Silver Invicta

Materials

  • Hook: Down eye wet Kamazan B175 or similar #10 – #14
  • Silk: Brown
  • Tail: Golden pheasant crest feather
  • Rib: Fine oval silver tinsel or silver wire
  • Body: Flat silver mylar
  • Body hackle: Red game cock palmered sparsely
  • Wings: Hen pheasant centre tail
  • Throat hackle: From wing of blue jay or blue dyed guinea fowl

Tying Instructions

  1. Cover the hook shank with touching turns of thread.
  2. Catch in a small, nicely coloured golden pheasant crest feather.
  3. Tie in a length of silver oval tinsel or silver wire along the hook shank.
  4. Take the thread up to the front of the hook leaving space to tie in the paltered hackle, throat hackle and wing.
  5. Tie in the flat silver mylar and then wind it down the hook shank and back up to make a nice, even, silver, body.
  6. Tie in the red game cock hackle and palmer it down the hook shank with very open turns to give a sparse dressing.
  7. Wind the silver tinsel/wire through the paltered hackle and secure at the front of the body.
  8. Tie in the blue beard hackle.
  9. Take a slip of hen pheasant tail, with a width that is four times the final wing width. Fold both edges in to the centre and then fold again at the centre to make a substantial wing.
  10. Tie in the wing with a pinch and loop followed by several turns in front, towards the high.
  11. Build up a head with the tying thread, whip finish and then varnish.

Background Notes

The original Invicta, with a dubbed yellow body, was invented by James Ogden, the renowned Cheltenham fly dresser, as a representation of a hatching sedge fly. It is a good fly for fishing on small or large waters from a boat or the bank, usually as the bob fly in a team of three.