I am getting very confused. I have been playing around with tying a few North Country Spiders. They all call for floss, but being a neophyte, I have none, so I just use thread. Thinking it would be good to do it right, I did some research on what floss is. Enter confusion. Some recipes call for floss, but the material seems to look like thread. Is this just a naming thing? Then there is the Danville floss that looks like thread in 4 strand or single. Add to that stuff like super floss that looks much bigger and doesn’t even come on a spool. So what the heck is floss?
Fly tying terms can be confusing and overlapping. I think it is easy for a new tyer to feel like you do. When you enter on FAOL on the left side is a menu. Click on Fly Tying then fly tying terms, then look up “Floss” and you should find:
Floss:
Any of the shiny and colorful materials made from silk, rayon, nylon or other plastic materials used for body building in fly tying. Known also as body silk, it is available in many colors.
Hope this helps.
Tim
Tim,
Thanks alot. There is so much info on this site, I never even noticed the fly tying terms section. Thanks JC and LF.
The floss called for in traditional North Country spider patterns would be Pearsall’s Marabou silk floss. Many of the patterns use Pearsall’s Gossamer silk thread rather than floss. Google can find a handful of shops where you can buy it over the 'net.
If you cannot find the Pearsall’s or don’t like the price try your nearest craft or fabric store–lots of very acceptable substitutes-don’t worry about the looks you get from the staff when they ask what you want and why you want it!!
Unless you are a stickler for using the called-for materials, other materials can work for a body as well. I use some flat nylon tying thread that can wrap to a very smooth body. It just takes a few more layers to build the body up.
Thanks everyone. I think I will go non-traditional after I saw the pricetag on the Pearsalls floss. :roll: I like my attempts with 6/0 thread so far. We will see what the fish think of them. I went fishing on the St Regis one day last summer. There was no surface activity, so I tried several nymphs, and subsurface patterns to no avail. Not that my nymphing skills are much to get excited about in any case, and that probably had the most to do with it. I was walking back to my car when another fellow showed up. I decided to watch for a while to see how he did. He was fishing what looked like a large partridge and orange. maybe a #10. He would drift it through a run while hand twist retrieving. The hand twist would impart a pulsing action to the wings. Long story short, he caught about 10 fish in as many minutes. I never did talk to him, he moved off upstream, and seemed quite involved in his fishing. Not knowing what a spider was, I just chalked it up to my vast inexperience. Then when I started tying I stumbled upon a few spider patterns and saw the P&O, a lightbulb went on.
I have been substituting Uni-Stretch for floss in most of my flies lately
The only problem with using subs. for the silk floss is the color when wet. For example the recipe for the Professor calls for primrose yellow silk, this looks like light olive when wet not yellow. So be prepared to experiment. Dan
BearLodge Angler, a sponsor here sells Pearsall’s Gossamer silk and other brands of floss. Here is a link to their website. http://www.bearlodgeangler.com/thread.htm
I had the same problem when I got started with fly tying. I ended up with several spools of four stranded floss. When I have tried to tie with all four strands I would quickly have a bumpy mess instead of a nice smooth body. So then I went to cutting off sections of one strand and tieing with one strand of the four. Now I have found out that all of my fly tying buddies do the same thing. Cut one strand off the four strand spool and use it one strand at a time.
I find that using moderate lengths of the cut strands work best. Too short = not enough for more than one fly. Too long= broken or misshapen individual fibers in the strand.
Scruffy Fly,
Thanks for picking up on this. I in fact ordered some of Danville’s 4 strand, that just arrived. Very serendipitous indeed.
Tonight’s project will be Spiders.
Thanks again everyone.
Not all North Country spiders use floss, as a matter of fact I tie most of mine with just the silk thread for the body and a hackle, have a look at my site, only a couple of flies use floss. Most versions of Partridge (Orange,Green,Yellow and whatever) work perfectly well with just thread for the body. I don’t know what they are chargeing you for Pearsall’s silk in the US but here it is not too expensive and does produce the best looking flies that have thread only bodies. I also use the other modern threads especially when they have bodies dubbed with hare’s ear fur etc. Mostly I use the Pearsall.
Also try waxing the thread well before winding the bodies, yellow thread turns a nice shade of olive when well waxed. Orange changes to a light mahogany colour.
On my site, where it says Thread = Yellow silk, that means Yellow tying thread.
http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/page61.html
Donald,
I ran across your site while randomly looking about for wet fly patterns a while back. Imagine my suprise when I found that you are a FAOL member. You tie beautiful flies by the way. Further evidence that FAOL is the place for fly fishing.
The Pearsalls Marabou Silk that I have seen is $3 to $5 a spool. Not too bad until you buy 10 or 12 different colors. :!:
Sag62
Hope you find the site useful. You only need a few colours to start. Get Orange, Primrose and Crimson. You can tying quite a few different pattern with those.
Here are some pictures
http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/_w … 5f5_1b.jpg
http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/_w … 8dd_1b.jpg
The first two are silk thread only.
http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/_w … 6d1_1b.jpg
http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/_w … f9f_1b.jpg
The second two are with floss and gold wire. The floss used was Danvilles.
Here are a couple of experimental pages.
http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/page53.html
http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/page56.html
You can easily tie modern versions of the old Spiders .
Tied a few last night and this morning. Rough hands and Danville floss don’t mix very well. I can see where one strand spooled floss loaded into a bobbin holder would be an better situation. Otherwise careful handling and keeping my fingers well away from the portion to be applied to the fly seems to help. Pretty little flies though. I tied Partridge and Orange, and a few Partdidge and Red with a small tiny dubbed black thorax. I haven’t gone smaller than a 10 hook.
Here’s a suggestion for the rough hands . Yosemite fly tyer’s finger treatment. They are an FAOL sponsor. This stuff really works.
Try this link.
Wear those white gloves that Pall Bearers use. They’re a pain in the a… at first, but you will get use to them. You wanna keep that floss clean, too.
I’ve seen that fly tiers finger stuff before. I figured it was just expensive hand cream. I might have to get some.
One final thought on the rough fingers/floss situation. I kept looking at the stray fibers as I tied a few flies. Something looked familiar, but it didn’t click until this morning. :idea: DUBBING!!!
Well I did a little research, and of course this is old news. So I tore a piece of red apart, and tied one freaky looking mallard flank, red floss dubbing spider looking thingy. It sure looks buggy though. My wife said, “That is one ugly fly…but bugs can be pretty ugly too.” I can’t wait to fish it. :lol: