After watching a buddy out ice fishing slam some panfish on the
VMC Fly Jig and i struggled, i started buying a few different beads and now have a selection of the brass cyclops beads that i use for this same purpose. The 'fly fishing' jig hooks you can buy like shown in your picture (no barb) are very pricey. I have been using some simple Mustad jig hooks and also using Mustad 3366 sproat hooks and bending the eye up. Depending on the size of the hole in the beads, you may have to slightly bend out the hooks anyway to get the bead around the bend. On some of the jig hooks, i bent the eye out towards 60° so the bead would slide up over the eye leg and the the bead rests right up against the hook eye. Careful bending the lighter wire Mustad jig hooks too much though, their strength might get compromised. The 3366 sproat hooks are much heavier and those i bend up probably close to a 45° bend. I just bought a few different sizes of the cyclops beads and then started seeing which ones fit on the various jig/fly hooks i already had.
My knock-off of the VMC Fly Jig already saved the day for me on a trip a few weeks back. Could not get bit on traditional larger kip jigs (even tipped with wax worms) and tried a #10 version of my VMC knock-off. They must have liked the down-sized option. Ended up bringing home a few bluegill for a snack at least. I will post some pics up soon of the beaded jigs i have been tying.
