Drifting Beads For Steelhead

By Gary Lewis

In years with big fish runs, meaning when abundance is up, it’s hard to pick a bad day to fish. And then there are seasons like this one, when the summer-run steelhead just trickle in and they’re difficult to find during fall, winter and spring. The word, angler-to-angler, is mostly to stay home, tend to the garden, keep that lawn mowed, cut the firewood. Too few fish to make your efforts really worth it this year.

Lest we forget, anglers lie to each other.

That’s why I drove to Lewiston, Idaho in early January, joining my friend Kris Bales and Adam Hocking of Steel Dreams Guide Service. We would run the Clearwater or Snake rivers, depending on the weather, trying to disprove those who said our efforts wouldn’t be rewarded.

When the temperature dropped and the Grande Ronde River began to spit chunks of ice, Hocking said we would fish the Snake because cold water often pushes fish from the Ronde and Clearwater back into the big river.

"Meet me at Heller Bar at eight o'clock," he said.

From our room at the Red Lion in Lewiston, it was 30 minutes to Heller Bar. I expected to see two dozen anglers on the bank and two dozen boat trailers in the parking lot. Instead, it was just Hocking, his brother-in-law Carl Welch and Tiller, a springer spaniel.

While rigging up Hocking said we would drift yarn and beads. If we could hit the seams where steelhead hold, we would have a decent chance at getting fish to grab. This would give us our best shot at catching fish during this time of low abundance.

Fish take beads for the same reasons they bite salmon eggs or egg patterns; steelhead, salmon and trout are programmed to eat fish eggs. Putting beads in front of fish is a deadly technique. When side-drifting with an accomplished boat operator, a good angler can bring a lot of fish to hand.

Which Color Beads Should I Use

Most species in our steelhead streams are gravel spawners and eggs that don’t make it into a slot in the gravel tumble down with the current. Neutral-buoyant, they stay close to bottom and get vacuumed up by everything from suckers to sturgeon.

When we think of fish eggs and the beads to match them, we may think salmon. But there are a variety of fish species in most rivers and the color and size of their eggs differ.

On a new river, try to figure out which fish are on the spawning beds and pick a bead color to match that knowledge. Cutthroat eggs are often yellow in color (late spring/early summer spawners), while rainbow eggs (late winer and spring spawners) are likely to be reddish/orange, and brown trout (fall/early winter spawners) eggs are likely to have a peach hue.

After the spawn has been in the gravel, the eggs change color. That’s why a yellow/brown bead might out-produce the milky/orange bead that worked a week prior. And remember, a bead looks different in broad daylight than it does beneath the surface. So, it pays to change your beads often, working from one color to the next and so on until you find something the fish are keying on.

Bead rigs can be fished equally well on fly and spinning gear. It pays to bring a selection of beads of various sizes and hues. Figure out which fish are on the spawning beds, then drill down on the right size and color of your bead. Photo by Gary Lewis

How to Set the Bead

For the bottom-bounced presentation there is a variety of opinion on where to peg the sphere above the hook. Some say three inches, while others like to set the bead two inches from the hook. Instead of eye-balling it, try to set the bead about two fingers-width away from the hook. Why is this important? A bead set too far away is likely to result in an outside-the-mouth set, which is considered snagging in some regions.

If you peg the bead at that two fingers-width mark, the line slides through the bead and the hook usually plants inside the corner of the mouth.

To fix the bead in place, use a toothpick and break it off, slide the bead over a bobber stop knot, or use rubber to keep the bead in place.

Setups can be tied at home or streamside. A round or rectangular piece of foam is a great way to store pre-tied rigs and leaders. One of the best products for storing bead setups are leader boards from Fish-Eng Products. The smallest size (3-3/4 x 8 inches) fits inside some vests, but the product can be cut down to fit any pocket.

Setting a Hevi-bead in front of a streamer to add appeal to the egg-sucking leech. Photo by Gary Lewis

Where to Drift Your Eggs

Prospect in fairly straight classic drifts. Watch for water that moves at about the speed of a fast walk.

Many guides prefer a nine-foot spinning rod and a reel that holds about 160 yards of eight-to 12-pound test main line. Hi-visibility lines are good because they give the boat operator a quick sight reference. For leader, use 48 inches of six-to 10-pound clear mono or fluorocarbon, knotted to a #4 single hook. In clear water, step down a size to a #6 hook. In the weight box, keep up to five different lengths of pre-cut hollow-core pencil leads. Or tie up with a sliding snap swivel on your main line and connect it to a pre-tied “slinky” weight. Use just enough weight to make your pencil lead or slinky tick the bottom every two or three seconds.

In a jetboat, set up to drift downriver stern first, with the bow slightly angled into the run. At the head of the slot, start the kicker motor before shutting down the big motor. The rearmost angler (often the boat operator) should make the first cast. As soon as that line touches the water, the next angler should cast. Both anglers will reel up any slack. If their tackle is matched, there should be no tangles.

Using the kicker engine, make slight adjustments in forward and reverse to keep the lines taut and the baits fishing in line. Make sure the anglers keep their rod-tips up at a 45-degree angle.

Gary Lewis and Tiller with a nice steelhead taken on a January day. Guide Adam Hocking (left) is a resident of Clarkston, Wash., and fishes the Snake and Clearwater. Photo courtesy Kris Bales

Drifting Beads on the Snake

On that day on the Snake earlier this year it seemed like we had the whole river to ourselves. Hocking handed out rods rigged with yarn and beads and we were only into our second drift when the first fish took.

Operating the kicker, Hocking made the first cast, then Welch. Third in line, I picked my spot in shallow.

We drifted back, our weights touching down from time-to-time. Then the tension in my rod-tip changed, like a wet sock had fouled the leader. That's what a fish feels like so I set the hook, hard, and my line began to angle mid-river. In the cold water, this one, a six-pound hatchery buck, didn't fight hard, but the next one put up quite a battle before the hook popped out of its snout.

I finished the morning with a wild nine-pound male that we turned back, watching it kick away from the sandbar to make more steelhead. Fall 2017 and winter 2018 aren’t providing as many inland steelhead as years past, but you can still find some, and there’s little competition. And, fishing these beads and yarn from a boat gives you a great chance for success.

A nine-pound wild Snake River steelhead ready to head back to deep water. Photo by Gary Lewis