THE late Ronnie Burton’s record brown trout of 2,390g from Whinnygill Reservoir stood virtually unchallenged for 71 years until it was finally smashed earlier this year.

John D Nicholl’s splendid 3,000g fish landed from the same water set a new mark on April 18.

Now that record has been broken after less than 50 days. The captor was Michael Ickringill of Skipton and this time the brownie weighed in at 3,040g.

The fish took a small portion of worm fished on light tackle and in its first run it travelled half the length of the reservoir just below the surface, creating a visible bow wave.

The trout was turned and after a hectic struggle it was brought to the net.

Luckily the association’s weighing scales, the same ones that weighed Nicholl’s fish were to hand and this time showed a difference of 40g.

A comparison of the position of the spots on photographs of the two fish, more or less confirm that it was indeed the same fish.

Up until the recent wet and cooler weather, sport on the reservoir had continued to be very good with some decent catches of most of the coarse fish in the reservoir with the exception of carp.

Brown trout have also been active with quite a few fish in the 1,300g to 2,000g range.

One large trout had three attempts to consume a 150 mm long roach being brought to the net.

In the first Sunset Series match on the water, John Leatt had an easy win with 1,270g to Graeme Waterfall’s 630g.

Kenny Wright was third with 380g and Russell Heaton fourth with 370g.

In the Peter Hart Memorial match fished last Sunday morning in blustery conditions, the fish refused to turn up and at least four competitors were fishless.

Those that did catch fish had to make do with one or two small roach or perch and if they were really lucky, a skimmer bream.

Tomorrow sees the start of the new coarse fishing season mainly on the rivers of England and Wales.

The only difference is that all coarse fish may now be fished for and all legitimate baits may be used.