I was born in southwest Washington where sea-run cutthroat were known universally as "harvest trout" because of the time of year when they return to the rivers, although the first fish would actually show in the Cowlitz (BD: before the dams) with regularity on about the 4th of July. I remember my father talking about he and my mother taking two limits of harvest trout at the mouth of Rock Creek (a spot that I can't even find anymore, though I clearly remember fishing there as a kid) one year on the fourth. The limit in those days was twenty fish and, of course, everything caught was killed so I won't even get into the potentially disastrous results of that kind of management.
Spider patterns are, of course, lineal descendants of the soft hackle fly but the first spider to become popular in the northwest was Al Knudson's Yellow Spider. Al developed this fly for steelhead on the Rogue River and, when he moved to Everett in the 'thirties, brought it with him. It quickly became the go-to fly for sea-run cutthroat and was tied in a variety of colors. The original had a yellow floss body and a very full mallard-flank hackle tied to lie well back along the body, but rather quickly (after all, no fly tier is ever satisfied with someone else's pattern) evolved into the more familiar chenille-bodied, more sparsely-hackled fly we're familiar with today.
I, and many others I'm sure, have tried to take the basic Knudson idea and somehow "prop" the hackle up to create more movement. Mike Kinney took this to its ultimate extension by tying the hackle backward to provide the ultimate in movement. I rarely use more than two (or, at most, three) turns of hackle on any of any spider patterns I tie. Mike's Reverse Spider was my go-to sea-run cutthroat pattern for many years but recently I've been tying and fishing Knudson-style spiders again, using sparsely-tied teal, pintail or gadwall flank feathers for their more pronounced marking.
Spider patterns are, of course, lineal descendants of the soft hackle fly but the first spider to become popular in the northwest was Al Knudson's Yellow Spider. Al developed this fly for steelhead on the Rogue River and, when he moved to Everett in the 'thirties, brought it with him. It quickly became the go-to fly for sea-run cutthroat and was tied in a variety of colors. The original had a yellow floss body and a very full mallard-flank hackle tied to lie well back along the body, but rather quickly (after all, no fly tier is ever satisfied with someone else's pattern) evolved into the more familiar chenille-bodied, more sparsely-hackled fly we're familiar with today.
I, and many others I'm sure, have tried to take the basic Knudson idea and somehow "prop" the hackle up to create more movement. Mike Kinney took this to its ultimate extension by tying the hackle backward to provide the ultimate in movement. I rarely use more than two (or, at most, three) turns of hackle on any of any spider patterns I tie. Mike's Reverse Spider was my go-to sea-run cutthroat pattern for many years but recently I've been tying and fishing Knudson-style spiders again, using sparsely-tied teal, pintail or gadwall flank feathers for their more pronounced marking.