Reports 2025 Season
Page Contents:
Click to Jump to Tuesday Evening Social fishing reports
Click to Jump to Norman Shippey report
Click to Jump to Carr Cup report
Click to Jump to AMFC match reports
Click to Jump to Snowbee Floating Line report
Click to Jump to The Pilgrimage match report
Click to Jump to The Maitland Trophy Interclub match report
Click to Jump to The Bob Ayres Dry fly match report
Click to Jump to Hinckley Shield match report
Click to Jump to Arthur Sexton Trophy match report
Tuesday Evening Social Fishing at Grafham
2026 – TBA
Bank trip to Elinor. The Norman Shippey Memorial
14th March 2026
Our first club fishing day of the year is always at Elinor and a spring morning of clear sky, warm sun and a cold NW wind greeted an unusually small group of 8 members, depleted by those stranded in Sri Lanka, on holiday in Morocco and fishing the evening day at Rutland Water.
We new Elinor would be a challenge still recovering from winter floods and less than a foot visibility but a cheery welcome from Jo Gifford and we spread along the north bank with the wind over right shoulders. Matt Collison is our local expert and usually fishes under a bung very close to the bank so most of us started copying him.
It was a slow start and Andrew Terry was the only rod to net in the first 3 hours using a pearly olive cormorant until John Brown wound in his Apps Bloodworm pattern after his last cast for lunch and netted the only other morning fish near to the boat dock.
We remained cheerful over lunch in the carpark and set off with new optimism. Matt quickly caught half way along the north bank (‘Gravel Bar’) and David lost one and then caught on a b&g tadpole fishing close by. Matt lost another at the net and then this hot-spot died away.
Neil had moved around the bank and finally caught on a blue flash damsel near the trees towards the same area.
So, with 5 rods catching one fish each the winner went to the first fish taken and Andrew Terry was the clear winner of the Norman Shippey Trophy.
Big thank you to Neil Potts for organising the day, Elinor is a lovely fishery and we are always made welcome so we hope the water clears soon and it has a successful season.
Our next club day is at Pitsford on Wednesday 1 April, hopefully a buzzer bonanza !
David Moore
Carr Cup 2026
Reports will appear here following each match.
Results – TBA
Event #1, Thursday 1 April 2026 – Pitsford Reservoir
Wow! Thirty three Invicta members fished the first boat match of the season. A fantastic turnout, which should have been more but for a couple of poorly souls (get well soon Pete Webb and Jonny Bromilow). It was great to see seven newcomers – welcome Andrew Terry, Duncan Freeman, Edze Dijksterhuis, Jeff Cox, Kevin Garn Martin Glyn and Rich Walker. On a day that promised much – low cloud, very little wind, plenty of fish in the lake – what could go wrong?
Sadly it was a lot tougher than we expected, maybe because of the cooler conditions as it took a while for the temperature just to creep up enough to see a few buzzers coming off. But it was all about buzzers, straight lined or under a bung, it didn’t much matter but location was, as always, critical. Most of the fleet headed for the Sailing Club Bay and Brixworth where there had been a lot of fish caught during previous days, and, indeed, there were still fish there, and some good ones. There is something about the area just off the biggest tree in Brixworth Bay that holds bait fish and therefore some decent browns – it is officially now known as Pott’s tree for reason which you need to ask him.
Not everyone was in this area though. Stone Barns which Joan Russell and new member Rich Walker had to themselves was full of fish and they took advantage of that to be equal top boat with Gary and Gavin on 16 fish. There was a similar situation for Dave Currie on the Flats which was also producing enough to give him his limit. Although the popular bays were getting a bit of a hammering and eventually went off, Gary How and Keith Gilchrist managed their eights – and well beyond – while others struggled.
Some good browns were caught, with Neil Potts’ the biggest at just under 5lb and Mark Searle’s only a few ounces smaller. And a few pike decided they would try to eat a buzzer or an egg fly with Rich and Chris McLeod both landing good fish.
A really good innovation is the plan to meet up afterwards – and nearly everyone made it, filling the bar of the White Swan in Holcot for an excellent pie, chips and peas. But it gives us all a great chance to explain why we hadn’t caught a limit or how many fish fell off (lots!).
125 fish were caught at a rod average of 3.78 with four limits, a sprinkling of 7, 6 and 5s, and only two blanks. Gary caught 13 and Keith had 10 but we base the result on 8 fish and who caught their first one earliest. So Keith won the Graham Williams Trophy (by 7 minutes), Gary How was second and Dave Currie third. There were some surprising failures, not mentioning any names of course, but it just proves they’re human and how nothing is guaranteed in fishing.
Thanks to all those involved in the organisation – especially Neil Potts for the day and results, and David Moore for arranging the meal.
Our next outing is the prolific Blithfield reservoir on 2 May when we hope things will have warmed up a little, although many of us will be involved in Invicta’s very own Snowbee Floating line match organised by Gary (with a little bit of help from Jane) How, on 25 April.
Chris McLeod
“Back to Top of Page”Bob Ayres Trophy – Dry Fly Match
2026
AMFC (Association of Major Flyfishing Clubs) 2026
The AMFC (Association of Major Flyfishing Clubs) is a series of club based matches. Invicta like to encourage as many members to get involved as possible, and runs 2 teams. There are 3 groups and we have our A team in Group 2 and the B team in Group 3.
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Results – TBA
Round 1 – 28th March – Teams A & B
The first and last matches of the AMFC season are unique in that all teams in each of the 3 divisions take part in the same match. In the last match in the Autumn, promotion and relegation are usually at stake, whereas in the spring opening match the nerves are related to getting off to a good, respectable start.
I was to pick up Jonny B at the premier Inn, and he was going to have breakfast at 7.45, so I said I would arrive 08.10. At 7.46 I received a Whatsapp saying that he was outside the hotel ready. That breakfast must have been bolted down in anticipation of the day ahead – top speed munching JB!
Arriving at Grafham on Saturday 28th March, before the date us old-timers would call the start of the season, we gathered en-masse at Grafham to restrict ourselves to fishing ‘over the font’ with small flies in a howling gale! And by God it blew!! Over at Rutland, the boats were not let out the boat dock, and after some of the shenanigans in the Grafham boat dock you can see why! Rods and lines were knitted together between moored and reversing boats, and though I didn’t hear any shattering, there were very close shaves everywhere you looked. The boats were not allowed to go to the dam end, and creeping past the nature reserve was advised by the warden in the briefing if you wanted to go to the North shore
Reason for the manic boat dock behaviour was that everyone knew the fish were in 2 spots. Outside the Harbour (hence the rush to be first out) and over on the North centred around Pig bay. However, practice had proved to get tougher and tougher as the week wore on, and then to be faced with that wind put us on warning that it would be tough. However, if you KNOW it’s going to be hard, then its not so bad when nothing happens for long periods.
The fleet split 65% Valley Creek to the Seat and 35% going through the chop to the North Shore. Slowly the harbour boats started moving to the North shore as the bonanza of the South side failed to meaningfully materialise. The North was yielding the odd fish from the Stumps limit to Hedge end, but it occurred to me that I wasn’t seeing as many boats as previously, then, boat partner and I decided to go ‘round the corner’ at Hedge end looking for shelter in a particularly uncomfortable period (I reckon 35mph – yes really) and BEHOLD THE ARMADA ! there were dozens of boats working the long bank. Lots of bags had been pulled from this 100*50 yd area and this area was tried by Gary and Terry the day before and was fishless.
Keith, reigning Carr cup champ and all-round good egg did brilliantly with 8 to straight line and bung (buzzer/cruncher), Duffy the younger had a good bag of 5, and Gary and I chipped in to get us equal 2nd.
The B’s were awesome. They too were 2nd equal, Terry leading the charge with 4 – but with 2 teams out on a murderous day, everyone caught, which makes for a happy bunch. Pete was using the old Appleby Single Blob method (if you catch up with the video of that on Youtube, DO come and discuss it with me 😊 )
Extra special mention goes to Bill Connelly, his first international rules match, in conditions that will never be worse, and part of a great team effort – as ‘Yazz’ expounded – ‘The only way is up!’ well done Bill.
And will SOMEONE please answer David M’s call to arms for someone to represent at Bewl please – would be a shame to mess up what has been a great start.
David Currie
“Back to Top of Page”
Invicta Snowbee Floating Line Match 2026
Grafham Water