Pegging beads...more controversial than pineapple on pizza???

[kilgore]

My experience is when adult salmon are in the river, and trout are "stationed" below their redds feeding on eggs... they will take a dry fly. Usually that time of year, there are a lot of caddis around. Many times I've stayed way back, and cast a dry caddis over the rear end of a redd, and had a nice rainbow come for it very quickly. So, maybe fewer glo bugs and beads (pegged or not) and a few more dry flies.

[Woodman]

How about fishing a two fly nymph rig. I'm sure it doesn't happen to any of the rest of you, but sometimes I end up with a fish hooked in the side on my lower fly...

Different form of snagging, but same result.

[Ralph]

Yep, happens to me too with a dry/dropper rig. Bums me out when it happens, but it isn't very often. I haven't fished a double nymph rig in years because I can barely fish one nymph right, much less two. For me, hooking up with a double nymph rig is often more a matter of luck than skill.

[Rossflyguy]

Well if you peg the bead 1” about the hook you shouldn’t be snagging fish in the fin or the sides. If you’re trying to break it down the fish is eating the bead. So it’s by definition not snagging. The fish is eating the presented technique. As far as beads not being fly fishing, what’s fly fishing to you? Fly fishing has changed the last 20-30 years. Fly lines, rods, reels, and flies. Fly fishing is about matching the hatch with a FLY ROD/REEL with an artificially made food item.

[cdevine]

Next topic covered will be the art of Czech nymphing with a bamboo rod.
Time to fish and prayer for a little weather. Peace out.

[Gregg]

So I kinda figured that there'd be an attempt to hijack the topic and move it away from the technicalities of pegged beads vs other egg patterns and into "you just aren't elevated enough young padawan to use a size 22 PMD for all applications". Lol ok.

If you think fishing pegged beads is a handicap or easy you should take a size 12 yellow stimulator out to Deer Creek in June, it'll blow your mind. I'm not saying it's hard either, I'm saying it doesn't seem like anything to cry over...as some others have stated, it's sometimes the right piece for the puzzle at the right time. And not the right piece for others.

I was on the water today with a couple buddies. I get out a bunch, they aren't able to make it quite as often. We all enjoy fishing and hanging out and making fun of eachother, and yes, actually catching fish fits into the day really nicely if it's in the cards. We're fishing a pretty well known run and this other duo is making their way upstream on the other side of the river, I couldn't be sure but it really looked like a guide and a client. Nobody that I'd know, but you know how you can just kind of tell? Well fisherman was casting a nymph at first directly upstream without a "bobber" (as y'all pros like to call them) and getting hung up and losing flies. Potential guide guy looking at his phone, didn't seem entirely engaged in the situation. Guy switched to a dry, casting upstream into pretty solid water. Still nothing. No takes. No rises. Just...casting. Cool? I guess? I'm not part of the 1% so casting what's probably the wrong rig into good water and not hooking up, and spending money to do it doesn't really fit into my economic equation, but damn...if someone wants to pay me we can meet at the park and I'll bring beers and even take action photos while we practice casting and you'll stay dry and warm the whole time.

Meanwhile we're across the river finding fish on rubberlegs, beads, and tiny S&M's...in the same water they just abandoned. And we're having a hell of a time. And we're laughing and cheering eachother on and I'll be darned but we all walked away saying "that was a pretty swell day". And my two buddies who don't get out super often, but who had success, will remember this day and probably invest in more gear and fish more and the circle of life continues. Because they used the right piece for the right puzzle at the right time.

So back to the topic at hand, is fishing a pegged bead "snagging"? I was telling the guys about this thread and we were laughing about it and said we'd take a close up pic of the next fish we hooked on a pegged bead and I'd post it here, even if it was hooked on top of it's head or on the side of the face or in it's belly. We'd leave it up to the gods to decide the fate of my claim that a properly pegged bead tends to hook in the right spot, and...(turn away now if you're squeamish)

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anyways, a hell of a day today. Highly recommend getting on the water if you can stand the cold, even if it makes you feel better to just cast and not catch anything. It's a whole lot better than sitting in front of the tv.












also...if anyone lost a 6" olive cone head articulated streamer with a stinger hook about 3" behind the "fly" holler at me, I picked one up off the riverbed while we were packing out whatever trash we came across.

[Gregg]

Forgot to mention, was in Puerto Vallarta years back and ordered a “combination pizza” from a local spot and I kid you not it came with cut up hot dogs and raisins and I was like “damn you guys are wild down here”

[bigfly]

Eggs and legs are the standard guide fair, I don't really have a problem with it.....it's just hard to be superior when using the lowest common denominator.......are fish spawning now?
Good combo for the stocked club fish though.......

Jim

[Idadon]

Gregg started this thread by stating his concern about trout getting hooked deep on egg patterns (beads). I'm wondering if there is a practical reason why a guy can't tie an egg pattern on a circle hook? I mean, other then the fact that the smallest I've seen is a Gama # 8. I'm not an expert on circle hooks but wouldn't that help with the deep hook issue?

[Ralph]

The bead controversy is far from a local thing. Unlike California's ambiguity and apparent unwillingness to clarify the issue, other states have bead-specific laws and more are coming down the pike. On Montana's Madison River, see a guy pegging a bead, you will also see 5 cell phones being pulled out to call the cops. It is illegal and simply not accepted by most guides or locals as fair chase. Alaska on the other hand, while pegged beads are specifically declared snagging devices and thus illegal, I know very few people who don't openly bead and apparently citations are only written when in conjunction with some other violation.

Here is what is going on in Wyoming a few years after Game and Fish formally declared pegged beads as a snagging device and specifically outlawed the use. Interesting perspective.

http://www.minturnanglers.com/events...-platte-river/