Can anyone who ties this fly tell me what they use for the bead? The largest glass seed beads that I can find seem too small to me and any larger glass beads that I can find have a hole too small to fit on a hook. Is it a plastic bead or maybe a red colored metal bead? When I do a web search I find alot of fly shops with it in their catalog and alot of talk about what a good pattern it is but no instructions for tying it.
looks like a conehead and a red plastic/metal bead to me
Bead size MM Dia Inch Dia
6/0 3.7mm 0.145 inches
7/0 3.4 mm 0.134 inches
8/0 3.0 mm 0.118 inches
9/0 2.6 mm 0.102 inches
10/0 2.3 mm 0.091 inches
11/0 2.2 mm 0.087 inches
12/0 1.9 mm 0.074 inches
14/0 1.6 mm 0.063 inches
15/0 1.5 mm 0.059 inches
try a red bead like this from feathercraft
tup, kinda has a bleeding gill effect
I use all read glass beads and give them a good coat of 5 minute epoxy. It makes the bead much larger and protects it from rocks etc. while not adding too much weight to the fly.
Jim Smith
It seems to me to be similar in look to a carolina rigged bait that people use for bass. Given that, and it would all depend on size, you can usually find that bead in most fishing sections. Gander Mtn would be likely to have that.
-Erik
Those look like the pictures in the feathercraft catalog and it does look like those beads are opaque. I have glass seed beads up to 6/0 which I think is as big as they go and they are a bit too small but they might work If I coated them with some epoxy. Those colored metal beads from fc jumped out of the catalog at me the last time I ordered from them but I only bought 1/8 size. They go up to 5/32 which is a bit larget than the 6/0 glass beads so that might work too. I’ll have to see if the worm beads would fit around a hook bend. I think I have seen plastic beads in the craft store that would work too. I’m going to give up on finding a glass bead that is about 5 or 6 mm and would actually fit around a hook bend. Thanks for the ideas!
Flyfshr,
Don’t abandon hope!
Those are red ‘E’ beads, availabe in any craft or bead shop, even the craft section at WalMart.
You can buy a large bunch of them for just a buck or two, and about 75% of them will fit on a size 12 to 2 debarbed hook quite easily (you can find better ‘quality’ controlled beads, but the difference in price is such that, for this use, it just isn’t cost effective).
Afte seeing Normands pictures, I decided to see if what I had would work, and managed to tie up a dozen or so with the ‘E’ size beads I had on hand. Worked just fine and look exactly like the pictures posted.
Good Luck!
Buddy