The man from Naiad appeared on the FF&FT stand at British Fly Fair this year [2011] and demonstrated how to tie with his material. Essentially, these are self-adhesive strips of coloured plastic. Place a hook in the vice. Peel a strip from the backing card. Catch a strip on at the head and form a bulge. Catch a second strip on at the bend of the hook and wind it forwards in overlapping turns to form the shape you want. That’s it! No thread, no whip-finish, no exotic materials, no varnish – just a couple of strips of self-adhesive plastic which bond to the hook and itself/themselves.

At this point in the demonstration I was actually laughing. The utter simplicity of Turn-it strips cuts through all the careful esoteric craft and secrets of fly tying in much the same way that a Sawyer PTN or Kite's Bare Hook Nymph reduced tying to the minimum needed for fishing.

Of course there is a little more to it than any old sticky-backed plastic (or Blue Peter would have cornered the fly-tying market years ago.) You know those colourful logos, names and messages you see on planes? Guess what self adhesive plastic sheet they are made from?

So the adhesive on the back of these plastic strips has been thoroughly tested in fairly extreme conditions, being dunked in water will certainly not cause it any problems.

Simple Naiad Buzzers and Nymphs can be tied with or without a bead head using exactly the same thread-free tying method. With a bead fitted on the hook wrap one strip behind the bead to fix it in place, then wrap the rest of the hook with a second strip.

To complete the package Naiad also supply curved hooks and gold beads. The pack sent to me is the Complete Range kit: 10 coloured sheets of strips; 400 curved hooks from #10 to #18 bronze in all size, with gold and bright gold hooks in the smaller sizes; gold beads in 4 sizes to match the hooks, 160 beads in all. That kit sells for €37.99, each of the components is available separately. Quality of both hooks and beads looks good.

The simplicity of this tying method is honestly breathtaking! You need a vice to hold the hook, hackle pliers are handy and something sharp, scissors or bodkin, helps lift the strip from the backing card. From there on there are no tricks or gimmicks or special skills!

Buzzers and simple Nymphs just fall from your vice. Thankfully, the repertoire of flies I can tie this way is limited – no dries, for example – so maybe this is not the end of fly tying as we know it.