What start bead?? I always let the float come down to a swivel. You have to adjust your stop bead sos that you are just tipping down at the tailout of the hole. Or on a uniform riffle keep going deeper until you start dragging bottom where the float tips down or sinks. Then come up about 6 inches. After you get onto it you'll do better adjusting your depth twice or sometimes more as you fish down a deep hole. May be easier learning standard drift technique to start. Floats are kinda tricky to get onto.
Good luck and I hope you stick with it. Took me over a year on my own trying different stuff to hook my first steelie and never got much good at it until I fished with some pros and picked up some important tips.