ANOTHER large brown trout caught in the Craven district has come to my notice but this time it was not as far back as the 7.5kg fish from Elslack Reservoir landed in 1999.

This time the specimen brownie was caught in Malham Tarn in early September by a regular at the water, Stephen Broadbent, and the fish took the scales down to 6.14kg, which is believed to be a record for the water.

Stephen was fishing loch style with a floating line in a cold north easterly wind near the east bank when the trout took a snot point fly at the end of a drift.

Taking line off the reel almost to the backing, the fish had to be followed on the engine before it was ready to be landed at the third attempt.

Earlier in the season in May, Stephen had landed fish of 3.86kg and 2.27kg from the tarn on the same day.

The tarn is a rare alkaline lake at an altitude of 1,237 feet that is highly fertile with a prodigious population of caddis, midge and olives.

Besides the large trout that it obviously holds, the tarn is also well known for producing specimen perch to over the 1.8kg mark.

Skipton Angling Association member Philip Mawson likes to get among the specimens from time to time and this week he has enjoyed an excellent bag of three pike from the local length of the canal a short distance from the basin.

Using half a sardine on 3.5kg line to a wire trace, Philip landed three pike that weighed 5.4kg, 4.69kg and 2.2kg.

Other anglers fishing in the vicinity also encountered some decent pike on spinning tackle but unfortunately did not have a working balance between them.

After another bank topper last week, the River Aire had managed to fall sufficiently to allow some fishing at the weekend but only the odd angler was in action and sport was apparently very poor.

Weekend prospects may have improved with less rain forecast but nighttime frosts may have affected still water fishing.