THE rather wet weather last Sunday certainly put a damper on the Skipton Angling Association’s annual river bank clean up although a decent turnout of members ensured that the morning was at least productive.

Overnight rain and strong winds made the banking slippery and care had to be taken as the river rose rather rapidly and eventually reached bank top.

Even so, a good quantity of rubbish was collected which was taken away by the Craven District Council early on Monday morning.

The start of the bank regeneration programme had to be deferred because of the state of the river and will be tackled in the near future when the weather and the height of the water is more appropriate.

At the moment the river is closed for fishing due to the overlapping of the brown trout and coarse fish close seasons.

The brown trout fishing will start this Saturday while coarse fishermen will have to wait until June 16 before river coarse fishing is once again on the agenda.

Fishing during the 2016-17 coarse fish season on the local stretches of the river Aire was dominated by grayling which proved to be quite numerous with several fish up to around the 900g (2:0:0) mark.

The fly appeared to be the best way to catch them with the maggot and the small redworm close behind.

Other coarse fish catches were not numerous and the chub could be caught on most lengths but certainly not in any quantity or size.

The recovery of this fish is under way with reasonable numbers turning up around the 220g/340g size and the length below the Carleton Stone bridge produced a specimen of 2,330g.

Pike once again remained absent from the higher lengths but present in the deeper water around Snaygill.

No big fish were recorded this year and the best was around the 5,460g (12:0:0) mark.

There was no reports of the capture of any roach, bream, dace and perch, all fish that could be caught in the past.

The pollution around Cononley last year saw hundreds of gudgeon becoming victims.

This fish was once common in the river at Snaygill and grew to quite a size, fish approaching 560g (0:2:0) were not uncommon. Perhaps it is time to see if any have re-appeared in their former hunting grounds.