Odd's and Sod's qualifier. Rutland 16th June

The first round of this years Odd's and Sod's England Qualifier was at Rutland on 16th June.  I was drawn with Bart Farmer for this first round.

Practice day the day before with Chris Bobby didn't really help a great deal as the weather was terrible. 20mph plus wind and a big swell on the water meant that the best we could do was pull lures. We did try some nymphs but to no avail. We both had 4 by the end of a hard,wet and blustery day.

We had identified a few areas though and the match day weather was going to be a lot better.

Match day and Bart and and I agree to start on the Normanton Bank between the church and blue pipes. Both on Di5 sweeps with tequila blobs or fab's. I had 4 fish quite quickly, 3 on the blobs and a brownie that took a Diawl Bach on the hang.

12.00 and with 4 to me and Bart nil we moved to Barnsdale Bay. Bart changed tactic to a midge tip and nymphs but I stuck with the Di5 setup that had worked earlier. I had 2 more fish before Bart finally had a fish in the boat. 6-1 up I was confident I would bag up soon. Not so!

Chris Bobby came past at 1.30 having finished as well as his boat partner. I was still on 6 though.

Bart switched back to the Di5 and FAB and started to catch me up. Soon it was 7 each and 3.45 Bart got his 8th fish. Eventually at 4.30 I got that elusive 8th fish and we headed back to the harbour to weigh in.

Not a good bag weight at all. 15lb 9 3/8oz plus 1lb 8oz time bonus my total weight of 17lb 1 3/8oz was only good enough for 18th place. Bart did a little better in 15th place but here was some much bigger fish caught in other areas of the lake.

So, round 1 done and all to do in the 2nd round at Grafham in 2 weeks time. Still a r easy able chance of qualifying for the National Final but I need a really good result at Grafham.