The CD Rods SFFNZ National Pairs Championship 2005
By Ken McWilliams

It was time again to head north to fish the CD Rods SFFNZ National Pairs Championship. After looking at some likely spots for the next day we returned to Elvins Lodge for a meal and the evening briefing.

It was great to be greeted by many familiar faces, this event is truly a great social gathering with many people returning year after year for the friendly rivalries and camaraderie.

The Saturday dawned fine and still and we set off with our allocated partner for session one. I was fishing with Paul Dewar and we set off to the Potu inlet for our first drifts of the day.That first session turned out to be very frustrating for both Paul and myself and despite trying many different line types, flies and techniques the result was a disappointing one fish each. The news was better for my partner Dave who had four nice fish and was handily placed in the rankings. However there were some astounding results in this session with Braedon Clarke and Strato Cotsilinis getting 10 and 8 fish respectively.

The second session seen me partnered with Graeme Evans and we headed up to the top of the lake where it seemed that most of the action had been. Although the action was slow to start we eventually found some fish and I ended up the session with 3 and Graeme 1. My partner Dave however now suffered my frustration from the first session by ending session two with 1 fish, tough game this competition fishing.

Sunday dawned brilliant again dead still hardly a breath of wind to move the boats and certainly no need for a drogue. I was partnered with Brendon Lyon and we had to hunt around to try and get on to some fish it was pretty tough but at last we hit on the winning spot back at the Potu inlet and I managed to hook up on 4 landing two.

Well it was back to the boat ramp for the final tally of the three sessions and below is the final top five table.

The winners John Pellew & Braedon Clarke 

Second Neil Hirtzel & Mike Limmer 

Third John Bell & Peter Chan

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