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PostPosted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 7:22 pm • # 1 
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Joined: 09/17/12
Posts: 142
Location: Washington State
Even though my beautiful wife of 31 years doesn't fish she is my best friend. We like hanging out together and she books birthday and anniversary trips for me to a local fly fishing lodge where she can relax and be pampered by the proprietor while I chase 5lb trout and I follow her into quilting shops and craft stores where I shoot pics of nice quilts and look for bargains on fly tying supplies.

So while cruising the aisles at JoAnn Fabric I saw a pack of a few hundred black 2.5mm glass beads for a couple of bucks and thought "bead head nymphs". They work fine but the size and shape isn't consistent so there is extra time spent to match each bead to the hook.

One reason I like to use weighted tube flies for the salt is that the heavy hook eye of streamers and nymphs weighted with bead head, cone head and dumbell weights can act as a lever during a vigorous head shake to throw the hook. I believe the longer the fly, the greater the effect is. A guy on a local FF board commented that he a slips a 1/16th oz worm weight on the tippet ahead of the fly in heavy flows to get the fly down, lessening the chance of throwing the hook, and that typically a trout doesn't notice a small round split shot on the nose of the fly as it rips past their lie. Then I got this idea; would threading a glass bead or two on the tippet ahead of a(n unweighted) wet fly, or nymph be a dirt-cheap time saver, extend any fly's usefulness, be more environmentally friendly than lead, and may even catch more fish?


Last edited by Brian_Miller on Mon Nov 19, 2012 12:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 7:27 pm • # 2 
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Nice idea. Another cheap source of glass beads is to stop at trading posts if you happen to pass through an Indian Reservation. The Shoshone Bannock Tribe is just down the road an hour from where I live. I like to stop by now and then and stock up. They sell them in long plastic tubes...I mean thousands per tube in a mind boggling assortment of sizes and colors for only a few bucks. I use them all the time.


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:36 am • # 3 
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Joined: 09/25/09
Posts: 67
Location: Prince Edward Island
I use glass beads tying many trout flies. Bead head and bodies.
Go ogle Jim Pettis' pulsating pupa. Great trout nymph! He wrote a book completely on beaded flies. ( Haven't read it yet. )
Use the variations in bead sizes to build the body tapers. I have success with a green bead, olive/grey dubbed pupa version all year long. Looks fantastic wet. Super easy ties.


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 12:41 pm • # 4 
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Joined: 09/17/12
Posts: 142
Location: Washington State
WJG wrote:
I use glass beads tying many trout flies. Bead head and bodies. Google Jim Pettis' pulsating pupa. Great trout nymph! He wrote a book completely on beaded flies. ( Haven't read it yet. ) Use the variations in bead sizes to build the body tapers. I have success with a green bead, olive/grey dubbed pupa version all year long. Looks fantastic wet. Super easy ties.
Sweet! I'll be looking for packs of orange and jade glass beads next time I tag along with my wife to JoAnn Fabrics.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:51 pm • # 5 
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Posts: 987
Location: Georgia
I picked up some glass beads at Jo-Ann. It turned out that these beads were painted; after a fishing trip, the paint came off, and they became translucent.


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