Making Mono Eyes for Crab and Shrimp Flies

Making Mono Eyes for Crab and Shrimp Flies

       Crab Eyes. Do they make a difference in the fly for this fish? Who knows, but I know they look good and I know I always hated paying 5-10 bucks for a dozen 2” long pieces of monofilament.  As it turns out… they are really simple to make, and in the long run you can save a ton of money depending on how many crab flies you tie!

Materials Needed:

• 40 pound test Monofilament
• Red Nail Polish (or whatever color you wish the base color of your eyes to be)
• Black Nail Polish
• Hard as Nails (Clear Nail Polish)
• Clear Cure Goo Thin or Loon UV cure Epoxy
• UV Curing Light

Step 1:

Cut your 40 pound monofilament into a bunch of 2-2.5” pieces.

Step 2:

Place a small amount of your UV cure epoxy onto a sticky note or a piece of paper of some kind (just so it doesn’t get all over everything)

Step 3:

Dip the tip of your monofilament into the Epoxy and allow it to begin to drip off of the end of the mono.  Right as it is about to drip, light it up with your UV light and it will harden up and form a solid ball on the end of the mono.

Step 4:

Take your red fingernail polish (or whatever color you chose) and brush the epoxy ball until it is fully covered in the color.  Be sure to try and keep the polish only on the ball of epoxy and not down the mono. Let it dry.

Step 5:

Take your black fingernail polish and just barely brush the tip of the colored ball, making pseudo pupil  just to contrast against the other color. Let it dry.

Step 6:

Take your clear nail polish and brush over the entire epoxy ball.  This serves as the seal and keeps the colors from scrapping off and also removes any excess tackiness from the epoxy. It may help to do 2 coats just to make sure, but I usually don’t. It also gives the eyes a nice shine.

       And that’s it!  You can make up a bunch of these at a time and it actually helps to do each step with multiple different pieces instead of only making one at a time. That way you can make hundreds of these things in about 30 minutes! Quick, Easy and they come out looking just as good if not better than the production ones you buy.  Also you can choose the colors! I like the red/black, chartreuse/black, pink/black and orange/black.

Tight Lines,

Grant Alvis