AFTER four weeks of dry but rather chilly weather due to a persistent easterly wind, sport experienced by anglers in the new brown trout season on the local waters had been pretty low key with nothing out of the ordinary being reported from any water.

All that changed last weekend when the wind changed to blow from a southerly direction resulting in some record temperatures over the Easter holiday period.

Whinnygill Reservoir at Skipton certainly witnessed a remarkable improvement and the highlight of the fishing over the holiday weekend was the capture of another magnificent brown trout that easily smashed the Skipton Angling Association’s record, set only two years ago from the same water.

The new record fish was caught by Skipton member Richard Sara using float fished double red maggot on 1.5kg breaking strain line and a size 16 hook and was landed after a hectic struggle.

Simon Chenier ran home for the scales and the fish was officially weighed in at 3465g to easily beat the existing record fish of 3040g caught in 2017.

Even the 3410g rainbow trout from Embsay Reservoir was beaten.

Unfortunately the fish was not measured but from photographs it is clear that it was in excellent condition and judging from its colour, it spends quite a lot of its time near the surface of the reservoir. The fish was returned to the water to fight another day.

Besides the big trout, Whinnygill seemed to come alive for the coarse fish in the water and some notable bags were recorded.

The biggest fell to Russell Heaton, who landed over 7kg of roach and a few perch during a six hour spell of fishing.

Simon Chenier had about 2.3kg of roach, ide, perch and a single skimmer in a four hour session with other anglers also getting amongst mainly roach and ide.

Skipton Summer League competitors will fish their first match this Sunday on the Stickups length of the canal at Barnoldswick. The draw will be at 7am with four hours of fishing.

League entry fees will be £12 payable at only the first two matches with an on the day prize fee of £10.

Half of the matches will be fished on the canal and the remainder on Raygill at Lothersdale.

JOHN W PRESTON