Quote Originally Posted by Grn Mt Man View Post


ME - 2 trout. Killer spider or whatever - 4/5 bites.

Moral of the story: When you get less bites then the "CRITTERS" it's not a good day!!!
I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience, and I'm glad to hear that you have recovered from the bites.

In the interest of adding to this lesson, does anyone have a good idea about what kind of spiders these might have been? Or were they not spiders, but an insect or other critter? On this forum, with all of the combined bug knowledge, there must be someone who knows a little about insect and spider bites. Some of us even use flies tied to look like spiders!

Here's what I know, incomplete as it may be, and maybe even incorrect on a few points. My seven year-old son (who is terrified of spiders) likes to point out that all spiders are poisonous, but I have heard that only a few species actually bite. In North America, those would be the Brown Recluse, Black Widow, and Tarantula. From corporate scare-mail about spider bites sent in the interest of raising awareness about safety topics, I've seen that Black Widow and Brown Recluse spider bites can be very bad, requiring hospitalization and significant tissue damage from just a single bite. Maybe that is not typical, I don't know. If it is, our hapless wader bearer was lucky to get by with just anti-itch cream. Unless the critters weren't spiders.

I've tried some searches on Wikipedia and elsewhere to answer several questions about spiders, since I go through a fair number of webs on my way to any given stream. What I can't seem to figure out is whether other species of spider either can't bite humans (mouth geometry or something similar), aren't disposed to bite non-food items, or whether the line that all spiders are toxic is really true. Does anyone know? In other words, how much should I worry about the Orb Weavers that end up crawling all over me after going through half a dozen webs early in the morning? And what about the large Wolf Spiders that are lurking under rocks and logs, do they pose any hazard?

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