Hopefully I can post a picture of an easy way to attach plastic trout beads to hooks. Ok that was successful
Warning to Traditionalists. The following lines contain objectional and potentially corrupting material
The method was invented by my mate Sharney Way after we read an article in the American Fly Fisher Magazine about US anglers using plastic beads to catch steelheads. Sharney was a smoker and used his lighter to heat the shank of hooks and then sit a bead on it which melted itself to the hook. Of course this would not only burn off the coating it would also soften the tempered shank.
To prevent the heat softening the bend he buried that in the vice and this stopped the heat travelling down into the bend. It works beautifully and locks the bead securely to the hook in about 10seconds, which isn't bad for tying flies.
I use a small gas burner to just touch the shank with the flame which makes it hot enough to melt the bead on it.
Trouble was that Sharney had a low back cast and often hit the rocks behind him and smashing a lot of beads. As we used to live on the Breakaway pool I sometimes saw glittering sparkles among the rocks when the sun was very low on the horizon.
Rainbow