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If you were to suggest to a North Country (UK) fly fisherman that there is such a thing as a bead spider they would think your a rod section short of a fly rod. For their sake you could call this fly and my other "bead head spiders" "bead head soft hackles" but I find that more people get the ideas of what sort of fly your talking about when you call them bead head spiders.

Bead head spiders fish very well in conjunction with traditional spider flies and give you the opportunity of adding a bit of flash to your team and more importantly get your team down a little. The benefit of that of course is that the added depth gives a little more vertical travel to your team of flies as they swing round at the end of the drift and start to lift, which as we all know is when the majority of hits occur when swinging spiders.

Materials

Process

A	Most beads have a large opening at one end and a smaller opening at the other. Slide a tungsten bead over the point of the hook small opening first and position it behind the eye of the hook. The size and colour choice for the tungsten bead is fairly open but my preference is to use beads that are between 2 mm and 3 mm for a size #12 hook. I have used a 2.5mm bead for this #12 fly. Catch the thread in just behind the bead. Poke the point of the wire up into the back of the bead hole and continue winding the thread back to about 5% up from the bend of the hook tying the wire in along the top of the hook as you go. Understanding hooks Hold the wire up and take a few turns of the thread behind the wire. Wind the thread in touching turns back to just behind the bead.

B	Wind the wire forward in touching turns to just behind the bead creating 5 or 6 body segment along the fly. Take two tight turns of the wire directly behind the bead and worry off the excess wire.

C	Select a hackle that has herl that around twice the gape of the hook. Lock the hackle in place just a smidge back from behind the bead with a couple of firm wraps of thread./li> Wet fly hackle

D	Using a sharp blade remove the excess hackle tip. Take two tuns of the hackle and lock it in place with a couple of firm wraps of thread.

E	Using a sharp blade remove the excess hackle butt.

F	Stroke the hackle tips back along the fly and then finish securing the hackle in that position with additional wraps of thread. Build up a thin collar between the hackle and the bead taking care not to force the hackle backwards. Varnish the collar and the bead if it's not painted already taking care not to get any varnish in the eye of the hook or on the hackle. If its an unpainted bead and you don't varnish it at this stage you will find it will tarnish very quickly.

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