SKIPTON Winter League competitors certainly got among the fish last Sunday when they fished the third match in this season’s series on the Long Ing length of the canal at Barnoldswick.

Conditions were generally good with just a blustery wind affecting a few of the 18 pegs.

Unfortunately, apart from one or two decent skimmers, all the catches consisted of small roach, perch, ruffe and gudgeon and the weights were correspondingly lower than average for this normally productive venue.

The results were as follows – Individuals: 1 Kenny Wright 1,010g (a few decent roach and a small pike), 2 Rob Thornton 920g, 3 Dave Fenn 730g (one good skimmer), 4 Russell Heaton 690g, 5 Roy Veevers 580g and 6 Bob Fenn 450g. Pairs: 1 Thornton & Wright 1,930g, 2 D & R Fenn 1,180g, 3 Aldis & Heaton 900g, 4 Brown & Davenport, Chenier & Waterfall and Eason & Veevers all 580g.

Leading positions in the leagues are as follows – Individuals: 1 Dave Fenn 9pts, 2 Keith Brown 19, 3 Jason Aldis 21, 4 Graeme Waterfall 22, 5 Kenny Wright & Bob Fenn 27, 7 Rob Thornton & Russell Heaton 28, 9 Bill Davenport.

Pairs: 1 D & R Fenn 7, 2 Aldis & Heaton 8, 3 Brown & Davenport and Chenier & Waterfall 13, 5 Thornton & Wright 15, 6 Ramsbotham & Young and Thomas & Wharton 19.

The next match will be fished on October 29 and will be pegged either side of the road bridge near the Bay Horse Inn at Snaygill.

On Saturday and Sunday the River Aire was hit by a large volume of heavy rain from higher up the river towards Malham resulting in some extensive flooding of the low-lying ground to well below Carleton-in-Craven.

Local becks were only moderately high and so did not contribute significantly to the floods lower downstream.

Fishing was out of the question on Saturday and would probably not have been successful on the Sunday although the level had fallen by at least a metre.

Before the weekend, the upper lengths above Inghey Bridge and been well fished and some decent grayling had turned up on both the fly and the worm.