ONE of the most popular lengths of the canal going back 50 years ago was the Gargrave feeder to Banknewton stretch, where on any day, anglers could be seen fishing, especially at the weekends.

Frequent club matches were also fished on the many lengths between the locks and once a year, the Skipton Angling Association took over the whole length for its 100 peg plus charity match.

Besides the matches, the fishing was steady with all the usual canal species turning up in catches.

Below Holme Bridge where the feeder stream from Eshton Beck enters the canal, brown trout could be caught in decent numbers, including some large specimens.

One of those weighed some 5.387 kg and held the Yorkshire record from 1957 to 1964. The captor was Herbert Ayrton of Barnoldswick.

Nowadays you would be hard pressed to see an angler anywhere between Gargrave and Banknewton and there are certainly no matches there either. What went wrong?

Probably the increase in boat traffic has been mainly to blame with the constant movement from dawn until dusk, the release of water from the locks and the inevitable heavily silt laden water.

This most certainly affected the trout stocks because in the early days, the water was almost gin clear.

Perhaps another reason has been the rapid growth of still water ponds and lakes. Their large stock fish guarantees good fish, with the chance of a real specimen by the end of the day, even though the experience is somewhat artificial.

One local angler has recently returned to his old haunt on the Ray Bridge length after an absence of many years and found the fishing was not too bad after all.

Starting off with small roach and perch, he increased the size of his bread bait and was rewarded with a good roach approaching the 450g mark and a bream to over 1350g.

Maybe there could still be a specimen trout lurking on the feeder length?

River anglers wishing to fish the River Aire look like they will have to wait a little longer as the present amounts of rainfall are having no effect on the level and there is nothing much in the forecast.

Just over a month remains of the brown trout season so there is still a chance of some extra water to liven things up.