Over the years the bead game has been all about fishing hard beads. Back in the old days, you’d find the die hard anglers lurking around a bead store searching for that perfect bead. The key was to find the beads with the coloration and size of natural salmon roe. By selecting the beads that mimic the natural food source of salmonids, you essentially have the perfect artificial lure. One that will effectively trick almost any freshwater fish to the bite.
Hard Plastic Beads
Hard plastic beads have been the standard for decades catching endless numbers of salmon and steelhead. Tackle manufacturer produce them in endless colors and sizes as well as weights. Some are buoyant and will float, while others are heavy fishing beads that sink fast in the water. This allows the lure to get in front of the fish faster.
However, today with the evolution of soft plastics more and more anglers are getting their bead fix on with soft fishing beads. These soft beads are killer effective for catching both salmon and steelhead. As a result soft beads are literally taking the Northwest fishing scene by storm.
Soft Plastic Beads
Why soft beads? It’s simple really, you see since they are soft when a fish bites them the consistently is more like a natural salmon egg. When using a hard bead, when a steelhead takes the lure, since it’s hard the fish immediately spits it out understanding that it’s not real salmon roe. The soft fishing bead advantage is that since the beads is soft, fish tend to hold on to it a little longer giving the angler more time to set the hook.
Granted there are still plenty of old school anglers who swear by hard beads and will never fish anything else. In fact hard beads have defiantly proven their effectiveness over the years but with that in mind fishing soft beads for steelhead is proving extremely effective and sports fishing enthusiasts are catching on.
There are some disadvantages to fishing soft beads as well. Since they’re soft they tend not to hold up as well after a savage bite or getting snagged up on the bottom or a log. Another disadvantage is that there are not many manufacturers making soft fishing beads today. For example in the Northwest you have Horker Soft Baits, Mad River, BnR Tackle and a few others. All good companies in their own rights but we prefer Horker Soft Bait’s Monster Chomps soft beads. Horker not only has some excellent coloration’s, their beads are made of harder plastic so they tend to last longer. When it comes to fishing soft beads for steelhead they’re defiantly hard to beat.
Check out Horker Monster Chomps Today!
