Fishing weighted flies

[Tom Butler]

I noticed @Buzzy 's black and reddish leech in the vice, and my first though was I need to make a copy without the beadhead. Granted I'm just getting the hang of fishing deeply sunken flies on sinking lines, but I have very little success if the flies have a weighted bead head (except for a glass bead on some). I have great success tying up weighted bead head leeches to fish under a bobber, but when I fish a bead head fly on a standard hook (or even my same jig hook flies I fish under the indicator) I don't have nearly the same success as with unweighted flies. This result is the same for buggers and leeches.
Is it maybe just me?, or this spring season and/or particular set of lakes I've been to. Maybe I don't have enough year round knowledge yet?
Looking for some feedback and tips.

 

[Bob Rankin]

I was fishing for tiger trout a few weeks ago and wasn’t having much luck deep with sinking lines so I switched to a big fly with a tungsten bead on a floating line. Bingo! I’m not much for staring at a bobber. I guess it’s all about seeing what works.

 

[Paul_]

The following is when I’m fishing leeches on floating through type 3 sink lines-
99% of the fish I catch are on tungsten bead jig leeches.
But then again I fish tungsten bead jig leeches 99% of the time.
The bead head definitely helps the action of the fly.

If I’m fishing a type 6 sink it’s usually some type of buoyant fly (Booby or Dragon).

 

[Buzzy]

I do like the action tungsten (or brass) beads add to jig type flies, especially under a bobber. The fly in question has a 3.2 mm tungsten bead and I will fish this on intermediate lines and sinking lines (3, 5 & 7). I also fish un-beaded flies on my sinking lines. Honestly, I don't think it matters, bead or no bead, when fishing deep with a sinking line using the count down method and stripping in. But darn it, Tom, now I wonder if some of the missed fish I had up in BC, when fishing heavily weighted flies on my type-7 line might be attributed to the bead. Naw, I don't think so.

 

[Wanative]

I rarely fish type 3, 5 or 6 lines without bead head flys, jig type or standard hook.
I fish standard hooks bead head flys way more than jig fly hooks.

 

[Flybox1]

One, if not both of my mids have tungsten beads. (2.0 - 3.0mm)
Gotta get them quickly into the zone and tight to my indicator.

 

[tkww]

I can see a beaded fly having more action on a floating line because the angle to the line would be steeper and therefore each strip would have more of an up-n-down effect compared to a sinking line connection. A indicator is of course extreme of this at roughly 90° change from line to leader.

I generally prefer less-weighted flies for deeper sinking lines simply because if I fail to accurately track bottom depth vs my fly's depth, a heavily-weight fly will more often find the bottom and collect weeds, snag on something, etc. An inverted/jig hook may help cut down on this. That isn't to say I won't put a few wraps of lead towards the head to give it a little action. But I usually avoid big cones or tungsten.

 

[Billy]

I fish jig style flies with tungsten beads off sinking lines almost exclusively. My theory is when a jig style fly is killed and starts sinking straight down fish have a hard time resisting that. Then with a strip the fly darts back up and the process is replayed.

I dunno. Works for me.

 

[troutpocket]

I use tungsten beads, wire wrapped (lead substitute), and unweighted patterns with my full sink lines.

The tungsten moves the fly with pretty extreme drops after every strip. Sometimes this is a good thing.

Lightly weighted patterns tip down on the pause. Sometimes I have better success with this design than a big ‘ol tungsten bead.

Unweighted patterns don’t do much on the pause. I have a baitfish pattern that’s super effective at times and will catch fish that seemingly aren’t interested in bead head leeches.

So, different designs do different things and sometimes make a real difference.

 

[Tim L]

Maybe 2 cents worth of common sense. When the bite's on there's very few wrong answers. When the bite's off there's very few right answers. In either case, pays not to overthink.

 

[Tom Butler]

Thx for the responses. I'm seeing some themes to work with. Obviously more time and experience working with different things will help with when, where, how do what the fish prefer to be most productive.