JUST two weeks remains of the brown trout season on rivers in Yorkshire which will draw to a close after the final day on Monday, September 30.
This season the fishing around Skipton has not been all that spectacular, partly due the various weather conditions and an apparent lack of specimen fish in the River Aire where a good fish this year has been around the 1kg mark.
Compare this with previous years where several fish up to 2.25kg have usually been landed and returned to the water.
Embsay Reservoir has fished reasonably well for rainbows and tiger trout, but the brownies have tended to be scarce throughout the season and once again have not been much above the 1kg mark.
Whinnygill Reservoir is the exception regarding big fish for quite early in the season a splendid brownie weighing some 3.465kg was landed by member Richard Sara to set a new Skipton Angling Association record for this species, beating the previous record by 425g.
As far as trout fishing is concerned, the reservoir now holds very few trout due to a change in stocking policy and the only fish left may be a few large brownies that spend most of their time consuming coarse fish fry.
Coarse fishing wise, Whinnygill is producing some excellent fishing for the fish it contains and anglers have reported some very good bags of fish in the last few weeks.
Carp have finally been landed together with quality bream, ide, roach, tench and even some good perch.
One particular catch that deserves a mention is the 100 plus catch landed by John David Nicholls, who also lost two fish that were described as huge.
The reservoir was the venue last Sunday for the final match in this season’s PR Hart Memorial Trophy match and the reservoir’s jink for poor sport on match days duly returned after considering the catches described above.
Unfortunately, the temperature dipped to near freezing during Saturday night and with a bright cloudless sky on match day, the sport was poor.
Simon Chenier won with 370g, John Leatt was second with 200g and Malcolm Mawson third with 40g. Chenier (nine points) leapfrogged fishless Russell Heaton (16) to take the trophy with Mawson (17) finishing third.
In a final twist, Heaton continued fishing at his peg after the all-out and within ten minutes started to catch quality roach.
JOHN W PRESTON
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