THE Skipton Angling Association’s second taster day of the year proved to be a great success with many youngsters among those taking part.

Whinnygill Reservoir was the venue again and although the conditions were generally reasonable, the fish once again were difficult to entice. Perch saved the day and enough were eventually caught to give encouragement for the future.

Six-year-old Louis Parkin showed everyone how to do it and had the best catch of the day with four perch.

His reward was a complete fishing outfit which was presented to him by the Skipton Town Mayor, Andrew Rankin at the end of proceedings.

Earlier in the week at the same venue, competitors in the evening match also found the fish hard to catch and three anglers failed to get a bite. Conditions were once again quite good with little wind on a mild night.

Match winner, John Leatt, drew the best peg on the reservoir at the south west corner and caught fish more or less from the all-in.

At the end of the match he had amassed a mixed bag of roach, perch, skimmers and a 300g (0:10:0) tench which took the scales down to 1900g (4:3:0).

The remaining weights were way off the mark with Michael Ickringill second with 120g (0:4:4) of perch and Simon Chenior third with 80g (0:3:0) of gudgeon. The next three anglers shared fourth spot with a nominal 10g (0:0:6) of minute perch.

Skipton member Wayne Eason showed the value of the association’s new fishing rights on the canal when he fished on the Broughton Road length and landed a very good haul of mainly mixed silver fish.

This length has tended to be ignored by anglers in recent years but could always produce some good weights of coarse fish including the occasional pike and odd trout.

The basin length in the centre of Skipton is well known for the fine winter perch that it holds but other big fish lurk there as well including pike and bream. Ernie Ramsbotham had a three-hour session late last week and landed three good bream weighing about 1,365g (3:0:0) each. It seems that Skipton AA members are going to enjoy their new acquisition.