Although I use both, I hook more fish with hard beads than soft, especially in clear water. I shake mine up in sandwich ziplocks blown up with air with a few drops of white pearl acrylic paint and sometimes nail polish, depending on the color and amount of mottling I'm looking for. Most are orange beads I bought in a bag of 500 ten years ago, but I've picked up a few more to enhance in clear orange, pink, and red. I peg my beads with a 20# dacron flyline bobberstop, the same I use for bobberstops on my my braid mainline. I tie up the hooks with the bobberstop pegs and slip the beads on while on the river. Hard beads bounce directly on the bottom and get down to the fish a little softer than floating or neutral buoyancy beads. I haven't really noticed that I fail to hook fish with hard beads any more than with soft beads. There are so many factors, including my own daydreaming and sightseeing, which is when most fish bite, affecting a good hookset, that I'm primarily interested in getting the opportunities.
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