Once, after a February weekend on the Wallowa River, I found myself in a roomful of steelhead anglers. There must have been 30 of us that had braved the single digit temps and you could count on one hand the number of people who had caught a fish. I counted myself among the lucky few, but I noticed one guy that wasn’t talking. When I had a chance, I asked him how the day had gone for him. He said he had hooked well over 20 fish for the weekend. And, he said, he had taken all his fish on beads.

It was an eye-opening moment for me, and from that moment forward, I vowed to learn more about bead-fishing, especially for steelhead.

One of the falsehoods we were fed when we first started learning about steelhead was “they don’t feed once they get into freshwater.” Uh, yes, they do. It becomes evident to even the dullest observer after some time on the water. And one of the things that steelhead feed on are eggs.

How they roll

Most species in our steelhead streams are gravel spawners, and the eggs that don’t make it into the 3/4-minus tumble down with the current. Neutral-buoyant, they stay close to the bottom and get vacuumed up by everything from suckers to sturgeon.

When we think of eggs, we think salmon, but there are a lot of fish in most rivers and colors and size differs between the species.

Try to figure out what fish are on the spawning beds. Cutthroat eggs are often yellow, while rainbow eggs are likely to be reddish orange and brown trout spawn is 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 outproduce the milky-orange bead that worked the week before.

A bead looks different in broad daylight than it does beneath the surface. Different lighting will make the imitation change color in the water. Color is how you light it. Before putting the bead to work, plunge it beneath the water and see how it looks.

Beads have virtually replaced flies in some parts of Alaska where big rainbows and steelhead and salmon are taken on fly rods by anglers of all skill levels. Here in Oregon, the fly tying industry is not in danger of being supplanted by hard and soft plastics and beads are actually not that easy to fish well. It takes a bit of skill and intuition to start catching steelhead on beads. It pays to get fussy about the color of the bead, the finish and size because low water steelhead like we find in the Umatilla, Snake, Imnaha, Grande Ronde and the Wallowa are downright fussy too.

Enthusiasts of the orb

A number of manufacturers and suppliers have popped up to serve the growing demand. A few companies offer beads because it is an easy way to expand a product line, but some suppliers are in the business because they are enthusiasts of the diminutive orb. For a glimpse into their world, cruise websites like glsteelheadco.com, steelybeads.com and

bnrtackle.com. If you haven’t fished with beads before, be warned: this is a deep rabbit hole.

There are several systems for affixing bead to leader, but the key thing to remember is the bead must be fixed in place. I like to put it about the width of two fingers from the hook.

At the hook-set, the line slides through the bead and the hook usually plants inside the corner of the mouth.

Setups can be tied at home or streamside. A 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 (www.fishengproducts.com). The smallest size (33/4 by 8 inches) fits inside some vests, but the product can be cut down to fit any pocket.

I like the versatility; the system is adaptable to spinning gear, bait casters and the fly rod. Bead fishing is not a secret anymore, but it might as well be. The technique is endlessly complex and sometimes frustrating. And when the hook is firmly planted in the side of a steelhead’s mouth, it is incredibly satisfying.