Sorry I can't help with the identification of your eight legged freak!!!!!!!!!!!
well,,,,being a big ol' water spider i can set you in the right direction Thud, by the way,,,great story,,I love to hear someone else talk about confrontations with spiders as battles,,,at least I know I'm not alone...
after this thread was first brought up I decided to do some investigating about the monster water spider I encountered years ago while fishing back home .
I emailed a fella I found on the internet who seemed to have an extensive knowledge of these monsters,,,I refrained quite alot when explaining my story to him as I didnt want to sound like too much of a chicken...,,but here is the email and reply I had sent out,,,he has a nice link at the bottom that should also show you possibly your swimming pool rival....do let us know if you find the match.....
Hi there,,,,am just looking for information about a cetain large size spider
I encountered some years ago that still haunts me.
I have never found a picture of it to this day nor do I know its name,
although someone said it was a "rocky mountain water spider",,I think this
is incorrect but I can tell you this huge beast really had no business in
that area.
I am from golden, british columbia, canada., I was fishing at a small lake
that you have to hike to,,,I am guessing the elavation is around 5500 feet
above sea level and the winters are very harsh here. I had just got out on
a wooden raft about 25 feet from shore and this behemoth came running up
from under the raft and stood there at the opposite end from me,,,,it was
rather startled as was I. If I remember correctly I would say with its
legs extended it was as big around as the rim of your average coffee cup,
extremely hairy like a tarantula, all black with a yellow ring on each leg
at the knee, I do not remember seeing a large abdomen but rather one large
main body.
I must say I am terrified of certain spiders and this one having been the
largest I had ever encountered in the wild really freaked the hell out of
me. I then decided to duel with it with my trusty fishing rod as to scare
it off the raft...my ploy worked and the thing actually jumped a huge
distance,,,(I think about 6 feet or so) towards the shoreline and then
proceeded to run across the water to land leaving a tidal wake behind it.
Forgive me for my crude description but I get the willy's every time I
remember this event. for some reason I just think this spider was realy out
of place for this area. I have never returned to that lake since then,,,had
never seen it before that time either. I am just wondering if maybe you
have some information that can shed some light on this for me. I have
looked at many pics of water and jumping spiders but nothing seems to match
what I remember....I doubt it was a wolf spider ....have seen many of them
and this was twice the size and much more hairy....
If you have any information for me that would be great,,,,,,thanks
Dave T.
Hi Dave,
Almost certainly you encountered a spider in the genus Dolomedes, commonly called fisher, fishing, or raft spiders. They can get quite large and are generally found near water.
bugguide.net/node/view/1985
-Troy