Bead Tail Kebari

Fly tying tutorial by Jon Carver

I like to fish unweighted flies whenever possible. However, sometimes conditions require a weighted fly. Enter the Bead Tail Kebari. These weighted flies have the weight on a tail, which I find has advantages over the typical nymph style.

The weighted tail and hackle help keep the hook away from the bottom, which seems to reduce snags. The hackle gives some resistance to manipulation, preventing the fly from moving too dramatically. More importantly, the stiff hackles help to anchor the fly in the current and stretch out the casting line similar to a futsu kebari. They can also be trimmed to control the sink rate.

To make the Bead Tail Kebari, thread a bead onto the yarn. I used a tungsten bead. Twist the yarn and fold it back on itself with the bead in the middle. Don’t make the tail so long that it flops around excessively. Do whatever you like with the rest of the fly. 

One could probably replace the bead with a split shot and change the shot size as needed, but I haven’t tried it yet. 

The pictured trout were caught on the Bead Tail Kebari:

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Author Bio: Jon Carver lives in the Southwest. 

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