WITH plenty of inclement weather over the Christmas period including snow, ice, heavy rain and gale force winds, anglers had to pick their time carefully in order to enjoy a spell of fishing on the local waters.

The best fish was a fine perch that came from the canal basin in the centre of Skipton during one of the times it was free of ice.

It proved to be the only fish of the day for local angler Andrew Thomas and tipped the scales at 1,200 kg (2:10:8) which should make it a new record for the Skipton AA, narrowly beating the previously best perch of 1.137 kg caught by Michael Ickringill in late November.

Another good day's fishing was enjoyed by Simon Chenier who fished both Embsay Reservoir and the river Aire on the same day. A morning session on Embsay yielded a decent brown trout and an equally good tiger trout together with a small perch.

In the afternoon, Simon landed two good brownies from the Aire and four grayling, two of which measured 48cm in length. Unfortunately, a weighing scale was not to hand but the length puts the grayling at well over a kilogramme each.

Finally, Whinnygill Reservoir has produced some good sport for the rod of David Fenn during a couple of sessions between the showers.

After fishing for three and half hours without a bite, the fish started coming with a bite a cast and resulted in three roach with the best a fish of 910g, a small skimmer and finally 11 ide in the span of one and a half hours.

On a separate occasion, Dave landed five roach, five perch and a skimmer plus experiencing plenty of missed bites.

It looks like the canal and Whinnygill will continue to provide the best fishing with a mildish, windy and rather wet forecast for the foreseeable future probably ruling the river out due to high water levels.

The 111th Skipton Angling Association’s agm will be held at the RAF Club, Shortbank Road, Skipton,next Thursday at 7.30 pm. All members should make every effort to attend this important meeting.