THE Craven part of Yorkshire was lucky last Thursday when the area had less than 25mm of rain which brought the level of the River Aire to the top of its banks, but with no flooding of the adjacent fields.

Surprisingly, by the weekend the river level had fallen substantially and one or two anglers were to be seen in action around Skipton.

One angler from the Halifax area visited the Heslaker Lane stretch on three occasions and managed to catch fish on two of the days; two smallish grayling that were tempted by a double maggot.

During a conversation with him, he confirmed that the sport on this particular stretch of river had not come up to normal expectations this year, especially in the last few weeks when high water levels had made fishing difficult at times.

Catches of both trout and grayling had been lower and the fish caught had tended to be smaller in size.

His most memorable catch so far was the surprise capture of four roach weighing about 350g each, all from the same swim opposite Funkirk Farm.

Subsequent visits to the same spot indicated that the roach had moved on.

Another unusual catch he had made from slightly lower down the river was two jack pike about 30cm in length that took a worm in successive casts.

The roach captures in particular was particularly interesting as two other anglers had reported catching a few roach of similar size from the river just below Carleton beck end in August/September.

The last time any roach were caught in any number from the Skipton Angling Association water was in a very mild March in 1989 when five fish were caught at Snaygill and all of specimen size ranging from 795g to 1210g.

Whether the latest catches indicate a revival of this species in the Aire remains to be seen.

Prospects once again remain poor with the weather forecast predicting more spells of heavy rain, low temperatures and the chance of snow on the hill tops.

The canal may be a decent alternative venue, although the cooler weather may finally take the edge off sport on this productive water.