RECENT spells of heavy rain have kept the water level above normal in the River Aire and certainly helped to improve the fishing as the extra water ran off.

Plenty of anglers have been in action around Skipton and all have reported some good sport.

Association bailiff, Dave Martin, has enjoyed some really good fishing during a long session on the dry fly above Carleton Stone Bridge. Dave landed 17 fish which were mainly decent size brown trout but included a couple of small chub, further proof that this species is making a comeback in the upper Aire. Other anglers have enjoyed similar sport including some mainly smallish grayling.

Whinnygill Reservoir is continuing to fish well with bait anglers getting among roach, perch and brownies. Some of the latter fish have been in beautiful condition both in size and colour and approaching the 1360g (3:0:0) mark. Joshua Ickringill, who was mentioned last week with the fine specimen roach, has continued to show his father how to catch fish by landing several good brownies in one spell.

Even Embsay Reservoir is trying to get in the headlines with some decent bags of both brown and rainbow trout. Both have fallen to either the dry fly or the worm with the rainbows generally surpassing the brownies in size with fish to over the 900g (2:0:0) mark.

Just four weeks remains of the brown trout season which closes on September 30 on all the Skipton AA waters. Some very good fish have come out of the Aire again this year and there may be still enough time to beat the present record fish of 2500g (5:8:0), especially if the conditions remain good.

Skipton Winter League will be starting again this coming Sunday with the first match on the Swine Lane length of the canal at Riddlesden. Competitors will be hoping that the sport shows an improvement over that experienced since April when catches have been poor on almost every length. The two summer league matches on this particular stretch were notably poor.

Registration for the league can only take place at the first two matches and the draw is at 8.15 am with fishing over three hours. Phone Bill Davenport on 01756-799671 for full particulars.