Spider Fly Fishing Videos – Catching beautiful Trout and Grayling

When dry fly and nymph fishing techniques fail to produce results, I often switch to fishing a team of spiders on a long leader. This has been the case recently on the Welsh Dee, and attached are two spider fly fishing videos that demonstrate the success of this fly fishing approach.

Spider fly fishing video – fishing the Top Pool at Llangollen

After spending a couple of fruitless hours trying to tempt trout and grayling on dry flies and nymphs, I switched to fishing a team of spiders on a floating line and 15ft leader using a Hardy Marksman 10ft 4# fly rod.

The leader was constructed from a 9ft 4x tapered leaded and two 3ft lengths of 3lb mono, making a 3-fly cast (point fly: size 12 black & silver spider; middle dropper: #14 black hopper; top dropper: #14 March Brown Spider).

I hadn’t seen any rising fish, so I started near the head of the Top Pool and prospected my way downriver. After catching a couple of small trout, my line tightened into a bigger fish, which turned out to be a nice grayling that had taken the March Brown Spider.

Further down the pool, I had another solid take close to the far bank, and after a short struggle, I netted a beautiful Welsh Dee Brown trout that had fallen for the black hopper.

Spider fly fishing video on the Welsh Dee near Bangor on Dee

Bright sunny weather and a low river level weren’t ideal for an afternoon trip to fish the Welsh Dee near Bangor-on-Dee. The river was crystal clear, and there was no sign of flies hatching or fish rising. In these conditions, I normally start by fishing the pools and runs with a team of spiders on a long line. This minimises the disturbance to the pool and allows me to fish the water again using a short line nymphing technique, if the spiders don’t work.

In this video, I’m targeting grayling with a team of spiders that I suspect are lying in the shade under the overhanging bank. Sure enough, a beautiful Welsh Dee grayling couldn’t resist the Pearly Butt Waterhen Bloa.

I was using a 15ft leader that was constructed from a 9ft 4x tapered leaded and two 3ft lengths of 3lb mono, making a 3-fly cast (point fly: size 12 black hopper; middle dropper: #14 Iron Blue wet; top dropper: #14 pearly butt Bloa).

Day tickets to fish the Welsh Dee around Llangollen can be obtained from the Llangollen-Maelor fishing club. The day ticket covers about 10 miles Welsh Dee fishing in the beautiful Llangollen valley. It holds a good head of wild brown trout and has some of the best grayling fishing in the UK. Also, day tickets are available to fish the Village beat at Bangor-On-Dee.

I hope you enjoyed these spider fly fishing videos and they inspire you to take a trip to fish the beautiful Welsh Dee. Also, if you enjoyed the content, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Tight Lines, Andrew