When the water is running a little off-color, pick a fly with a larger profile. The Red Guinea Spider, with its over-dubbed body and double wet fly hackle fills the bill nicely.

The red hackle and tag provide nice contrast to the dark body. For variety, substitute other steelhead colors like purple, green, blue or orange.

Fish this pattern with the traditional wet fly swing, casting quartering down with an upstream mend. Set your feet before the cast and keep the rod anchored so that the fly swings across and downstream with no jumpy hesitations that might spook a chaser.

Tie the Red Guinea Spider with red thread on an up-eye steelhead hook. Use bucktail for the tail and wrap a tag with dyed red Angora goat dubbing. For the body, use peacock herl or a substitute. Build the thorax with black Angora dubbing, then tie in a natural guinea hackle. Use a red guinea hackle collar to finish the fly.