Eyes or not ?? How to make your own,

[tamiron]

Someone mentioned how effective eyes seem to be on the spoon as compared to the same spoon without eyes. I really believe that it is an individual choice – at least to some extent. Many, many times in my fishing life I have been a witness to what a difference a little dot can make. For that reason, many of our honeybees come with tape eyes on them. However, on almost any spoon the first thing to go is a taped eye.
I hand make each of the eyes that are put on the honeybees. I have different tools that I have used from time to time. The leather punch with multiple heads is where I started. While they did a good job, it was difficult to punch enough of them ahead to simplify the process and they always seem to get stuck in one of the heads. First I made a tool from an old paperclip to clean out the heads. But sometimes I ruined more than I collected.
For that reason, I started using McGill paper punches. They had that little attachment to the punch made of plastic that holds the eyes as you punch them and that is what I have settled on now. I have five punches going from 1/16 of an inch up to 5/16 of an inch. I try to make the outside of the eye 1/8 of an inch bigger than the inside of the eye. Why - because it looks good! I’m not sure that there are any hard and fast rules when it comes to making these eyes. I do know, for myself, I tried to make the outside of the eye either white, UV white, or glow-in-the-dark. The standard for years (outside) has also included Fl. Yellow & Fl. Orange. The inside of the eye is either black, radiant black, or florescent blue. Why fluorescent blue? Put your UV flashlight on it to answer the question. McGill punches come from China but I appreciate their quality. That is why we have them for sale on our website as well. The only thing we don’t sell is the glow tape.