CONDITIONS appeared to be reasonable for the penultimate Craven Summer League match on the Silentnight length of the canal at Barnoldswick last Sunday. The morning was overcast with a moderate west wind and a temperature somewhat below normal for the time of year.

However, shortly after the start of the three-hour match at 7am, it was obvious to the competitors that the sport was going to be patchy once again as only the odd small roach or perch was coming to the net. Two anglers managed to change that pattern with the capture of a small pike and a good roach whilst another did get the roach feeding but they were very small fish.

At the all-out, Ernest Ramsbotham took 950g (2:1:8) to the scales which comprised of a single jack pike and one or two small fish. This gave him a comfortable win over Simon Chenior with 630g (1:6:4) which included a splendid 450g (1:0:0) roach.

The remaining leading anglers all caught a combination of small roach or perch with Keith Brown in third spot with 300g (1:5:0). In fourth was Andy Wharton 230g (0:8:0), fifth was Ian Parker with 170g (0:6:0) (20 very small roach) and sixth was Kenny Wright with 150g (0:5:8).

With the remaining match on the Long Ing length on August 23, the leading competitors in the championship are: 1 Rob Thornton 76pts, 2 Simon Chenior 74, 3 Andrew Thomas 73, 4 Ernest Ramsbotham 71 and 5 Andy Wharton 64.

Skipton member, John Nichol, has landed another fine roach from Whinnygill Reservoir weighing 1,060g (2:5:0) or has he?

The fish in the photograph shown on the Skipton Club’s Facebook page has a distinct bronze colour and a complete lack of red in the fins and with these features surely it is a roach-bream hybrid. Only the examination of a scale would definitely confirm its true identity.

Sport on Embsay Reservoir has held up recently and catches have consisted of good rainbows to 1360g (3:0:0) and a few decent brownies to over the 450g (1:0:0) mark.

Plenty of smallish perch have also been caught but the fish of the season (so far) has been a splendid common carp landed by Simon Chenior.

The fish took the scales down to 2590g (5:11:4) and easily smashed the Association’s carp record set on Whinnygill Reservoir in 2014 with a 1,275g (2:12:14) fish.