Stewart's Red Spider

[GlassJet]

Tied on a short shank #14 using landrail substitute (dyed starling) and waxed yellow silk.

Crit welcomed, I have absolutely no idea what this fly is supposed to look like, so I made it up! The only pictures I could find were using hen hackle, which obviously is completely different!

Looks like it might move around a bit though...

Andrew.

[letumgo]

Yeah, that might have a little movement to it...

Nice spider, Andrew. That fly looks like it will spring to live with the smallest of currents. It will probably be difficult to keep those pesky fish away from it.

[tie2fish]

According to Nemes in his "Two Centuries of Soft-Hackled Flies", Stewart considered the Red Spider to be the 2nd "... most killing" soft-hackled pattern:

"The Red Spider should be made of the small feather taken
from the outside of the wing of the landrail, dressed with
yellow silk, and is deserving of a very high rank, particularly
in coloured water."

The plate of the dressing in Nemes' book (p. 41), however, shows a fly with an orange-red body.

[DNicolson]

You will catch fish on this fly, here is Stewarts recipe.
"2d. The Red Spider should be made of the small feather taken from the outside of the wing of the
landrail, dressed with yellow silk, and is deserving of a very high rank, particularly in coloured waters."
So! Stewart used yellow, but of course it was the most commonly used silk in the Borders at the time.
But that is not carved in stone.

Here is more on Stewart and spiders.
http://donaldnicolson.webplus.net/page174.html

[hankaye]

Howdy Donald;

Would the yellow thread have had a coating of a wax that would have given a reddish hue?

Interesting as red is the first colo(u)r that disappears as one descends in water. Granted it takes several feet but gone by the time one gets to 30' of depth.
hank

edit for readability

[DNicolson]

Hi Hank,
Actually, yellow goes a pale olive green when well waxed, an even more useful colour.
That's what is used on the "Greenwells Glory".
I haven't seen too many 30ft deep pools when river fishing.

[GlassJet]

Here is more on Stewart and spiders.
http://donaldnicolson.webplus.net/page174.html

Hi Donald,
Would Stewart have waxed the yellow thread? That's what i did, hence the olive colour. I wasn't sure about the barb length to hook size... but it sort of looks OK! About to get out onto the river for an hour, so I'll put it before the ultimate judge...

Brilliant information on your site btw - meant to say that in another thread somewhere but didn't get round to it. So thanks for that!

Andrew.

[hankaye]

Donald, the bit about 30' of depth was only to remind some that, when lake fishing for the giants that dwell well below the surface that RED being the shortest frequency of light will disappear first. Followed by the rest of the spectrum in order (ROYGBIV).

I was merely inquiring as to how the colour Red got into the name.

Cheers,
hank

[GlassJet]

Donald, the bit about 30' of depth was only to remind some that, when lake fishing for the giants that dwell well below the surface that RED being the shortest frequency of light will disappear first. Followed by the rest of the spectrum in order (ROYGBIV).

I was merely inquiring as to how the colour Red got into the name.

Cheers,
hank

Hi Hank,
regarding the red in the name - the corncrake (landrail) is kinda red - or reddish brown. And don't know about where you are, but there are a lot of flies on my river that are reddish brown. And the ones that aren't tend often to be brownish red.

As for red disappearing at 30 ft - I found that very interesting, I didn't know that. No - hardly relevant to my small stream fishing, but the reservoir I fish for instance is 150 ft deep at its deepest part! Very often down 30 ft plus...

Is there a rule of thumb for the fall off? when does orange go, for instance?

I was going to apologise for hi-jacking the thread then, but I started it, didn't I?

Andrew

[mvendon]

Here's a pic of how Veniard's dyed starling compares to the real thing. The dyed wings are on top. There's one secondary feather on the lower right that I clipped off, and to the left of that they're all Landrail wing feathers. It's really pretty close in color considering that it's from a totally different bird.



Regards,
Mark