Skater-spiders are a variant of the Hewitt "Skaters" which were created by Ed Hewitt back in the thirties. He used these flies and I might add many others as well to take trout on the rivers in the Catskill's. The "skater-spider" was created by Ed Shenk of Carlisle PA. I found the chapter on these flies in his book "Fly Rod Trouting"...it seems Ed was tying these flies for Joe Brooks who used them quite successfully. Shenk's flies used a typical dry fly hackle where Hewitt used "spade hackle" which are very hard to get. I tie a variation of Shenk's fly. I use a tail. I'll tie these in size 14 and 12. As far as colors are concerned I don't really see a difference and the trout take any color. They are a simple fly to tie, requiring only thread for the body, a few coq de leon fibers for a tail and the hackle. I use Whiting 100 packs...the flies have oversized hackle 14 and 12 I use size 10 hackle.
This skater-spider uses natural grizzly hackle.
This skater-spider uses what Whiting calls grizzly/ march brown hackle.
This lightly colored skater-spider uses brown hackle fibers for the tail and ginger hackle.
While these flies are not the most visible on the water to anglers the fish see them well and that's what matters.
