Ephemera and Semperfli silk threads

[Solitaryflyguy]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone !
Ron and Hankaye,
Thanks for the warm, generous welcome and tips ! With a long weekend off in front of me, I seized the opportunity and went down the rabbit hole last night searching through quite a few conversations and observations of Pearsall subs both on the forum and the internet. The responses were varied and after quite some time reading, a consensus started to emerge. What I found noteworthy was several interesting articles about Morus silks taking over the Pearsall line and stating they are the direct replacement of it. I also found an article from Grays Sporting Journal making note that Dave Hughes also uses it as a sub. I will investigate that further and likely obtain a few spools of it next week for a test run.

Ron,
Rather than risking a friendship or reputation for blatantly stealing a pattern I would happily give freely, it is as follows:
Hook: Daiichi 1150 # 14 or 16
Butt: Veevus 14/0 bright orange thread hot spot built up to match wire diameter
Body: UTC sculpin olive wire “small” reverse wound tightly from head to butt and open ribbed back up
Thorax : Mink underfur dubbing mixed with UV pearl ice dub in small composite loop or split thread
(tiers choice)
Hackle : Partridge 1 to 2 turns, I prefer them sparse
Thread : Black, tied in after wire attached to hook

[Solitaryflyguy]

ronr,
Thank you for the kind words, welcome and thoughts !

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Ron,
Rather than risking a friendship or reputation for blatantly stealing a pattern I would happily give freely, it is as follows:
Hook: Daiichi 1150 # 14 or 16
Butt: Veevus 14/0 bright orange thread hot spot built up to match wire diameter
Body: UTC sculpin olive wire “small” reverse wound tightly from head to butt and open ribbed back up
Thorax : Mink underfur dubbing mixed with UV pearl ice dub in small composite loop or split thread
(tiers choice)
Hackle : Partridge 1 to 2 turns, I prefer them sparse
Thread : Black, tied in after wire attached to hook

Thank you sir. I'll probably have to wait for ice out to test the fly, but I will render a report.

[Solitaryflyguy]

I look forward to it !
May it bring you good fortune

[Fishnkilts]

That's a great looking fly. The body is sexy.

Welcome to the forum and keep the flies coming.

[DUBBN]

I tied something similar to the photo in the initial post. Its a variant as I am not good at gathering all the materials.

It did well yesterday in some very cold water.

[Old Hat]

First off, welcome to the forum Bob.

I'll give a few brief personal perspectives on each silk thread type commonly available. I have used all of them.

Pearsall's is the gold standard of traditional wet fly tying and tradition plays a big role for many of us. A lot of us still have quite a bit of Pearsall's around. It is rather small in diameter, has a great sheen and ties, well, smooth as silk as they say. Of course it has all the traditional color options and many of the classic patterns we like to tie are bound to those options. We have grown to love Pearsall's colors, because we have been trained to through years of tying the classics. The issue is Pearsall's is not longer made. The discontinuation was like pulling the binky out of the classic wet fly tiers mouth. Now what do we do? We find a substitute and maybe that means trying real food options. When we start looking at options, the first issue is matching colors. God forbid if we don't use the same colors even though most of us of us realize that even Pearsall's dying colors changed slightly throughout their production run. Nest, we want something that is of smaller diameter since many of the traditional patterns were in the #14-#18 range. Pearsall's smoothness and sheen makes it a joy to tie with. But, realize, this attribute is more about our pleasure in tying than catching fish. Nearly all quality silk has a sheen. Not all has the smoothness of Pearsall's.

Morus Silk. You won't find a better direct substitute for Pearsall's. Morus took over Langley which took over Pearsall's superfine production. I think Morus does a better job than Langley did with matching dye colors. It is basically Pearsall's in packaging, size, color and tying. Morus has all the traditional look and feel of Pearsall's. Traditional is wonderful, but doesn't mean the best option. Morus likes their silk as well. It is expensive for what you get. From Gunpowder Tackle a spool of 50 meters is $8.25. For the traditionalist, just remember, it is not Pearsall's, it is not traditional, it is still a substitute like all the others.

YLI 100 Silk. YLi became popular as a substitute for Pearsall's right after Pearsall's discontinued making the superfine gossamer silk. This was before Morus took over Langley. Everyone was looking for a substitiute. YLI 100 is a good tying silk. Fairly smooth, not quite as smooth as Pearsall's. Has a few decent color matches. Sheen is a little more on the dull side compared to Pearsall's. It is a little larger in tying diameter than Pearsall's but not by much. 200 meter spool runs about $7.00.

Ephemera by 54 Dean Street. This was another fairly quick substitute out of the block when Peasall's discontinued. Ephemera is a good tying silk however it is probably the furtherest away from a Pearsall's substitute of all the popular tying silks. It is noticeably of larger diameter. It has a much rougher surface than the others. The sheen is high but because of its lack of smoothness it appears more dull. Don't take these attributes as negatives as a tying thread. When wet it has a stand alone appearance of an almost touched dubbed wrapping and creates a very nice segmentation and halo over the thread bodied fly. Its roughness is also apparent in the distinct darker color change when wet. The traditional colors are there but not the greatest matches. As a stand alone silk thread for spiders it is really nice, as a Pearsall's substitute, the furthest from the bunch. A 100 meter spool retails for about $5.50.

Semperfli Pure Silk. Semperfli's answer to the silk tying market falls short. The thread lacks the high sheen standard we expect in a Pearsall's substitute and the diameter of the thread falls flat for practical small fly tying, almost twice the diameter of Pearsall's. The colors are based off Edmond and Lee's color charts not any traditional dying "recipes". So again the traditional base colors are offered but they are not the greatest matches. 50 meters for about $5.25.

Kimono 100 Silk. Kimono 100 is a fine silk tying thread. The sheen is equivalent to Pearsall's and it has that smoothness in tying that tyers love about Pearsall's. It ties noticeably smaller than all the other silk threads, Pearsall's included, but does not lack in strength. My guess would be in that 8/0 range as opposed to the general 6/0 you find in the other threads not counting the larger Ephemera and Semperfli. It has quite a few good color matches to Pearsall's, probably more than the other substitutes, Morus aside. This is my preferred substitute to tie with. I like the smoothness of the thread and especially the smaller size it offers for tying #16-#20's. My only knock might be that it is 2-ply so wetted single wrapped layers of the thread are more susceptible to hook color. A roughly 200 meter spool runs about $6.00. The best bang for your buck. It is also available in 80 different colors for the tier willing to branch out of the traditional.

[hankaye]

New/Old Hat, Howdy;

Been awhile, good to see ya still hangin' out.

Thanks for the write-up on the differences in the Silks.
Your thoughts carry weight here.

hank

[RickA]

I know a few rod builders that turned me onto Kimono silks.
They like the smoothness and translucent sheen when wrapping guides on the cane stuff they build.
They also like it better than Pearsall's because of its consistent diameter and the occasional kink you find
in Pearsall's that would cause it to break in the middle of a guide wrap.
As Old Hat said, Kimono is slightly thinner but that's not really an issue.

I have some Ephemera but I hate the nasty wood spools it comes on.
It can hang up and drag in a bobbin, especially one with delrin feet
and as REE said, it's a little rough.

The Semperfli stuff I see is their Nano Silk which is a form of GSP and I'm not looking for that.
I haven't run across any of their Pure Silk as the shops around me dont carry it

[Solitaryflyguy]

Thank you OLD HAT for the warm welcome and very informative write up ! Great stuff !
DUBBN, I’d like to see the variant you came up with, it does fish well….