Teddy bear eyes

If your a stickler for adding eyes to your creations then why not try plastic or even glass teddy bear eyes. Here are some sites you can mooch around on. Bearycheap.com , Christie bears ltd , Glass eyes online , Labour of love

Eyes

Richard over at "Custom pike/saltwater flies" kindly sent me a large batch of assorted eyes a couple of months ago which I have been meaning to mention but I've been so bloody busy I haven'y had much time to saught them out let alone photograph. Anyway I managed a few hours this weekend to do just that. I have 15 sets of different coloured eyes in a variety of sizes which I will be selling in my Balticpikeflies.com shop in the coming days. The great thing about this offer is each bag will have 4 eyes from each batch giving you the option of being able to match the eyes to the colour of fly you have tied. Bags will cost €3,80 and will be on a 1st come 1st serve basis.....well until I aquire another batch from him.

Green 5mm

Red/silver 5mm

Red/Orange oval

Green long

Green/silver 10mm

Yellow/silver 15mm

Red long

Red/silver oval

Orange long

Translucent blue/green 10mm

Orange/white 10mm

pink/silver 8mm

pink/silver 5mm

Richard also sent me some samples of some new truly realistic eyes in 5,8 & 10 mm diameters in a range od colours from gold,green and reddish. I have to say that these are probably the most realistic eyes you will ever come across. If you want some then drop Richard a line over at his blog.



He also has some fantastic fly tying equipment on offer ie: scissors and some wonderful bucktail stackers as well. It might take me a while before I manage to upload all these eyes into the shop so if your interested then drop me a line or get hold of Richard as well.

Eyes on flies

If you want my opinion, I don’t think sticking a pair of eyes on a pike fly helps in anyway in improving your chances when trying to entice a pike into taking your fly. Yes they may look esthetically pleasing on the eye for a human and might give you peace of mind in giving it that authentic fish pattern look but on a whole I truly believe eyes on a fly are a waist of time. This I might add though is opposite when tying in or sticking on eyes for saltwater flies, purely because I feel saltwater species aren’t as easily fooled due to the clearer water conditions you are fishing in. At first I only bought flies with eyes on them, and then moved on to tying them with eyes, but it didn’t take me long before I realized that they just don’t last long enough before they get ripped of under the constant thrashing a pike undertakes once it realizes its hooked. .…….. that’s unless you place them under a resin coating off course!

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that I have actually caught more pike on the flies that no longer have eyes on the sides of them or have never had eyes, than when they did. Not only that, but I just feel I could spend my money more wisely than on a packet of eyes. 80% of all the creations you tie anyway, look nothing like a fish, especially if you have mixed an assortment of bright and gaudy colours along the shaft of the hook. Yes some eyes on the market seem to slightly rattle once shaken, but It’s the volume of the materials you have tied on to the hook that pulsates during the retrieval of that fly that attracts the pike to it. These pulsations and waves have a far greater effect on a pikes sensors than any faint rattle given of by some small plastic imitation eyes. These are only observations I have come across over the last ten years, and I’m not suggesting you stop placing eyes on your flies, but why not try tying up some that would normally have eyes without, and find out for yourself that the money you spend on them could probably be put to better use…..like another bobbin of cotton!