The Complete Handbook of Fishing Beads

Chapter 1: Understanding Fishing Beads

The fishing bead is a component that most anglers never think about twice. You slide one onto a hook shank, push it up against the eye, and tie the fly. It sits there, weighing the hook down, giving the nymph a shiny head. But that single bead is doing a precise job, and the difference between a good bead and a poor one is the difference between a fly that drops to the strike zone in three seconds and one that flutters aimlessly for eight. In slow water, that is the difference between a full day of fish and a blank one.

Let's be specific about what a fishing bead is. It is a sphere, or a cone, or a cylinder, with a hole drilled through the center. That hole is called the bore. The bead is mounted on the hook shank with the hook point pushed through the bore, and then the bead slides down to the eye or the head of the fly. It serves one primary function: weight. It provides mass to a fly that would otherwise be made of only thread, feather, and fur, which are all neutrally buoyant on their own.

The bead's effect on the fly's behavior is not simply "it sinks." The mass of the bead, combined with the volume of the fly body, determines the sink rate. A bead of brass, which has a density of about 8.5 grams per cubic centimeter, weighs less than half of