“The Eyes Have It”

Dr. Magill

Dr. Magill

Life of the Party
I’ve been really interested in eyes on flies as former members called it but how about a discussion on purpose, value, ease of tying or not.
I’ll start with non weighted eyes. More like the flat and doll type.
ABD9C6F1-1D30-40D7-B589-B2B2883D39CE.jpeg
I’ve been screwing around with this with a certain amount of frustration.
These I would say are my top
 
I use Tear Mender on large patterns with stacked dubbing heads and such. Took me a bit to get a feel for working with it, but once I got the hang of it it definitely works quite well.
 
Tear mender is interesting stuff. I started using it to flatten out just the very tip of the head and attaching the eyes once it cured a bit. I’ll need to see how these flies swim
 
I know there is a debate about whether eyes are really needed on a fly head. I don’t know but I like how they enhance the look of the fly in my eye.
I know the lead pupil eyes add a lot other than just looks.
 
I have used tear mender but only on things like double bunnies and when I need to glue 2 things together and keep the flexibility.

For eyes I typically use loctite gel but I’ll typically coat either the head or even just on the front side of the eye with some UV or I’ve been really liking liquid fusion.

Ever mess with liquid fusion? The liquid fusion is a little more runny than typical uv and you can’t ‘lock’ it into place like the uv but if I’m just going for protection on the eye I like it. Put it on, rotate the fly a few times in the vise and then hang off to the side til it dries. For the head you have there it seem like you’ve got the bulk built in with material so liquid fusion would work well. I also like that it’s flexible and not at brittle as uv.
 
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Dr. Magill said:
I know there is a debate about whether eyes are really needed on a fly head. I don’t know but I like how they enhance the look of the fly in my eye.
I know the lead pupil eyes add a lot other than just looks.
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I don’t know if eyes are needed on a fly but wether you think they should be on a fly or you don’t think they should be… you’re right. I’m a firm believer in confidence in a pattern and whatever gets you there is good. Those flies you made look good with the eyes so I like em. But wouldn’t throw em out without eyes.
 
Tying a couple of larger smallie patterns this morning and as far as getting the eyes to hold well, nayat isn't the best head material (especially compared with the titan dubbing)....I managed to get them on the outside, but they're not bonded to the stuff underneath so we'll see how long they last. The nayat head on the other hand looks amazing. Personally, I haven't noticed a difference between (with musky and smallie stuff anyway where I have a pretty decent sample size of both) eyes vs no eyes.

The one thing I do try to do while adding eyes is adding them in a way that won't effect the action I'm shooting for (comes into play more with my musky and smallie patterns than trout patterns).
 
Dr. Magill said:
I’ve always wanted to up my lead eye game surrounded by either deer hair, sculpin hair, and any other head material.
Today’s practice session:
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Those look great.
I’ve had a lot of issues with lead eyes in the past. They seem to hate me!
Mainly caused by beach fishing though, where they tend to break if they get dinged on the beach on your backcast. Never had a problem with them out of a boat or toon.
After a number of one eyed or no eyes clousers, I went to brass eyes and never looked back.
I really like Pseudo Eyes or Real Eyes Plus.
SF
 
I played around with Tear Mender on some jerkbait patterns this weekend. It lets you adjust the eyes and get them just right before messing with epoxy. It also allows you to really saturate the material so you don't have to use as much epoxy on the final coat.
The head on this fly is mountain goat hair my dad picked up while hiking a few years back. I didn’t have any long dubbing to use and it’s a little sparser than I wanted. I didn’t get carried away with the glue on this one and the Tear Mender is pretty much all under the eyes. 59DA3FF6-B349-4E49-BB58-E8EEE93E66DA.jpeg88E643E8-3A94-4DDE-8003-E5EEB2663D97.jpeg
 
Dr. Magill said:
I’ve been really interested in eyes on flies as former members called it but how about a discussion on purpose, value, ease of tying or not.
I’ll start with non weighted eyes. More like the flat and doll type.
View attachment 6709
I’ve been screwing around with this with a certain amount of frustration.
These I would say are my top
Click to expand...
What’s your preference on eye color? I’ve read opinions that red eyes imitate blood in the eyes of wounded bait fish and improve the chances of a bite. Others prefer yellow. I like eyes on a streamer and think it looks more realistic.
 
I found for me the biggest key for working with Tear Mender is not to get any on my fingers while getting the eyes set. As soon as I do things get messy very quickly.

For eye color it doesn't matter to me as long as it's red or yellow :)

I have never seen anything to convince me that eye color matters. Hell I've never seen anything to convince me actually having eyes is important, at least for the fishing I do. Still, I like eyes and they give me confidence, and that's probably all that matters.
 
Cowlitz Bottomfeeder said:
What’s your preference on eye color? I’ve read opinions that red eyes imitate blood in the eyes tof wounded bait fish and improve the chances of a bite. Others prefer yellow. I like eyes on a streamer and think it looks more realistic.
Click to expand...
Can’t say that I have enough test results to comment
 
Nick Clayton said:
I found for me the biggest key for working with Tear Mender is not to get any on my fingers while getting the eyes set. As soon as I do things get messy very quickly.

For eye color it doesn't matter to me as long as it's red or yellow :)

I have never seen anything to convince me that eye color matters. Hell I've never seen anything to convince me actually having eyes is important, at least for the fishing I do. Still, I like eyes and they give me confidence, and that's probably all that matters.
Click to expand...
Two words-
Wax pencil
Nothing sticks to it except those eyes as you set them
Done 😀
 
I think details like realistic eyes are more important in crystal clear saltwater; much less so in the somewhat colored water we fish mostly around here. But yeah... well-made eyes are a "touch of class," no matter where you're fishing, and anything that gives the angler confidence in the fly is a good thing.
 
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