with or without bead heads

[Jawzz]

What is a better producer for members, nymphs with bead heads or without? What about tungsten bead heads?

[alanb_ct]

Without question, you should have both types of flies. Beads do a few useful things: (1) give a little sparkle, (2) add a slight jigging action to the retrieve/drift, (3) add some useful weight and (4) give the appearance of an air bubble that insects use to rise to the surface. With that said, there are times that selective trout don't like the beads, and demand a more realistic fly. On hard-fished waters, it's helpful to experiment with drab colored beads in black or olive. It's easy to color your beads with marker or nail polish.

Tungsten beads and cones are great, but very expensive. They are very dense and hard, so they sink well and bounce off of snags.

You should also know that when beads first hit the scene, some fly-fishing purists (not me) derided them as unsporting. Since then they are much more widely (almost universally) accepted and espoused by most fishermen and authors, like Dave Hughes.

In terms of production, both flies will produce on given days, but I suspect you'll come to rely on the beadheads more.

[Jawzz]

I agree with you, both are important to have in the arsenal. But let's talk about hook up ratios if we can and have the ratios changed over time. When the bead heads first came out, I think the trout were more accepting of it since it was something the were unfamiliar with, it had the sparkle and appeal, etc. However, since the beads have been around a while, trout maybe getting accustomed to them and learning that they are not food. The naturals may fish better now and like you said one will fish more beads making the naturals a better weapon.

[SlowNDeep]

On rivers like the Farmington, which take a pounding from fishermen, I will rarely use a gold bead head. I have found that copper and black bead heads are still quite effective.

I think the gold beads are great, but on rivers where fish have eaten them too many times, they appear less effective.

I have never seen olive bead heads but will certainly get some when I get to the shop next.

[alanb_ct]

I'm not sure you can buy olive beads from a shop, sorry if my post was misleading. I simply tie on a brass bead and color it in with a marker. Occasionally, you can find weird colors of nail polish that work too. In general, I think it's a good idea to knock some of the shine off of the beads.

[SlowNDeep]

Thats cool,

I use a lot of nail polish myself; I love the looks I get when I pop into CVS or Walgreens and buy a few bottles of nail polish and the big nail-buffing pads. I use the buffing pads to smooth my skin on the sides of my fingers so the tying thread doesnt snag as much.

I also use the nail polish to make eyes on my saltwater flys (yellow/black or white/black), red to create the appearance of an open gill, and clear for head cement.

[AaronJasper]

i agree that gold beads have been beat to death!! i also usually use copper or black. i have also been using a lot of glass beads. they come in almost any color imaginable and they come in a variety of sizes. i like to use the tungsten beads when i am using smaller flies... like sz 18 and smaller. i think that the extra weight helps more when you are tying smaller flies.

[Troutbum from Griswold]

You can buy olive beads. I just did. At a small local shop near my house. I stopped in one day to get some hooks that I needed in a pinch and he had some olive beads. I like copper and silver myself. I am tying some baetis nymphs with olive and copper beads. The olive to try something new. What the hell?

[Nymphmeister]

Like the others, I fish nymphs both with and without beads. I tend to avoid gold beads because I think trout in most streams have seen them one too many times. Having said that, I still catch trout on flies with gold beads, but I vastly prefer copper, black or even silver. Some companies like Wapsi are making metal beads in all sorts of colors, including olive, root beer, olive brown and other colors. My biggest CT trout came to a bead head nymph with a black bead, and my biggest client trout caught while guiding was also on the same nymph, but with a copper bead.

I've always been intrigued as to why bead heads often seem to work so well. A certain famous fly fishing author (I'd name him but Mike & Aaron will make fun of me) did extensive underwater research on this, and came to the conclusion that it was mostly because the placement of the weight at the extreme head of the fly caused it to rock & jig while dead-drifting, making it appear alive. He said that yes, the bead crams more weight into the fly, and that helps to a degree- but of course a split shot or two will accomplish getting the fly down also. He said that gold beads were slightly more effective in murky water, because it helped the trout find the fly, but in some situations (like hard fished spring creeks) it actually caused the trout to reject the fly- but if they put a black bead on instead, the trout readily ate it. Interestingly enough, he said a bead does NOT resemble an air or gas bubble at all, that metal reflects light in a totally different way.

I did notice that the first 2 seasons I fished flies with gold beads I annihilated the trout, even fishing right behind other people. The trout hadn't seen them before and they ate them like crazy. Nowadays I still fish beadheads, but not as much as I used to. A "regular" nymph, drab with no bead and no gaudy flash or other unnatural features, is much harder for pressured trout to detect as a fraud. I particularly like BH nymphs for making short drifts in pocket water, the bead helps get & keep that fly in the zone for most of the drift. I often fish my upper nymph with a bead (or a bigger/heavier fly such as a weighted stone or Prince), and then use a non beadhead fly on the bottom. That seems to work really well for me and hang up on the bottom less- if I put the BH fly on the end, I definitely hang up noticeably more. I just got a bunch of root beer colored metal beads in a variety of sizes and I'm gonna play with those, they aren't too gaudy looking at all.

Like Aaron and others, I find myself playing around with glass beads too, esp. on smaller flies. They can be very effective sometimes, and are translucent, unlike metallic beads. They come in tons of colors too. I do a lot of Midge patterns with those, as well as some smaller Caddis & Mayflies. I like tungsten beads sometimes, I carry a few flies with them. Yeah, they are good on smaller nymphs because you can actually pack some weight in there with them. Tungsten is also great for people who don't like to use split shot, they are heavy enough that you can often get down to the bottom with one or two of them- use a big tungsten stone up top if needed to get down, or a big tungsten Prince., and then trail a smaller one on the bottom.

[Jawzz]

Some great points. Yes I have heard (or read) the same about the beads giving the nymph a swaying motion in the water, which is an obvious plus. We could probably expect the glass beads and color variety of metal beads to become more popular by commercial tying companies as the gold beads, though still effective, as Aaron said have been beat to death. (Not to mention, it's another new item to promote and sell). And the fact that the glass beads are translucent, the air bubble resemblance may come into play as well. Like most other members, I fish both types (beads and naturals) pretty equally with adjutments made one way or another accordingly.

Now what about streamers? - bead head/cone head or natural?