purchase them from JONI (flygoddess.com). Buy 2 get 1 free. They are incredible furled leaders and she has made me “custom” leaders in terms of thickness and material. I have her make my steelhead leaders out of fluorocarbon instead of the normal synthetic (for dries) or mono that she usually does. So with the furled leader attached to the end of my SA Sharkskin GPX (shameless plug
), I now have the option of adding any length tippet I want. This method also makes “re-rigging” much easier as one only needs ONE piece of tippet now, instead of stepping down like most of us used to do/currently do. As far as the tippet, I always go the length of my leader. 10’ (including length of furled) may seem a touch long, but for steelhead I only employ a 10’ or 11’, therefore turning over an indie rig is easy, plus it allows the bead(s) to be as far away as possible without possible steelhead detection of the leader/flyline.
As far as tippet material, I stand firm when I say this, and CTOBIAS (another SR regular) will 100% agree with me, is DRENNIN tippet material. Drennin is NOT cheap, it is fluorocarbon, but the shit is like rope…I use 4 or 6lb test and it has the breaking strength of 10 or 12lb RIO/Seagaur, its UNREAL. I would HIGHLY recommend this material.
As far as what lb test, early season you can get away with larger, but I think of it this way. Why not eliminate a factor out of the “why am I not hitting any steelhead” equation right off the bat? So, due to drennin being extremely tough, you will RARELY see me go over 4 or 6lb. Say what you want, but Ill put it up to your 10 or 12lb tippet any day
Swinging flies and HIGH/BROWN water is another story. But for the flows we’ve been experiencing the last few years, especially early season, I don’t even arry anything above 6 or 8lb test.
Another method to rig it is the way we all still fish for trout with a 9 or 12’ tapered leader or knotted leader. This method is PERFECT too, however I find the furled leader and just adding one piece of tippet much easier. Plus, the furled leader is much small in diameter than the butt section of a tapper/knotted leader, allowing it to get down to the strike zone quicker. EITHER METHOD IS FINE!
HOOKS/WEIGHT/HOW TO RIG
Weight. For some reason, I ALWAYS run dins more weight, no matter water depth. IDK why but I do. So if I’m putting on a 5lb piece of tippet to my furled leader, I chop off the last 18’’, retie it on using a blood not or whichever you may prefer and put my weights ABOVE the knot. This is just a simple solution to keep the weights away from the eggs and in one place. I’ll even scatter them from 18’’ all the way up to 3’ away, much like the pinner dudes
I dont have a pinning set up
MUHAHAHAHAHAHA
As far as the hooks, here is another operator in the equation of “why am I not hitting any steelhead.” Again, I try to eliminate this as well but using the smallest hook the season will allow. However, you’ll most see me using a size 8 or 10 straight eye heavy guage EGG HOOK (troutbeads.com makes the best egg hook). As stated earlier, hooks size and anything else depends on season/water flow. Earlier=bigger/later=smaller. BUT, like I said, I eliminate any possible of scaring any fish due to hook size and just put on a size 8 or 10. I have noticed NO difference in terms of keeping fishing buttoned vs un-buttoned.
Rigging a bead is EASY and there are many ways. However, the way I rig a bead is as follows. I run the line through the bead TWICE. AFTER you have run the line through the bead TWICE, TIE YOUR HOOK ON. Once your hook is tied on, position the bead 2’’ above the hook. After you move the bead to the 2’’ mark, insert your 80lb test or toothpick.
