At the 108th annual general meeting of the Skipton Angling Association last week, the better than average attendance heard that 2014 had been a good year all round with membership and finances in particular both showing a healthy increase.

With the summer weather being reasonably dry, sport had been generally good on all the Association’s waters where some record fish had been landed.

The brown trout record set in 1946 had been beaten by a River Aire fish of 2500g (5:8:0) landed by Mr Andrew Facey on ledgered worm. Whinnygill Reservoir’s bream record was marginally increased by Wayne Hitch with a 3300g (7:4:0) fish and then subsequently equalled by Wayne Eason catching probably the same fish. The reservoir’s ide record was also raised by Alan Wade with a 965g (2:2:0) fish.

Embsay Reservoir provided some very good sport early on in the season due to the introduction of a quantity of rainbow trout to over the 1820g (4:0:0) mark along with the normal size stock fish.

Even larger fish were to be introduced later in the season but these failed to materialise at the fish farm and the Association had to be content with more of the 1820g (4:0:0) variety.

Besides the good brown trout, members were pleased to discover that chub were making a return on the Aire with the capture of decent numbers of small fish throughout the Skipton length. Good grayling to over the 900g (2:0:0) mark were also landed together with a few pike up to around 6820g (15:0:0).

The election of officials included two new positions that had been created to ease the work load and the following were elected:- General Secretary – Graeme Waterfall; Treasurer - Peter Smith; Events Secretary – Malcolm Mawson and Membership Secretary – Peter Hart; Bailiff – Richard Tordoff; Committee – Messrs John P. Waterhouse, Dave Martin and Mark Hindle. All other existing officials were re-elected.

Whilst the former secretary, Malcolm Mawson had indicated a willingness to become the events secretary, the treasurer, Peter Hart, had wished to relinquish his position altogether after 30 years in the role. Unfortunately, no one came forward for the membership secretary so Peter kindly volunteered to take on the position until a successor can be found. Members will therefore continue to renew their subscriptions with Peter and further details will be sent out to all members in the near future.