The purpose of fishing -- not to mention its joy -- is wrapped up in catching fish. Even the holiest of fly anglers in the hair-jacket crowd recognize this, but they just can't seem to countenance the idea that what holds for them should apply to the great unwashed masses as well.

They rebel at the idea that by fishing beads -- which are no more than simple, plastic imitations of salmon eggs -- the unchristened might experience the joy of regularly catching fish, particularly rainbow trout. All of which is only made worse by the fact beads can be fished successfully by any half-wit who can figure out how to cast a spinning rod.

This does not sit well among those with a deep emotional investment in the intricate and arcane business of learning to cast a fly. They believe that everyone should spend years in a difficult and frustrating apprenticeship for the piscean priesthood before being allowed to worship at the altar of the esteemed rainbow, or even the lesser Dolly Varden char.

To paraphrase "The Soup Nazi'' from the sitcom "Seinfeld": "No fish for you!"

What a pile of dung.

Before we get into this further, however, let's get a couple of things straight:

• Number 1: I don't fish with beads and never have. If you know what you're doing, fishing in Alaska is easy enough without them.

• Number 2: Where the argument against beads is made in the interest of protecting heavily exploited stocks from overfishing, I'm all for a ban. If fisheries must be restricted to prevent overfishing, I'm in favor of all sorts of limitations: Bans on bait, treble hooks, barbed hooks, lead, weighted lines, beads, boats, motors, guides and more.

Where the issue is conservation, I'll support closing fisheries if necessary, even if that denies fishing opportunities to the purest, fish-sparingest, holiest catch-and-release fly angler.

Despite the belief of various animal-rights groups that these sometimes holier-than-thou, catch-and-release purists are the worst of fish abusers, I've found them to be just about the opposite. As a group, they have a commendable sense of ethics. Most embrace fishing as a challenge wherein the quarry should be given significant advantages from the start.

I understand this. It is why I turned to fly-fishing almost exclusively years ago. It put the challenge back into an activity that had gone somewhat stale in Alaska, a place where if the fishing is good, it can be ridiculously good.

Many people reading this might have experienced such fishing. Others, no doubt, have been exposed to it by egomaniac outdoor writers prone to prattle on about how many fish they caught in a day. Some of these guys (why are there never any women bragging like this?) must actually think this makes them out to be some sort of superanglers. The truth, however, is that once the catch climbs above a half-dozen per day in Alaska, the story isn't about the angler at all; it's about the plenitude of cooperative fish.

Were the fish always plentiful and cooperative, of course, there would be no need for beads.

But they're not, at least for the angler of limited skill.

Properly presenting a Glo-bug, an imitation of a salmon egg tied up in yarn, with a fly rod in the fast current of the Kenai River is a challenge most beginners can't handle. There is a tendency to allow the fast-flowing river to put a big bend in the belly of the fly line which, in turn, pulls the Glo-bug up off the bottom and sends it flying high above the head of any egg-hungry rainbow.

This is not as big a problem when fishing a bead, which sinks better and faster than a Glo-bug, on a spinning rod and reel, which spools thin monofilament line less affected by the current's pull.

In fact, the bead-and-spinning-rod combination works so well it can often be fished without really fishing. A good drift boat guide can maneuver his boat so as to "fish'' the river with beads while his passengers perform the functions of rod holders.

This isn't my kind of fishing; it's way too passive. But I don't mind seeing other people catch fish this way. I like to see people having fun. I like to see people happy.

Others apparently don't. Some may just be grumpy. Others have a motive. Their thinking goes like this:

If people can't catch fish, they'll stop fishing. If the people stop fishing, the guide businesses in places like Cooper Landing will have to shut down. And if the casual fishermen give up, and the guide businesses shut down, I'll have the river all to myself like it was in the good old days.

Ah, the good old days, when Alaska anglers could be accidentally selfish. Now, it would seem, they have to share, and some don't like it.

"No fish for you!"

Daily News Outdoor editor Craig Medred can be reached at cmedred@adn.com.