Rutland Water Fly Fishing Club round-up

After the recent frustrations of wet and windy weather, the elements were kind for Rutland Water Fly Fishers' Club Championships.

Moderate winds and mild temperatures greeted the 14 members who competed for the trophy.

Recent fishing had been difficult, and this proved to be the case as Rutland Water provided one of her more tricky days.

It was good to see that the competition was fished for by 14 members which, although a moderate field, was better than most of the club competitions fished for this year.

Fishing proved difficult for most of the field, with fry patterns and dry fly being the most popular methods tried, and the odd fish falling to these methods.

Neil Squires, fishing a mixture of nymphs, cormorants and booby patterns, was the angler who managed to 'crack the code' on the day.

Fishing just off Whitwell, along the buoy line, Neil managed to accumulate a bag of 10 fish with his boat partner, Rick Cooper, managing six, proving a worthy winner and runner-up.

The best of the rest was Mick Connor with three fish, fishing dry fly and managing to winkle out three fish for third place. The biggest fish connected to the line of Stephen Otteridge for 7lb 7.75ozs.

The Rutland Water Fly Fishing team have secured their place back in Group One of the Association of Major Fishing Clubs League, 12 months after being relegated due to being unable to field a team in the opening match due to a fixture clash.

They won Group Two convincingly with strong showings in five of the six rounds.

In the Spring Association match at Rutland, the team of Graham Pearson, Mike Gunnell, Paul Wild and Rick Cooper managed 40 fish to finish second behind Invicta.

Limits for Mike and Paul from Dickensons Bay on buzzers got the team off to a good start in the campaign.

The second round saw six anglers at Blagdon for another day's buzzer fishing at the end of May.

Good bags from Neil Squires and Graham Pearson, backed up by consistent fishing from David Lang, David Holroyd, Paul Wild and Barry Vaughan, saw them share the lead in the group by taking a win with Invicta in second place.

The third round took place at Pitsford in June during a heatwave and, although fish were hard to catch, Rutland Water won with 12 fish on a tough day, average 0.9, taking the lead in the group.

Good bags of four from Rick Cooper and three from Neil Squires were supported by a few other fish from Kevin Garn, Graham Pearson, Mike Gunnell and Paul Baker.

The Grafham heat scheduled for mid-July was postponed due to 40mph winds and moved to Rutland in September.

At Rutland things were a bit tougher in early September, however, a five fish bag from Graham Pearson, three from Andrew Flitcroft with a few more from David Lang, Paul Wild and Kevin Garn resulted in another victory as Rutland increased their lead over Invicta to four points.

The fifth match at Eyebrook was cancelled, again due to high winds. This meant that unless Rutland performed really badly in the final match of the league at Draycote in October and Invicta won by 30lb, they were going to be promoted.

Despite this the team took nothing for granted and, like all the other matches, practiced in advance assisted by other members who weren't fishing in the competition.

On the same day as the Autumn Association match, the four-man team of Neil Squires, Barry Vaughan, Kevin Garn and David Lang were not only top team in Group Two but the top team in all three groups.

Twelve fish limits from Neil and Barry helped to a team total of 40 trout. This meant that the team has regained its rightful place in Group One where they hope to perform well next year.