Bead Fishing for Trout – Hooks and Bead Size

Naknek trout at Rapids Camp Lodge — Rob and Bill rigged appropriately. Photo: Dan Shed.

With it being mega rainbow season here in Alaska, specifically at Rapids Camp Lodge on the Naknek River, this is the second post this week on advanced bead fishing tips.

You can find the post on advanced bead fishing for rainbow trout about matching the egg-hatch here. Both of these posts are courtesy of Rapids Camp Lodge guide, Alaska West alum, and certified bead ninja, Rob Rymph.

Bead Fishing for Trout: Matching Bead to Hook Size

When bead fishing for trout, another helpful hint many people overlook is correctly matching the size of your hook to the size of your bead. When pegged correctly, as the bead is pulled out of the fish’s mouth during the hook set, the hook below will follow the same trajectory. Therefore, larger beads require larger hook gaps to set safely into the outside corner of the fish’s mouth. Large beads can block small hooks from a good hook set, causing them to pop out every time!

So, as a general rule of thumb…

Use size 8 hooks when fishing 4mm or smaller beads.
Use size 6 hooks when fishing 6 mm beads.
Use size 4 hooks when fishing 8 mm beads.
Use size 2 hooks when fishing 10mm or larger beads.

Keep in mind the rules above are suggestions, with some overlap possible depending on the average size fish for a particular body of water. Regardless, we consider fishing anything larger than a size 2 hook for rainbow trout to be sacrilegious. Please fish responsibly!