ONCE again the weather let down competitors in the last match of the Peter Hart Memorial series fished on Whinnygill Reservoir last Sunday morning.

Unfortunately, the temperature had dropped during Saturday night and a keen westerly wind was blowing during the three-hour match, resulting in relatively poor sport.

Bob Fenn had a good bag of roach and perch from the quarry corner to narrowly win the match with 970g. Graeme Waterfall took a single bream midway through the match to finish runner-up with 960g whilst Simon Chenier was third with another mixed catch for 620g. Other leading weights were Dave Fenn (420g) and Russell Heaton (90g). Four competitors failed to catch a fish.

Prior to match day, Whinnygill had been fishing really well with roach, bream, perch, carp, rudd and brown trout readily taking the red maggot, bread and worm.

One angler had a catch of 12kg in the space of approximately three hours.

Perch have been proving some good sport at Embsay Reservoir where trout are the normal quarry. A fish a cast on the road length has produced some good weights including fish to around the 450g mark. Brown, rainbow and tiger trout have also been caught along with the perch.

Heavy rain showers nearly every day have put plenty of extra water into the River Aire and culminated on Monday in minor flooding of riverside fields. A forecast of even more heavy rain could end in some serious flooding and loss of a proportion of this year’s fry.

Skipton Winter League competitors commence their eight-match series this Sunday on the canal at Swine Lane, Riddlesden. Hopefully, this event will not follow the last two year’s opening matches at the same venue where both of them provided some rather poor sport.

Registration for the league will take place at the first two matches only and the fee is £7. Match day entry, which includes peg fees, costs a further £8 and will pay out three or four prizes plus two section prizes.

The league is open to all anglers and further details may be obtained from Bill Davenport on 01756-799671 or 07581082576.