First documented in 1857, this fly features in a delightful book by W.C. Stewart titled The Practical Angler, or The Art of Trout Fishing, More Particularly Applied to Clear Water.
(They didn’t go for catchy titles in Victorian times!)
The fly in question is known as Stewart’s Black Spider, one of a trio of spiders described in Stewart’s book. The other two are the Red Spider and the Dun Spider.
To modern fly fishers and tyers, the Black Spider may seem unusual because it isn’t tied in the spider style we’re familiar with today. Instead, it resembles what we’d call a rather messy palmered fly, albeit tied quite short.
Stewart himself offers the following description of the Black Spider in his book:
"This is made of the small feather of the cock starling, dressed with brown silk, and is, upon the whole, the most killing imitation we know. We were first shown it by James Baillie, and I have never been without one on our lines since."
While it isn’t tied in a conventional palmered fashion, the instructions in the book are notoriously fiddly. That’s one reason I’ve long avoided tying this pattern—it always seemed tricky to master.
Fortunately, there’s hope! The late, great fly tyer and fly fisher Oliver Edwards provides a fantastic demonstration of the traditional tying method on DVD.
Additionally, Martin Whyte and Davie McPhail have created excellent online tutorials that simplify the process while still achieving the same results. Their methods are the ones I’ve used to tie this simple yet highly effective fly.
I’d love to try my hand at tying the other two spider patterns mentioned in Stewart’s book, but sourcing materials like landrail and dotterel hackles may prove difficult.
If anyone knows of good substitutes for these, I’d be delighted to hear about them.
Thanks for reading my latest blog, and Happy New Year!
Here is the link to the demos mentioned above:
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