Yeah, I have been testing it out by purposely fishing much shorter and keeping track on how many fish are hooked in which regions of the mouth. I can pretty confidently say now that these fish love to swallow round things... Two days ago I had two fish chasing the bead down and grabbing it while I was retrieving.
I started fishing these soft beads last year on the Skagit river for coho, and it blew my mind. Down here you can use a tandem bead setup (up to 3 hooks are allowed, so 2 is no problem). I fish them about 18 inches apart. Earlier this season I was fighting a rather large coho that took the bottom cerise bead, and when he was running up stream in front of me, I noticed a smaller coho swimming parallel to him, chasing the shrimp colored bead!
I have started experimenting with my retrieve so at the end of the drift, I will just engage my reel and let it sit there for 10 seconds. The bead starts to flutter in the current and a lot of times that is enough to entice a strike. Then I will start to retrieve very slowly, and again I often get strikes when I first retrieve. I think it is safe to say these fish love the way the beads wiggle in the current, either when held stationary or on the retrieve.
My landing ratio has been pretty good by pegging the bead about 2 finger-widths above the hook, but we are also allowed to use barbs down here
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