Silk

[Traditionalist]

At one time it was more or less the only thread available. Traditionally used for a large number of spiders and wet flies. It comes in a large range of diameters and types which are all dependent on how the natural silk from the silkworm is treated. More or less "standard" threads are Pearsall´s "Naples" silk, which is about 3/0 and Pearsall´s "Gossamer" silk, which is about 6/0. It is not as strong as many modern synthetic threads, and frays easily. It also tends to collect dirt, soak up oils from the fingers when dressing the flies, and also from other sources. Once the silk bodies of some flies have oil on them they are very difficult to sink. Many salmon fly dressers use fine Chinese embroidery silk for bodies etc.

Available as "floss" either single or multi-stranded, which is made up of many very fine silk strands, this may be easily chopped and blended, and makes an excellent dubbing, either by itself, or combined with other materials.

Pure silk was used by practically all the old dressers, and many used skeins of silkworm gut and similar stuff like horsehair as well. Although this was mainly used as tippet and leader material, some used it for dressing flies.



The numbers correspond to the original numbers for "Pearsalls" "Gossamer" silk which may still be obtained from dressing suppliers, although some of the original numbers of silk are no longer readily obtainable. For the now unobtainable Pearsall´s 6A quoted in many old patterns, Gutermann pure silk Nr. 351 is the best substitute I have found. ( Please see "Observations" below) The colours shown in the table are the silk shades from "Brook and River Trouting"

Any silk of the right colour and type will do, as it has the same properties. Some silk threads are thicker than others.

It should be remembered that this is only intended as a guide, as indeed all the illustrations in these articles are.While these are as accurate as possible, it is a considerable problem reproducing colours and shades accurately for electronic transmission, nearly every machine will display them differently. There is no real substitute for seeing the original colours and feathers.



When dressing the waxed silk flies the silk is in many cases waxed with transparent wax, pure beeswax is the best, and where it states that the silk should be "well waxed" then more wax should be applied to darken the shade more than an ordinary waxing would give. If synthetic threads are used, it should be remembered that the resulting shades may well be somewhat different from the original shades of the pure waxed silk. Various types of wax were used on flies for various reasons, in Scotland many dressers tend to use very dark waxes.

At the last count, I had 79 recipes for wax! There are doubtless also a great many more extant. Quite a few authors gave recipes for various waxes. Often simply "Cobbler´s Wax" is stated. There has been a very great deal of discussion and controversy over wax, how to make it, how to use it, or whether to use it at all.

One of the main reasons for using it on nearly all patterns, has now disappeared, as when one uses eyed hooks, one does not need to stick the gut to the hook and silk! For more info on this, see observations.

Many of the authors of older books gave recipes using pine resin, and pomatum. Pomatum is NOT hair gel or oil, as stated in a number of dictionaries, it is tallow. Tallow is rendered animal fat, either from mutton, beef, or other bovines, ( fat from pigs is called "lard"), and was used for making candles among other things. You may simply substitute ordinary white candle wax ( paraffin wax) for this.

Unfortunately, matching exact shades is a common problem with many of the older patterns. Pearsalls no longer manufactures these colours, in fact they have not done so for quite some considerable time . Pure orange, dyed, but otherwise untreated silk when wet, turns a dark mahogany colour, which might also be described as "chestnut", ( this is to some extent dependent on the original shade of orange, and the dye used). The best floss silk for this purpose generally available at this time, is embroidery silk, available from most sewing shops, it must be pure silk, and it must be dyed colour fast, but not "too much so". Japanese or Chinese embroidery silk is the best I have found, but this is not always easily available. There are quite a number of silk manufacturers still, and I don´t have info on all of them.

Many of the silks used also faded noticeably quite quickly. Especially in acidic peaty water where these flies were often fished. Unwaxed silk will also rot quite quickly if placed wet in the box after use.

You may have to try several shades of orange before you find the right one for your particular purpose, but the exact matching shade is not the point. The point is the effect of translucence, and the resulting colour change, even in the dark colours, which makes the fly far more attractive to the fish, the difference is remarkable. Most of the modern synthetics ( and dyes!!!, many modern dyes are too "dense" ), are more or less useless for this.

W.S. "Bill" Bailey very kindly sent me further info and pictures on this. I reproduce the pictures here with his kind permission and comments on substitutes.

Here is a picture of original 6a, current 6a and chestnut.



Here is another picture showing old 6a and new 6a next to Tire silk thread "Mustard". The Tire is a little browner than the new but paler than the old. The quality of Tire thread is probably equal to Pearsall's being that it is reeled not spun like Gutermann. Other Tire substitutes are

3  Champaign 203
4  Honeysuckle 29
6b Burnt Gold 8
10 Putty 25
11 Yellow Green 148

and a better 351 (no fuzz) 62 Calypso Orange. The reason for Pearsall's #3 Primrose is for Tire's buttonhole silk.



Thanks Bill! Very interesting indeed, and the first time I have seen good pictures of the original!

The silk sewing and embroidery thread offered by various companies also works perfectly well, if you choose the right colours, but is often too thick for small flies, and very difficult to split. Some of the old dressers used split floss, well waxed with resinous wax. They twisted it when they wanted it to "bite", and allowed it to flatten to reduce bulk etc. This is the same "thread control" which many modern dressers use, ( indeed it is essential to all!), but was far more difficult to accomplish without vices and bobbin holders. If you have ever tried to spin a piece of loose silk or similar which was hanging off a hook, then you will know what is meant!

A "partridge and orange" dressed with modern synthetic orange thread will usually catch plenty of fish, but it will not catch nearly as many as a correctly dressed fly used to imitate a needle fly, when these are hatching. This is quite simply a case of the fly being the wrong colour. It is essential to check the colour when wet. If you use a modern synthetic which approximates to the original "wet" colour, then you will also problably be more successful, especially if you are able to lend this the required translucence in some way, or if the material possesses this property intrinsically.

I have fished my patterns using the correct shade and translucence next to expert fishermen using the wrong shades, or with less or no translucence, and I have caught three fish to their one, changing over, i.e., me fishing the wrongly shaded patterns,( without translucence, as checks later confirmed ), resulted in exactly the reverse, this is not a coincidence, and may be repeated at will. I conducted a series of experiments with my brother, and other regular fishing companions, in this respect over several years, and the results were always the same, this was more or less irrespective of pattern by the way. The same goes for a lot of old patterns, which were already very old indeed when I learned them.

Patterns like the "Greenwell's glory" are also good examples of this. The correct shade ( there are olives with a thousand different shades, and matching them all would be an impossibility in any case), is less important than the effect of translucent olive, lent by the waxed thread. Primrose coloured thread, or indeed practically any yellow silk thread or floss, takes on an olive shade when waxed, and appears translucent. That is the whole point of the exercise . Greenwell´s glories dressed with unwaxed olive thread, may or may not be successful, but they will not be as successful as the original. As it happens, I usuaölly prefer dubbed bodies on my olives, and I usually use mixed hare fur, sometimes with olive seal or similar blended in, sometimes not.

The translucence is the real key, not the precise shade. The shade changes according to the way in which the fly is viewed, but the translucence remains. In some cases, when matching a particular hatch, the shade may be important, but this is quite rare in practice, at least I have found it so. The translucence is however, always important. The old time dressers went to very considerable trouble to obtain as exact a shade as possible for imitating a specific insect. This is also reflected in the great care taken when selecting hackles. Many modern day dressers consider this exaggerated, maintaining that exact shades are not important, and while in many cases this may even be true it is certainly not true of many Yorkshire wet flies.

If you wish a more accurate version of the original pattern, and at the same time a more effective one, and have no source for the correct silk, then I would suggest you use a white or yellow ( tending to orange ), thread body ( this may be any modern synthetic), and cover this with suitable dubbing. These patterns are more robust than the original silk body patterns, catch better, and are no more difficult to dress than the originals. This approximates far better to the original patterns ( of which I still have a few ), than any modern synthetics. Placing them in a glass of water will convince you of this.

These flies are usually jiggered after a few fish, the delicate hackles break off, although the flies may still be used with just a bare few strands, and still catch fish. Personally I am happy if a fly catches a few good fish, and am not too worried if it then disintegrates. They are quick and easy to dress.

The pure silk ( when you get it ), if used for many of these patterns should not always be waxed by the way, as this renders it more or less waterproof, at least for a while, and the translucent mahogany colour ( with the orange bodies ), then only becomes evident after some use, one reason why "well used" flies often tended to catch more fish, quite apart from the fact that the "ragged sparseness" so engendered is a far better imitation of a drowned and damaged fly than many "pristine perfect" versions.

Many patterns were indeed waxed however, ( see Pritt et al )for several reasons. First of all, when tying to eyeless hooks, the wax ( which was actually mostly resin) was required to prevent the gut slipping. Secondly, the wax helped the silk to hold up a bit longer, as it was subjected to the high acid content of many of the peaty streams the flies were used in. Thirdly , the wax was a vital component in some flies, also inducing the illusion of "translucence" which was considered all important by many of the old experts. Waxed silk flies appear translucent, but the shades are different when the silk is unwaxed. Waxing is not always appropriate, it depends on the insect to be imitated, and the materials in use.

Any good fly-dresser should be able to match not only the colour and shade of a fly, but also the translucence conferred upon it by the use of specific materials, and if necessary any other properties it may possess.

It is a severe problem that in the meantime many people slavishly follow recipes from books etc, which are actually often inaccurate, and this renders the flies they dress (often ! ) ineffective when compared to the originals. I have my doubts whether some of the authors concerned actually dressed and fished the flies they describe. Many apparently simply copied them from previous dressing lists, without any further thought or research. This is also common among modern authors it seems. Often the most important aspects of a particular material are not described, and substitutes simply do not work as well, as the specific material property is unknown. When fly dressings contain the instructions "well waxed", in regard to the silk, then you have basically two options, either the waxed shade as described by the author is the correct one, or he is inaccurate, and you must find out the correct shade for yourself.

In the case of Yorkshire patterns to imitate needle flies for instance, you may safely assume that waxing is not a good idea for most patterns, as nearly all the needle flies are dark coloured, a few of them , a peculiar "translucent mahogany" as it happens, when held up to the light, none of them are bright orange. Ergo, these patterns were not originally dressed with waxed orange silk, as this does not take on such a translucent mahogany shade when wet, and the old dressers were very well aware of the material properties, and the colours of the flies they wished to imitate using them.

It is a fortunate chance that many of these flies, even when dressed incorrectly, are nevertheless good imitations of all sorts of things, and still catch fish. When dressed and fished as originally intended however, at the correct times, to match a hatch, they are absolute killers, and the results often draw gasps of disbelief and wonderment from the uninitiated. Many of these flies are now used as "general" patterns, but they were all originally invented with great care to imitate specific insects. If you look at a "well used" correctly dressed "partridge and orange" when wet for instance, the silk has become ragged from the teeth of the trout, and the translucent mahogany/ dark or medium chestnut, coloured body ( immediately apparent when wet and held up to the light ), is surrounded by a "halo" of small fine "hairs" of ragged silk . The effect is very marked, and the effectiveness of the fly is increased at least tenfold, if not more. This effect may be "induced" by tying the silk body, and then using a small "brass" brush, ( used for cleaning suede shoes etc ) to "rough up" the silk before completing the fly. These flies are phenomenally ( and I do mean phenomenally !!! ), effective in comparison to "normal" patterns, under the appropriate conditions.

Some Scottish dressers still use very dark cobblers wax for waxing the silk on some patterns. This is usually a blend of pitch tar and resin, or often just the pitch itself. If you want something like this, then you may also use ordinary beeswax melted and mixed with fine soot.( Lampblack was the old word for soot!). You can produce very fine soot quite easily, just hold a plate over a candle, until enough soot is deposited, and then mix this with your wax.

Another method to more closely approximate the original patterns, is to use a modern thread ( I invariably use Danvilles pre waxed 6/0 as it happens, when I am not using silk, but I don't think this is particularly vital ) as near to the original (wet) shade as you can get, and to dub this extremely finely using the "touch dub " method. This involves cutting the fine textured dubbing ( I use fine white hare fur, or hare/rabbit mix, dyed to the appropriate colour,with mole or maybe other soft furs to obtain the texture and shade desired, also chopped silk ) very fine indeed, put it through a blender, ( this makes the fibres much "crinklier" softer and finer) use a water soluble "paper glue stick" such as "Pritt" or similar, to "wax" the thread, and then just "touch" a small bunch of the fur to the glued thread, do not spin it or touch it with your fingers after applying it. I have heard in the meantime, that Gary LaFontaine uses a similar method on some of his flies, but this method is otherwise largely unknown, the idea is to get a very small but regular amount of dubbing on the thread. This üroduces a very fine translucent body-

Another method is to use two strands of identical thread, dub one of these finely, and wind them up the body parallel . This also simulates the segmentation of many insects very realistically. Wind this on, and complete the fly normally.  If you view the result in a glass of water, you will see that the small slim body ( typical of Yorkshire wets, but an excellent idea for many other flies as well ) is maintained, but the body is surrounded by a fine barely visible halo of fine hairs, which move and vibrate at the slightest swirl of water. Just stir the water in the glass lightly with your finger, while holding the fly stationary, you will see what is meant immediately.

For me this is not an esoteric subject at all, I consider it one of the most important aspects of fly-fishing, and perhaps the most rewarding. Even comparatively minute differences in fly design may be of paramount importance in fly-fishing, much more so than the equipment used to deliver the results to the fish. After you have reached a modicum of skill and competence with whatever equipment takes your fancy, then your only other option is to concentrate on your offerings to the fish. I continue to be amazed and disappointed by the number of people who think equipment is everything and flies as some sort of necessary evil. Or at best of secondary importance.

In my opinion, the fly and the hook it is dressed upon are the most important piece of the whole set-up, everything else is secondary. The prime aim is to fool the fish. A bamboo rod for a couple of thousand dollars will not do this, but a cheap bit of steel wrapped correctly with a bit of thread and a few bits of feather and fur, used correctly, will. I hasten to add that I have nothing at all against good equipment, quite the contrary, but a little more thought will catch far more fish than a new rod.

Some of the commercial patterns on offer today, are doubtless very nice examples of practice and handiwork, but they have little in common with the deadly patterns of the old masters they purport to emulate. I am aware of the theory, and indeed I subscribe to it, that a good fly angler will catch fish more or less irrespective of what equipment or flies he uses, but imagine that angler equipped with more or less perfect equipment, perfect technique, and more or less perfect flies !  This is probably not attainable, but the road thereto is fascinating and rewarding. Probably just as well that nobody lives long enough to find out if it is possible !

I have never heard of the colour "Classic chestnut" in any of the older patterns, and I assume it is a modern description for a silk colour. I know this colour is offered by at least one trader, but I have no idea what one might use it for. The chestnut colour of a partridge and orange, is a result of the orange silk darkening in water.

[Traditionalist]

Buttonhole twist is twisted silk thread, mainly used in the past for sewing the edges of buttonholes.One can split it, and use single strands for various flydressing operations. Notably bodies. But it is not really suitable for this. It was traditionally twisted from "second quality" silk. One can use floss for wet-fly bodies, and this often ends up a mess, even after only a couple of fish. This does not appreciably affect its catching qualities, indeed the reverse is the case. But many anglers don't like this. Trout have very sharp teeth, even the small ones. This is one reason why thread is better. This will fray too, but amazingly enough, some of the frayed flies catch a lot better than the original smooth ones. Although practically everybody knows this, or has at least heard of it, hardly anybody dresses flies which look like this to start with. There is no rational reason why this should be so, but it is so.

Buttonhole twist is still sold, and one may obtain it from various sewing shops. The main thing here, is that it is still pure silk, and has some properties which many modern threads do not have. It is not "magic" however, and just because you use it, does not mean that you will immediately catch large bag-fulls of fish. The same applies to "Berlin" wool, Chadwick's 477 sock darning yarn, urine stained tup's wool, elephant's snout hairs, blue dun hair from specific areas of Andalusian virgins, and a host of other things. This is most unfortunate I agree.

In the absence of magic, you are obliged to learn a few things in regard to materials and their use, and even spend some time on the water discovering what the fish think.