Nice looking bead boxes

That is the reject pile. Got the magic beads tucked away

Dang Coley,

If beads ever went out of fashion by a steelhead's standard, you could go into jewelry making.

LOL. I've seen it 2nd hand too many times to question it so I'm a firm believe in Coley's Bead Bible.

Salmo, you are correct that having fish in front of a fisherman is usually the limiting factor. For us, it happened to be one of those "you shouda been here yesterday" days. Fortunately, it was "yesterday". We were a little good and a lot lucky. You are are also correct that it wasn't "ordinary steelheading". At least not for me. I don't know if Justin was at the same place we were but, if so, I'm pretty sure he could have outfished our gear with his nymphs. He is one fishy dude.

Its now
Aaron- thanks for the nice words <3 U
salmo-no rez fishing, just have the luxury of hitting it when it needed to be hit one day for me and another for a client. first nate of the year the other day too!

coley- 10-24mm?

Yup.

We need to catch up dude. Been a while.

Beads suck...

AK style double peg! damn son! stepping the game up

Coley call me today if you get a chance. I wana catch up and what not

Is it just me...or is putting a thread about "bead fishing" on the flyfishing board about the same as putting a thread about steak recipes on the PETA board?

Delivering beads with a flyrod, flyfishing it ain't...or anything close to it.

Fish on...

Todd

I didn't take you for a purist Todd!

OK, a bead isn't a fly, being solid plastic and all. But is a globug tied with yarn a legitimate fly? Most people say it is because it qualifies as either a tie to imitate food or as an attractor. I don't know about steelhead, but everything I hear about trout fishing in AK - and my personal experience is too limited - is that the trout are gobbling loose eggs up and swallowing them so fast that too many trout taken on globugs get hooked far back in the throat, whereas with pegged beads they get flossed from the outside in or at worst, hooked in the hinge of the jaw on the inside. Quite the controversy for some, since flossing is defined as unsporting, yet it demonstrably harms far fewer fish.

Interesting statement by Coley that a fair amount of the time he can fish a bead better with a fly rod than with conventional gear. I would think a spinning rod and greased line or braid would make for the most natural drift.

I don't know if it's analogous to putting steak recipes on a PETA board. I was thinking maybe it's closer to fvking for chastity.

Sg

Rossiman,

When you nymph fish the CW, are you "bobber-dogging" or some such? My experience on the CW is limited, but from what I've seen most holding water is in very broad pools, the kind of water that was made for swinging. It seems like it would take a week to nymph fish one piece of water, if I'm understanding the method being the conventional dead drift. Plus, how long of a cast can be effectively nymph fished? It seems like it would be nearly impossible to get a very long dead drift on say, an 80' cast. And some anglers consider an 80' cast cast on the CW a short one.

Coley,

It ain't no novel, so don't apologize! It's an interesting variation to me. The notion of nymph fishing for steelhead was first discussed with a friend in the mid-80s. He had caught two steelhead that way, one in the Carbon and another on the Hoko. Intrigued, I gave it a try on water that wasn't restricted to fly only, since the regs didn't permit any lead on flies or leaders then. I must have fished that method for almost an hour and a half before reverted to the far more comfortable wet fly swing. I've tried it a couple times since, and a couple times for trout, and am now probably up to a good four hours total invested in nymph and bobber fishing (with zero fish caught, I might add). Oh, except for the day spent bead fishing for mainly char in AK one summer.

If salmon egg hatch matching doesn't account for steelhead bead selectivity, do you have any hypotheses that would? All my experiences with steelhead selectivity have been the product of fishing pressure. I subscribe to the theory that an undisturbed steelhead will hit the first properly presented bait or lure it sees because that has served well for decades. Disturbed steelhead often won't hit anything at all, and when they do hit, it's usually something different and random. Under what kind of conditions have you observed steelhead selectivity?

That's quite a selection of flavors you have there in your boxes! That begs the following question. If steelhead can be so selective, what is your fishing strategy?

If that isn't obvious, let me explain my premise. Although it varies from river to river, let me offer the Skagit or Sauk as an example. I figure about 90% of the river or more is not steelhead holding water, so I don't fish it. Then there's maybe 10% that is suitable holding water, but at any given time only 10% of that 10% (i.e., 1%) actually holds steelhead, and that's only if there is a good run and we're at or near the peak of the season. As a practical matter and being a traditional wet fly swinger, I'll try to cover as much suitable holding water as I can in a day, since even most of the good holding water isn't occupied by a fish when I'm fishing it. So I'll try to fish 5 to 8 good pieces of holding water in the course of a day's fishing. I fish each piece once, never repeating a cast unless I blow one or draw a rise or a strike. I generally only change flies when I snag and break off, and would never fish through a pool twice unless I had knowledge certain that there was a fish there that didn't hit on the first pass through the pool.

What you described regarding bead fishing is, I think, physically impossible in one day's fishing. It could take all of 8 hours or more to fish one pool on the Skagit thoroughly, experimenting with different sizes and colors of beads. However, I don't think the experimenting would be necessary, since any fish present would likely hit the first offering presented, but that scene doesn't fit your selectivity schema.

It appears that a bead fishing strategy would best fit two scenes: 1) very small streams, and 2) water that you have knowledge certain that is stacked with steelhead, like a hatchery blood hole. Otherwise, in order to fish 3 bead sizes in 4 different color patterns, you would run out of daylight fishing the first pool on a 6 mile float down the Sauk River, for instance, and assuming you began at daylight. See what I mean?

You said, "With this method, it's all about the second or two the bead is in front of the fish and how good your bead and drift are, not necessarily about covering lots of water." That pretty much restricts a person in WA to the places steelhead stack up, like the hatchery blood holes, and precious few places for wild fish. And those are the places that get hammered hard, day in and day out, and then the fish fit my above philosophy about not hitting the first properly presented bait or lure, or maybe anything at all sometimes.

I don't anticipate getting into the bead scene in a big way. I have some beads that I took to AK 3 and 4 years ago (probably all fit into a couple compartments in one of your big boxes or rejects). Still haven't tried them here. The closest I've come is a couple small streams I sometimes fish that have only a few spots that swing well. In order to get a day's fishing out of it, I created a bastardized setup, where I just remove my sink tip and add an 8 or 10' 8# leader and a split shot a foot above my fly, no bobber. It gets down in narrow slots and then fishes what I imagine is kind of a Liesenring lift, an old nymph fishing method if you never heard of it, instead of a swing. It's limited to shorter casts, less than 50'. It seems to work, and is easy to switch back to conventional wet fly swing for the next spot suited to it.

OP,

See what you've started? Todd the mod is gonna' want a separate forum created for bastard child fishing methods. But a great conversation starter!

Twitch - oh no! Not you too! Yeah, I see beads suck even in Orygun. Actually, what I hear is that the N. coast rivers don't have much water well suited to the traditional wet fly swing, but lots of bedrock formed slots and so forth.

Sg

We steelhead fishermen call that "drift fishing"...

Fish on...

Todd

...and if you use a strike indicator, we call that "bobber and jig" fishing...

Fish on...

Todd

Gee Todd, you sorta' suck the elitism right outa' fly fishin'. That ain't no fun.

Sg

Flyfishing uses...

1. First and foremost...flies. Not beads, not jigs.

2. Flylines, and leaders...no boobers, no drift weights.

The inverse would be calling it flyfishing if I put a spey fly on the end of my drift gear...

Fish on...

Todd

who cares how anyone likes to fish as long as they're happy, it's legal and doesnt harm the fish?

Don't get me wrong...I think it's a perfectly legit way to fish...just don't call it flyfishing...

Fish on...

Todd

why not, if you're fly casting it?
yes, windshield wiping is what guides tell clietns that have no ability is fly fishing, but someone who can fly cast can still fly cast that rig?
Is it cool if we remove the bobber and then fish a bead?

Is it flyfishing if I can use one of my rods to heave a Kwikfish out there?

I'm guessing not...and for the same reason that I'd say bead fishing is not flyfishing...

Would it be different if you pinned a corkie on the line instead of a neutrally bouyant bead? Now not flyfishing?

How about if I throw a Dick Nite, aka, the Spey Spoon? Flyfishing, just because you use a flyrod to cast it?

I think not.

Fish on...

Todd