BgalyAK

I know this thread is a few years old but I have to comment and I hope some people read it. Im from Alaska, been fly fishing for 20+ years Just for record, I hate bead fishing for rainbows. I get so much more satisfaction and excitement catching trout and dollies and salmon on streamers flies and nymphs, sometimes dries, that I tie myself. Streamers ( my favorite ) for example are tied to immitate leeches,Smolt, fry, minnows, sculpins, baitfish, and on and on. It can be challenging trying to figure out the right color combos and material types and patterns sizes etc to create the most productive streamer for a certain river during a certain time of year immating a certain leech or sculpin. Most times we tie them in articulating patterns and some people depending on the pattern and stream regulations will leave both hooks from both shanks on. Everyone agrees that is fly fishing right?? ( maybe not in its purest form lol ) Beads are also imitating something that fish like to eat and especially in Alaska , the trout love salmon eggs and during the salmon spawn in Alaska, there are times that if you arent fishing a bead ( Kenai River for example ) you cannot touch a fish. Ive been with friends floating during heavy spawn in the late summer where I fished s streamer all day and then beads- and I caught 1 or 2 fish to their 20-30 fish each. You can fish flies tied on the hook with yarn to imitate eggs, but nothing works better than a bead pegged on the leader above the hook 2 inches. Also the majority of us have to paint them with finger nail polish special colors to try and immitate the actual color and life cycle phase of the eggs in river the fish are feeding on. Different shades of light pink can mean the difference between 30 fish days and 0 fish days. So there is a form of immitating the food for the fish just like your doing when tying streamers and nymphs and dries. Just doesnt happen to use hackle or deer hair or dubbing, because simply a plastic translucent bead is the best way to imitate what a salmon egg looks like. Is plastic not allowed on some nymphs, or streamers, or bass bugs for example? Lots of trafituonidk flies have plastic materials in them. Think about it. Now the biggest arguement Ive noticed here is the issue of bead not connected to hook and being 2 inches or whatever above the hook. Theres 2 reasons for this mainly. When I first got introduced to fishing with a bead, I was told strictly to Make sure it was no more than 2 inches from the small hook because if its longer than that then you have a chance of hooking the fish in the eye, and I was told not to use a glo bug fly pattern imitation tied on a hook that I usually used because the chances of the trout inhaling the egg pattern too deep could potentially harm or kill the fish. The bead technique for how we use it is really for insuring that when the fish eats the bead ( which is not snagging in my opinion if you e convince me the fish to eat your presentation) and automatically slide the hook over towards the outside perimeter of the fishs mouth keeping it outside of the gill area for an easy harmless release. And to be honest in my experience, I very rarely ever, hook a fish when fishing with a bead on the outside of the mouth. 95% of them the hook is inside right on the lip where its supposed to be. Bead fishing is literally nymph fishing if you think of it. The bead can be melted put on a heated up hook and melted on and catch plenty of fish still but the chances of these Alaskan trout swallowing it too deep the way they inhale eggs floating down the river by the thousands all day fattening up for the winter is too high to risk damaging our awesome fish we have. My 2 cents. It aint snaggin