Tungsten Beads!

[RichFishbelt]

Lock your tungsten Beads in a safe with your treasured jewelry. A twenty pack of beads have gone from $9 to over $22 in the past week and the cost if forecast to go higher in the near future.

 

[Fredrick]

No tungsten needed when fishing for snakeheads and bowfin.

 

[FollowTheBlueLines]

Now is a great time to start learning how to utilize split shot on your rigs. Before this price increase on tungsten, I had been reluctant to start using it, but recently have been adding shot to my leader with some marginal success. I definitely gotta work on it more to get it dialed in.

 

[SBecker]

No tungsten needed when fishing for snakeheads and bowfin.

No skill needed either

 

[Fredrick]

No skill needed e

You use bobbers

 

[Tigereye]

Drop shot time. Unless you are a competitive angler where you can't add weight to the line, dropshotting with a sinker as your " anchor fly" and brass or unbeaded fly is just as if not more effective method. Plus you dont lose as many flies. Just the sinker

 

[SBecker]

View attachment 1641251036

You use bobbers

You know dang well, I don't use bobbers. lol

 

[Kms]

Lock your tungsten Beads in a safe with your treasured jewelry. A twenty pack of beads have gone from $9 to over $22 in the past week and the cost if forecast to go higher in the near future.

What size? Still cheap on Aliexpress.

 

[jifigz]

Honestly, I don't much care about tungsten. Yes, I have it and use it, but I am fine with using split shot, which is still pretty damn cheap.

 

[Fredrick]

What size? Still cheap on Aliexpress.

China is the biggest miner of tungsten probably cutting out the middleman buying off AliExpress

 

[PennKev]

China is the biggest miner of tungsten probably cutting out the middleman buying off AliExpress

Exactly. And most, if not all, tungsten beads are coming from the exact same source.

When tiers buy a "name brand" they are paying the cost of the beads going through one or more intermediaries. A pack of beads that is $7 on AE or Amazon suddenly becomes $14 when purchased from conventional retailers. It's going to be interesting to see how retailers respond since they won't be able to come close to matching those lowers retail prices when ordering beads through domestic distributors like Hare Line or Wapsi.

With that said the pricing structure is still changing to reflect how much metal is being used in a given size of beads, even from the "cheap" sources. It's no longer one price for all sizes. A pack of 3mm beads, for example, is much less expensive than a 4mm. Prices skyrocket for sizes over 4mm.

 

[nfrechet]

B

Post in thread 'The rumors are verified'

May 15, 2026

I saw a popup on facebook for this Funky P pattern that looked cool. I click on it and come to find out the company wants 5 bucks a piece for said flies because they have tungsten beads on them. Cool looking fly but not that cool. I've never tied a fly in my life, that was the 1st time i started to consider it

• bringthepain

 

[Nocktavius]

Sounds like the push we needed to finally kill off mono rigs and euro nymphing and bring back casting a real fly line

 

[poopdeck]

Tungsten beads are right up there with UV glue on my worthless scale. I bought some once when they were only expensive and not stupid expensive like they are now. I just didn’t see the value when brass beads, lead wraps and split shot work really well already. I’m never looking to increase the cost of fishing. I’ve always tried to keep costs low and at this point in my life fishing is almost a zero sum game. I strive to keep it that way.

 

[RichFishbelt]

What size? Still cheap on Aliexpress.

The example given were 3.3 or 4mm.

 

[Kms]

These are decent. Price went up, but still not expensive.

 

[Tull66]

Exactly. And most, if not all, tungsten beads are coming from the exact same source.

When tiers buy a "name brand" they are paying the cost of the beads going through one or more intermediaries. A pack of beads that is $7 on AE or Amazon suddenly becomes $14 when purchased from conventional retailers. It's going to be interesting to see how retailers respond since they won't be able to come close to matching those lowers retail prices when ordering beads through domestic distributors like Hare Line or Wapsi.

With that said the pricing structure is still changing to reflect how much metal is being used in a given size of beads, even from the "cheap" sources. It's no longer one price for all sizes. A pack of 3mm beads, for example, is much less expensive than a 4mm. Prices skyrocket for sizes over 4mm.

I thought we were supposed to support our overpriced fly shops.

 

[FollowTheBlueLines]

My wife was putting a TEMU order together the other week and I asked her to search slotted tungsten beads for sheetz & giggles. I found and ordered a 25 pack of 3.5mm for like 7 bucks. They just arrived the other day, and the holes are very tiny, I was just barely able to get it onto a size 14 wide gap, but they work!