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My last boat trip of 2015. Nice day on the water.

Matt-

nice fish! I'm willing to bet you hooked them on the ubiquitous Clouser Minnow, too!

Roguerat

Yep, and my best producer too, blue over white with lots of silver flash in the middle.

Nice fishies and nice flies too, Matt! Do the red pupils work better or about the same?

Jonathon

No, the color of the pupils does not seem to have any bearing on catching more than another color.

I like the red/black in this style. You can't see from the picture but this eye is cast from aluminum or some other light metal and the pupil/iris are molded into a cavity on either side of the body. I don't think these are being made any longer.

They were sold in three sizes; small, the size on these flies, and a really big one. They came in red/black and yellow/black. Back when I had lots of disposable income I bought a couple of dozen of each size. I still have about a dozen of the medium and large but no small. But I have hundreds of Clousers already tied and many have this style eye. So I should have enough for the rest of my life.

Nice Matt, smallies are awesome, and beautiful fish. Love those rods and reels, what wt. line? Sinking or floating? Thanks, Mike.

Mike,

Thanks, Both rods are Gatti's (Italian) The upper rod is a 9' #7 factory rod and the lower rod is a 9' #8 that I built from a blank. I'm using a WF#6 floating line on it. Sometimes when I'm fishing water that is a constant 5' - 8' deep I d prefer a streamer sink tip. I catch far more fish with the sinking tip in constant deeper water than with a floater.

The only reason I was using the WF#6 on the #8 rod was because I was lazy. I have a couple dozen rods but only so many reels with #7 or #8 lines. I would of preferred to use a #7 on the #8 rod. I throw a lot of line with the Clouser, 50' - 60' over and over. I can carry the #7 line a lot better than the #8 with those big flies.

I had the Battenkill larger arbor reel with a WF#7 on one of my 9' #7 steelhead rods and it was all rigged up with an indicator, micro swivel, tippet, split shot and little #10 emerald shiner. I didn't want to tear it down for just an afternoon of bass fishing so I took the easy way out with a #6 on the #8 rod.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/fishing/fly-fishing/fly-tying/thread-beads-eyes%7C/pc/104793480/c/104721480/sc/104340780/i/103886280/real-eyes-8482-plus/744069.uts?destination=%2Fcatalog%2Fbrowse%2Fthread-beads-eyes%2F_%2FN-1100440%2B4294387204%2FNe-4294387204%2FNs-CATEGORY_SEQ_103886280%3FWTz_st%3DGuidedNav%26WTz_stype%3DGNU

Matt, something like these? I like them for my KBFs (Comets) and occasionally on Woolly Buggers. And of course for Clousers...

Jonathon