Your guide to fishing remote Alaska. Sportsman's Guide & Air Service specializes in guided and outfitted fishing tours. Based from Lake Hood seaplane base in Anchorage Alaska. Owned and operated by registered guide outfitter Joe Schuster.

Beads, Beads, Beads, Beads

What are they? Beads are exactly that, hard plastic beads. Beads can be purchased in many hobby and craft shops in a variety of sizes and colors. For our purposes we are looking for beads specifically matching the exact size and coloring of individual salmon eggs. Salmon eggs are the single most important food source for fish in Alaska. The right plastic bead imitates the appearance of a real salmon egg better than any other egg fly pattern you can fish.

Size: The two most important sizes are the 8 mm bead, which matches the size of an individual King Salmon or large Chum or Silver Salmon egg, and the 6 mm bead, which matches the size of the smaller Red Salmon or Pink Salmon egg.

Color: Generally trout are aggressive when feeding on freshly dropped salmon eggs and the standard bright orange bead will do the trick in most cases, most of the time. Real salmon eggs, in water over time, will loose their original orange luster and take on different hughs and coloring dependent on their state of fertilization, water temp, light penetration, decay and other natural factors. Real colors may range from clear to pink, red, brown, pure white and all shades in between. Late in the season when there are a lot of salmon eggs in the rivers, trout can get fat lazy and finicky about the eggs they will move to take. At such times matching the size and color of the actual eggs that are in the river can be as critical as matching the size and color of any insect hatch. When this occurs you will want to have a few color variations in your bead box. Fingernail polish comes in a wide variety of colors and is often used give a bead the exact color or swirl of coloration that a bead fisherman is looking for.

How to rig them: The basic bead rig, which represents a single salmon egg, is made by simply threading a single bead on your line and tying it off to a small short shank bait hook. The bead is then pinned tight to the line with a toothpick approximately two inches above the eye of the hook. The toothpick is clipped flush with the bead surface. Split shot is added 12 to 18 inches above the bead as needed. The pinning of the bead above the hook is critical to the fishing success of this rig. A bead fished tight to the hook will draw less strikes, hook less fish, and is prone to hooking fish deep in the throat and gills resulting in high mortality. When fished above a bare hook... pin your beads!

How to fish them: The basic bead rig is particularly effective when fished behind actively spawning salmon where trout are aggressively feeding on free floating eggs dislodged by the spawning activity. Fish with a floating line using a standard wet fly dead drifting technique. Quarter your line up stream and mend as required to get a drag free drift through the zone you are fishing. Eliminate as much slack line as possible without disrupting the natural drift of your fly. Be prepared to respond to a quick strike with a quick hook set. Some fishermen prefer to use a strike indicator, which can be of great aid to beginning beaders. Others prefer to watch their floating line for the take. The take will usually be hard but quick as the fish inhales what it believes to be a juicy egg but often just as quickly expels the hard foreign object. The slightest hesitation or jump of the strike indicator or floating line should be considered a strike and be met immediately with a sharp snapping skyward hook set to pull the bead from the fish and set the hook into the corner of the fishes mouth. The setting motion of a missed strike can often be continue into a back cast and the bead fly placed directly back into the drift. Fish are often undisturbed by missed bead strikes and these fish can usually be taken in subsequent drifts.

Variations: The single bead rig can be extremely effective but there are many variations that you can add to your fishing arsenal. Multiple bead rigs are a favorite tick. Simply pin two, three or more beads of the same or varying colors an inch or two apart above your hook. Now a lazy trout sees an easy large meal drifting his way, rather than just another single egg, and may be triggered to strike. Placing a free running, unpinned, bead in front of a wooly bugger, sculpin, bunny hair leach, or flesh fly etc… quickly makes an "egg sucking" variation of that fly. Try pinning a bead several inches in front of your favorite streamer. Allow the streamer to sink into a deep hole and them give it an aggressive strip. Seeing a smaller fish chasing an egg often creates an immediate competitive response in trout and they may strike your bead and/or streamer. A bead free lined above a white bunny hair or other flesh imitating fly "Bacon & Eggs" can be extremely effective late season when trout are also feeding on decaying salmon. The salmon egg is the most plentiful and important food source in Alaska's waters. The small round orange shape is a powerful attractant and stimulant at any time of the season. Use the bead and your imagination and you will quickly increase your fishing success on any salmon spawning stream.

Good fishing.

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Sportsman's Guide & Air Service  3250 Lake Park Circle  Anchorage Alaska 99517
phone/fax 907-248-3181     email: mail@alaskasport.com
Joe Schuster  owner/operator