Those of us who tie flies, especially those who tie soft-hackles and spiders know that a famous maker of fly tying silk which is used in the construction of so many of the soft-hackles and spiders. The Pearsall Gossemer silk is no longer on the market. The availability of some odd colors and from sources such as estate sales and ebay are pretty much the only places to get Pearsall's. A couple of years ago I was made aware of another company offering a silk thread. The company name is YLI. Since I first learned of YLI's offering's I have purchased several colors and have tied many flies using it. It offers the same quality as Pearsall's, and it holds what I consider to be most important factor in silk thread it's true color when wet. Above is a spool of YLI olive thread. Olive is one of my staples and many of my flies use olive silk as a body.
Here is a spool of Pearsall's silk thread. It is a chestnut brown and one of my favorite colors for soft-hackles and spiders.
I have several flies tied with both YLI and Pearsall's. Using thread bodies and both grouse and woodcock feathers for hackle. The first is a Woodcock and Olive.
This one is a Grouse and Olive
This one is a Woodcock and Chestnut
And this one is a Grouse and Chestnut. Now you can see the colors of both silks as they are dry. The test taken was to show what they look like when wet. You will see that they hold their color. Some threads will darken when wet and that's OK in some cases. But I prefer they stay true.
Woodcock and Chestnut, wet.
Grouse and Olive wet.
Does all this color make a difference to the fish, I would say it does.
