Fly Tying Group

2022/23

Invicta Fly Tying Group – March 2024

The next lesson will be:

MONDAY 25th March
Grafham Harbour View Café, 09:45 for 10:00 prompt start

Click link below for the fly patterns:

Flies for 25 March 2024

Please could anyone wishing to attend contact Colin Newton to reserve a place as this is not a walk-in session.

New Members – anyone at any level of fly tying, including beginners, is very welcome to join this group.  Beginners can easily be brought up to speed using our tried and tested programme.  Current group members made huge progress from not being able to tie flies to catching fish on flies they tied – great achievement and huge satisfaction!  Roger Hurren caught the first fish at the Maitland Trophy on a Sparkler which he’d taught at our last lesson – success!

Please email Colin Newton if you’re interested.

Colin Newton

colinjnewton@outlook.com

Past flies:-

Flies 11 March 2024

Flies for March 4 2024

Flies for February 12 2024

Flies for January 29 Lesson

Flies for 15th January Lesson

Flies for 19 December Lesson


Invicta Fly Tying Group Report -July 2023

The Colin Newton  instigated fly tying group has now finished for the summer months and Colin has written a report which updates on the progress made over the past months.

Many thanks to Colin for his organisation and Roger Hurren for being the course demonstrator.

Click on link below to read report:

Invicta Fly Tying Report July 10th


Invicta Fly Tying Group Report – May 2023

The Invicta Fly Tying Group had their second lesson at Grafham on Monday 1 May.  Eleven people attended including Jeff Hickson and Peter Waterhouse who very kindly gave up their time offering their support and expertise.

The lesson started with a recap of the last session and we then moved on to tying a variation of the Buzzer and the Fab.  Very excitingly members subsequently went fishing and caught on the flies that they’d made – great news!

The next lesson will be on Tuesday 16 May at Grafham Harbour Café and we are very grateful to them for the use of their restaurant. We will review last lesson and then learn to tie a basic Diawl Bach and a Hare’s Ear.  These two flies will help us move forward by mastering the complexities of dubbing and tying hackles.

Fly tying is a slow process and the group is already making good progress.

Anyone is still very welcome to join us – a new member came on Monday and was soon brought up to speed so he can now move forward.

Tight Lines

Colin Newton


Invicta Fly Tying Group

The Invicta Fly Tying Group met at Grafham for its first gathering on Monday 17th April.  There were 9 of us including Roger Hurren who has very kindly volunteered to teach us – he is an experienced fly tyer who has been tying for over 50 years and won the John Krailing Trophy.

The lesson began with an introduction to fly tying and Roger talked us through the various tools and equipment required explaining all the basic principles.  He then demonstrated how to tie a basic Buzzer and an orange Fab.  We all tied these flies under supervision to ensure we were tying them correctly and would then be able to practise them.   Everyone went home with flies that they could fish with – guaranteed to catch!

In our next lesson we will progress on to alternative patterns for these flies and make sure that we have mastered the basic techniques.  There was very positive feedback from the group who had found the session extremely informative.

Colin Newton – group organiser.

07889 988484

Chris McLeod’s Winter Shrimping Pattern

I’ve been getting ready for the winter bank fishing. If anyone is interested, this is a very simple point fly when shrimping in the shallows.

I have been asked about my shrimp pattern a number of times now so I thought I’d jot down the tying sequence for the website. I’ve found it a very successful point fly, often catching as many as the droppers – something which a sacrificial point fly often doesn’t.

Click link below to see tying instructions:

Tying the floating shrimp

Chris McLeod



Top 10 Flies as selected by some of our most experienced and consistent members.

We asked a few of our leading and most consistent members to list the flies that they would chose if limited to only having 10 in their fly box.  Those asked have regularly finished in the top three or four positions in our club championship (Carr Cup) during the past few years in addition to representing the club in AMFC matches and other competitions.

This week we are starting off with the flies selected by Keith Gilchrist. Click the link at the bottom of this section to open Keith’s selection.

We suspect that some fly patterns will be chosen by more than one person, but that only goes to reinforce the importance of having that pattern in your own fly box.

Most of the flies mentioned are available commercially, but tying your own is both rewarding and ensures that you can copy any fly.

Click link below to view Keith’s Top 10:

Top 10 Flies – Keith Gilchrist

Next time, Mark Searle’s Top 10

Top 10 Flies -Week 2

In addition to being our ‘Competitions booking officer’ Mark Searle has consistently been one of Invicta’s leading anglers.

This week he shows us the flies he would select if limited to only 10 in his box.

Top 10 Flies- Mark Searle

Top 10 Flies -Week 3

This week Chris McLeod shows us his Top 10 flies.

Chris is one of Invicta’s most experienced and well known anglers with considerable knowledge of the reservoirs both from the bank and boats.

Top 10 Flies -Chris McLeod

Top 10 Flies -Week 4

Tony Smith is one of our most consistent anglers fishing major competitions on a regular basis, he particularly enjoys top of the water action; this is reflected in his fly selection.

It follows that half of his top 10 consists of dries or surface patterns. He admits that close friend and Invicta member Simon Peck who has a reputation for his tying skills ties many of his flies.

Top 10 Flies – Tony Smith

Top 10 Flies -Week 5

Simon Peck is a very experienced trout and Grayling angler on both reservoir and river.  His tying is of a high standard and he ties a lot of flies not only for himself but also his regular fishing partner Tony Smith.

Top 10 flies – Simon Peck

Top 10 Flies -Week 6

This week Gary How is the final contributor to this series.  Gary is very much the match angler and continues to have many successes each season.

We hope that what this series has highlighted through the repetition of certain favourites is the importance of having those flies in your armoury.

Thank you to our 6 contributors and tight lines for the season ahead.

Top 10 Flies – Gary How

Recommended Fly Tying videos.

Invicta normally organise fly tying workshops in the spring but the covid restriction in spring 2021 prevent us from doing this at present. On this page we have been highlighting the favourite ‘Top 10’ flies of some of our leading anglers. We hope you have enjoyed viewing them and might be inspired to have a go at tying some of their patterns. It is unfortunate that we have not been able to run our usual workshop; however there are a number of fantastic UTube video sites which demonstrate fly tying techniques and fishing methods.

Give it a try, your first efforts may not always look pretty but practice makes perfect and it can be a most interesting pastime and so rewarding to catch on your own flies.

Some of the best are:

Tim Joyce (Fly tying and fly fishing techniques)

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCezRQdogP9tYOn7xZKJ7ZKA

Lindsay Simpson ( Mostly Fly Tying with some techniques)

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCmiBA_lNqSEVn4pgOS5CnIQ

Davie McPhail (Fly Tying)

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC16NCfnoaG7rm60e9pl89fw

John Zimmerman (Grayling and trout river flies including most flies from Steve Skuce’s famous book)

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCNtbTP-ytk4G6vSLLfYtNXw

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Our 2020 demonstrators, Jeff Hickson,Ian Ruff and Peter Waterhouse

Some of Ian Ruff’s flies tied at our Fly Tying workshop 2020

A few photographs from previous years sessions:

Flies and Fly Boxes

Members are invited to submit photographs of their fly boxes or individual flies that they have tied and had success with. When submitting individual flies and lures, please include list of tying materials.

A selection of ‘Snakes’ tied by Paul Heavens. Snakes have proved very effective particularly during the latter part of the season.

One of Kieran Bonas’s competition fly boxes.

Kieran Bonas' competition box

Chamois (Shammy) lures as used to great effect by Mark Haycock.

Box of Grayling Flies by John Emson.

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