Monday, July 16, 2018

Revisiting the Bead


It was more than a year ago that Scott and I discussed the "bead rig" on The Montana Dream Cast. I posted our link to the discussion on the blog but I didn't write about what we had discussed. It was kind of a tease, if you will, to get you to go to the podcast. Since then, there has been a lot of discussion about this rig and I see some folks have gone back to that blog post to maybe find out what I think. Unfortunately, they'd have to listen to the pod and I don't think that's happening. So I'm going to give you a little run-down now on what I think.

Here's what the reg's state:  SNAGGING: A technique of angling in which a hook or hooks are cast, trolled or lowered into the water and manipulated to embed the hook or hooks into the body of the fish. You have snagged a fish if: (a) you are fishing in a manner that the fish does not voluntarily take the hook in its mouth, or (b) if you accidentally hook the fish in a part of the body other than the mouth.

So here's the deal. The opposition to the bead rig points out in this definition of snagging, the idea that the fish does not voluntarily take the hook in its mouth. If you look at the rig, you'll see that the fish would eat the bead as an egg pattern and when the hook is set, ripping the egg out, the hook would catch the side of the mouth. Since the fish didn't actually eat the hook, this would constitute snagging.

I asked Justin Hawkaluk, District 3 game warden, about this and what he said is that if the intent is to get a fish to take the imitation, which is the bead, and then hook the fish, there's no violation. You are still getting the fish to eat and you are still hooking the fish in the mouth.

Other folks have talked to other game wardens in other districts and have gotten mixed answers on this. This leads to confusion and gives the bead opposition fuel. This has led to spirited debates and threats of calling authorities to turn people in for employing such hedonistic tactics. So much so, that a buddy called me up and asked my opinion. Here's what I think.

The first thing I'd say is that the bead rig isn't any more illegal than an articulated streamer. If you look at the bead, the only reason it's different is that it looks like the hook has more distance from the imitation but the reality is, if you put a couple feathers on the bead or a bunny strip, it would be no different.

Second; you have to discern what the "spirit of the law" is. The reason this law was made was to prevent the act of snagging whereas a person rips a treble hook through a pod of fish, hooking fish in random places other than the mouth. In some instances, this is legal. You can snag paddle fish at certain times of the year. You can also snag salmon in some areas at certain times of the year. What you can't do, is see a pod of trout or knowingly through a large hook into an area where you know there are concentrated numbers of trout and rip that hook through, hoping to snag a fish. That's what the law was intended to prevent.

Some folks would argue that this rig is actually more humane in the sense that they get more hook-ups in the mouth and fewer foul hooks. They also say they are easier to release with the hook in the side of the mouth. I'd have to do more research on that but it's possible. Those folks would also suggest that they get more hook-ups in general because of the nature of what happens with the hook-set when the imitation is pulled out of the fish's mouth. How many times have you set the hook on a fish, knowing it is a fish, and come up empty? It's because the fly came out of the fish's mouth at an angle where the hook doesn't grab anything or it's because the fish had already spit the fly out before you set the hook. If you do that with this rig, the theory is that the hook is more likely to find its home. Does that give the angler an unfair advantage? I guess one could debate that and then it comes down to this long history of trying to either be true to the act of fly fishing, the way the founders intended it to be, versus coming up with new methods that are just more efficient.

The irony here, is that some of the same folks who have a problem with the bead are also folks that take longer than normal leaders with a ton of wait and a wire worm with a hug pheasant tail behind it and rip it through riffles a mach 10, claiming that they aren't flossing fish. I'm not talking about getting your soft hackle to swing in front of rising fish or swinging streamers. I'm talking about ripping over sized flies across riffles where the angler knows fish are staging. The intent isn't to get them to eat at all but to run the line through their mouths before they can get out of the way.

So what is the real issue? I think for a lot of the opposition, it's that they see it's immoral to throw egg patterns period. The assumption is that by using the bead rig, that you are trampling over reds and disrupting the spawning process. That's fair. I think we should leave those fish alone. However, I don't think it's wrong to use an egg pattern to target fish that are staging behind the reds looking for eggs that get dislodged or just throwing egg patterns as another source of food regardless of where you fish them. Food is food and your job as an angler, is to figure out those food sources and present it in a way that a fish eats it. Period. In that sense, the egg pattern itself, is separate from the issue of the conservation effort of not disrupting the reds or the spawning beds. You can fish egg patterns all you want without trampling over reds.

Here's the bottom line for me: Did you get the fish to eat? AND, do you feel like you had to hide your method due to public scorn? Did it make you feel dirty? (BTW, I don't use this rig but it's for other reasons. I think there are drawbacks to it and for me, it just doesn't seem worth the downsides.)

Keep 'em where they live...

No comments:

Post a Comment