BRADFORD CITY AA

DESPITE sun and mainly dry weather this week, lack of warmth has reduced insect life showing on running waters. On the lakes, fish have generally been slow to feed. Nevertheless, both coarse and game anglers have had some good catches.

At our Oakworth Ponds, bailiff Michael Whiteoak reports that the fish stocked at the start of the year have settled in well. We are seeing many new members fishing, with lots of roach and carp coming to the net on both lakes. Fishing maggot in the margins or sweetcorn on the pole up against the island, using light tackle and feeding steadily, has been productive.

Shipton and Staveley lakes have also rewarded anglers. Lee Abbott took his eight-year-old daughter Leigha night-fishing for the first time at Staveley, and she was delighted to have five carp and two bream. Simon Feather, fishing Shipton Lake, had a 17lb common carp and lots of bream to follow up a similar-sized fully-scaled mirror a few days earlier. Will anglers remember always to use an unhooking mat and carefully handle any fish caught.

The River Aire has also proved productive. Phil Bailey and Steve Rhodes, from Bingley, targeted and landed some large grayling and trout, which were spotted earlier in the week, on a size-20 winged black fly, though they missed a large chub estimated at 5lb.

Even though the weather was cool, fish were rising to the midges, stoneflies and blue-winged olives, of which large numbers have turned up in invertebrate counts this month. William Gill also had a good session, with a large grayling estimated at 2lb from the top end of the Gargrave water. We are also seeing huge numbers of bait fish, bullheads and minnows in the river at the moment, which are attracting some large trout and offer opportunity for anglers to fish streamers successfully. Please note however, that our rules dictate a maximum hook size of 12 on trout-only fisheries.

Jon Grey, of the Wild Trout Trust, who has led our conservation work on the Aire this year, is electro-fishing sections of the river and the Eastburn, Carleton and Lothersdale feeder becks this week to assess the fry and parr (young fish) numbers around the structures put into the river to improve habitat. We hope to have some results in next week’s column.

No new reports of KHV, which is lethal to fish, have been seen for the past couple of weeks. However, we continue our keep-net ban on all our fisheries until further notice as a precaution against infection, and anglers are again urged to always clean, check and dry their fishing tackle between visits.

Anyone not yet a member of the club can buy part-year membership for £34 – including the joining fee – which allows them to fish any club fishery from now until December 31. Our next match will be an open competition on Saturday, September 9 on the River Swale at Topcliffe. To book a place, and for further information, call Rodney Brooksbank on 07875-275749.

BRADFORD No 1 AA

Round five of the Calder League will take place on Sunday, with the draw at 9am at the Railway Inn. Punky's 8 lead the series with 29 points, four ahead of second-placed Mirfield with two matches remaining.

The River Aire at Beal will be closed on Sunday for an outside booking. Tickets for the Calder Championship on Sunday, September 17 are available for £15 from Simon on 01274-571175 or Tackle 2U in Bradford. This match carries a guaranteed first prize of £500, plus pools, so a big turnout is expected.

Second-rod permit holders fishing Knotford can fish using three rods from today (September 1) until April 30 as per rule 67. On all other waters. this doesn't take effect until Wednesday, November 1.

Anybody wishing to propose a rule change for this year's annual meeting must do so in writing to the general secretary by Monday, September 11, specifying the proposal, your details and the details of a seconder.

There have been a number of large carp caught from Knotford, Kirklees Lagoon and Queen Mary's Ponds over the last week. Shelf Dam is fishing well for bream and roach on maggot fishing shallow.

Club polo shirts and hoodies are still available from the website or will be available at the annual meeting.

SKIPTON AA

Whinnygill Reservoir appears to be our top water at the moment, judging from recent members' reports.The fish of the week fell to Dave Fenn, who took the ide record from Craig Hartley by only 30g. Dave’s fish weighed 1300g, and in the same session he landed a couple of orfe, a dozen quality roach and plenty of perch, all estimated to weigh about 11kg. Alan Williams also caught a good ide of 1220g.

Events secretary Simon Chenier has also been among the fish at three of our waters recently. At Whinnygill, he had a good bag of roach and perch on the pole using a No 8 elastic and a size-18 hook baited with a single red maggot. His session finished with a splendid brown trout of about 1400g that took 15 minutes to land.

Simon’s next venue was the River Aire, where recent spells of rain have produced strong-flowing water for most of July and August. Trotting down a float-fished maggot on a centre-pin reel, Simon landed three 230g chub, a grayling, two brown trout and a magnitude of minnows.

Embsay Reservoir was Simon’s third water, and the event was the fly-only match which only attracted four anglers.

Fishing turned out to be rather poor, despite recent stocking with quality rainbow and tiger trout, plus decent fishing conditions. John Waterhouse won the match with two trout, while Simon managed just a single fish.

On other days, the fishing on the reservoir has been much better, with some good bags of rainbow, tiger and brown trout on both fly and worm. The rainbows and tigers have run to over 900g, with the odd fish approaching 1360g.

The final water on which the fish have been responding well is our length of the canal down Broughton Road, where sport has been down in the dumps until recently. Kenny Wright and Dave Fenn fished it last week and reported catching numerous good roach, perch and skimmers until the appearance, and finally the capture, of a small pike put the fish off the feed.

BRADFORD SEA AC

The members who fished Scrabster in the north of Scotland had a fantastic time, with plenty of fish being caught. Eight club members have now set off for Clare Island, on the west coast of Ireland near Westport. In the meantime, there are many fish to be caught on the east and west coast of our shores. Our next general meeting is on Tuesday, September 19 at the New Inn, East Bierley (8pm). New members will be made welcome.

CENTRAL AC

Result of our match at Woodhouse Grange on Sunday: 1 R Wharfe 39lb, 2 S Worley 32lb 8oz, 3 A Simpson 27lb 10oz, 4 M Davey 26lb. Our last match of the season is at Tollerton on Sunday, September 10, meet at venue 8am, fishing 9am-3pm.