Glass Beads

[Rabmax]

Hello all does anyone use glass beads to suggest an air bubble on there emerging emerger flies.I am thinking about incorporating a glass bead on a few emerger patterns i use to see if it makes any improvement.If i was to try this what colour or type of glass bead would suggest an air bubble best.I was looking at these & wondering if this would be along the right track.
http://goo.gl/PpLAI
Any advice welcome .Cheers

[Traditionalist]

Those beads look OK. The main difficulty is finding beads of the right size to fit the hook. If you try to "force" glass beads around a hook bend they will break so plastic might suit you better. Also, the glass beads are quite heavy so are not the optimum choice for emergers. Lots of people use various flies with various beads now.  There are a lot of various beads available, I have tried a few myself, ( although not recently), but didn't have much success with them.

TL
MC

[Darwin]

Those look like the ones I get, often called mercury beads over here.  Clear glass with the inside being silver, to represent the gas bubble.
White is popular as a head on chironomids, I also use the very small red and black on midge larva/pupa patterns and annelids.
Also tied on top of the hook, and it does work

[Rabmax]

I was planning using it on a couple of snowshoe emergers that i use.But i do want them to float well enough as i use them often as a searching fly & would rather see the wing sticking out the water.I have some glass beads but in transparent gold already i can try & see if they will float.If they don't float i guess it will have to be plastic then.Cheers

[Traditionalist]

It's pretty certain you wont get them to float. You need plastic beads for that, and they need to have some positive buoyancy at least.  Can be very hard to find.

I found a few some years ago but I gave up pretty quickly after trying them.  One thing I found that worked well were "Plopper" ( cast to land in the water with a "plop"), beetles dressed using them, but these flies had fairly specific and restricted uses.  I still have a few in a box somewhere but have not used them for years.

TL
MC

[Rabmax]

What about a few turns of silver tinsel with a small blob of clear UV resin on top to represent an air bubble.This fly tying malarkey isn't always as straight forward as you first think sometimes.Cheers

[Traditionalist]

Same problem, the resin is too heavy for floating flies. Even a small blob will sink a fly.

TL
MC

[Rabmax]

I guess then it's going to have to be Duo style then with a sight-er fly on with a glass bead emerger on the point.Might not be a bad thing anyway as i often fish more than one fly.Cheers

[Traditionalist]

For "suspender" type flies, especially emergers, I generally use something like this;

http://www.illawarraflyfishers.com.au/flytying/suspender_nymph.htm

also works extremely well as a "klinkhammer style" this is very effective indeed;

http://www.danica.com/flytier/tzuellich/foam_hare_klink.htm

TL
MC

[Rabmax]

I tried a few flies with Styrofoam balls a few years ago & did catch fish but found them hard to see when fishing white foam feeding lanes.The klinkhammer one you linked is very good i used something similar last year tied with rabbit guard hair .I know you like your soft hackle flies.(Whats your thoughts on this one bubble kebari ) http://www.tenkarabum.com/kiwis-tenkara-flies.html
I bought a Tenkara rod 2 years ago & have never used it will need to give it a try this year.