Bradford No1 AA

The winner of Saturday's junior match at Raskelf was Harry Michael, who caught 25 F1 carp for an outstanding 31lbs, 6oz on method feeder and pellet.

Harrison Jones came second with 24lbs of F1 carp, followed by Matthew Priestman in third with 7lbs, 8oz.

Rounding out the top-four was Riley O'Hara's all-silvers catch of 5lbs 8oz.

In the Under 11s section, Summer Dermot won with 12lbs, 4oz of F1 carp on only her second outing.

The next junior match will be on July 20.

On Sunday at the same location, Howard Foster came out on top in the committee match.

His 68lbs, 6oz of F1 carp - caught with feeder and maggot - far surpassed Simon Freer's haul of 39lbs, 13oz in second.

Simon Foster came in just behind with 34lbs, 4oz.

The Frank Gibson Memorial Trophy for the biggest fish went to John Sparks with a 3lbs, 10oz F1 carp.

Some sections of the River Calder will be closed on Sunday for the opening round of this year's Calder League, which will draw at The Railway Inn in Brighouse at 9am.

Last week Mark Holmes got some outstanding catches of tench from Queen Mary's Ponds in Ripon.

He returned on Monday to catch a further 22 tench up to the weight of 5lbs, 14oz, with seven of those over the 5lb mark.

The best fish of the week to be caught from the venue though, was a 13lbs, 8oz bream which was pulled from the figure of eight lake.

Finally, the River Swale at Thornton Bridge is producing good catches of chub and barbel on ledgered meat.

Bradford City AA
The weather over the past fortnight has been very changeable, with a fair bit of rain and extra flow in the rivers, though the forecast for the coming weekend is warm and dry.
The opening of the river coarse fishing season has seen many reports of barbel and chub caught, especially from the Swale. However, returns appear to be a little patchy, with some lengths not as productive as others, and high water levels causing some concern. But Tom Caulfield, one of our members, reported a large dace from Cod Beck, on double red maggot with a maggot feeder full of mixed.

On the Dales rivers, we have hosted a number of anglers fishing lots we gifted, and they won, in the recent Wild Trout Trust fund-raising auction. Finding rivers in fishable condition posed a slight problem, but the upper Wharfe at Buckden saw fish rising well to small upwings, sedges and black fly and deer-hair emergers proved successful.

Later in the week, the upper Aire produced many fish to baetis nymphs, fished klink-and-dink style, including grayling to 2lb, to the same guests.  
Another pair of auction-winners also fished, both experienced anglers whose home waters are much slower streams, who found Yorkshire rivers much to their taste, with over 30 fish each. Biggest was a 2.75lb trout from our Buckden stretch on the Wharfe.  

Separately, Jon Grey found time for an hour on the club water on the Ure above Aysgarth. The river was a good height and the trout looking up, with an IOBO fly bringing some good fish to hand.  
'Slopey' Slopes, fishing at our Shipton Lake on Sunday night, caught a fantastic 24lb 8oz mirror. The very next day, heavy rain brought on spawning by the carp, which is expected to continue in the warm weather forecast over the coming weekend.  Under these circumstances, we earnestly ask anglers not to fish for carp or disturb spawning activity, and/or fish the field side away from the lilies, to leave them in peace.

Away from the fishing, we are sorry to report that persons unknown have stolen padlocks and chains from gates from Inghey Bridge. These were attached securely to wooden and stone posts with coach bolts, which clearly required major force to remove them.  If anyone can shed light on the culprits, then please do tell any member of the BCAA Committee, for them to pursue that with the police.

We have also walked the Aire at Bradley and reported several Giant Hogweed for spraying. A working party is planned for 3pm on Thursday, July 4 to pull himalayan balsam and ragwort, to fulfil our contracts with local farmers on parts of the river we rent from them. If anyone can help out for a few hours, then please call Jim on 07940-814431 for further information.

Skipton Horse Trials this week will disrupt access down Heslaker Lane to the fishing we share with Skipton AA at Carleton, and access to our own fishing at Funkirk. 

Meanwhile, an angler is reported to have caught and killed a salmon from our Skirbeck beat on the Ribble this week, in contravention of our 100 per cent catch and release policy.  Club rules provide for offenders to be banned for two years if caught taking fish, so all anglers have been warned!

Bingley AC

After fishing well last week, the fish went into spawning mode and failed to respond in last Sunday's match at Coppice.

Mainly small fish were caught and weights were low.

Results: 1. A.Newman, 2lbs, 11oz; 2. L.Carter, 2lbs, 8oz; 3. J.Martin, 1lb, 14oz.

Meanwhile, Wray Wood is fishing well with barbel, perch and pike being caught.

Listerhills AA

The club are sad to announce the death of a past official of the club and also life member Tony Haigh.

He had battled with ill health for a number of years.

Watchers have stepped up their activities on the canal and a number of people have been caught without a valid membership book or day ticket.

The match this Sunday is on the nature reserve length at Rodley, with the draw at 10am.

This is followed by a match on July 7 at Armley - however, it may be switched to a different length of the canal.

Watch for next weeks report for news on that.

Leeds & District ASA

The start of the river season for coarse fish was met with rivers carrying extra water.

Some good catches resulted from favoured swims for those out for chub and barb.

Among first day reports, S.Meegan had a chub of 5lbs, 3oz from the Swale.

Results from Ham match at Ulleskelf: 1. J.Jordan, barbel, 29lbs, 4oz; 2. D.Robson, barbel, 24lbs; 3. A.Parr, barbel, 17lbs, 9oz.

Results from match at Kippax Park on Tuesday, June 16: 1. D.Wright, 68lbs, 14oz; 2. R.Thomas, 60lbs, 7oz; 3. P.Carter, 57lbs, 3oz.

Results from match at Moormonkton Pools on Wednesday, June 17: 1. D.Pollitt, 131lbs, 15oz; 2. A.Corvick, 96lbs, 1oz; 3. J.Mills, 48lbs, 4oz.

Results from Saturday's match: 1. P.Cromie, 126lbs, 3oz; 2. N.Rymer, 66lbs, 8oz; 3. O.Hewitt, 62lbs, 13oz.

Results from Sunday's match: 1. M.Gallagher, 116lbs; 2. T.Bainbridge, 105lbs, 6oz; 3. D.Wright, 104lbs, 13oz.

Skipton AA

A reasonable number of fish were caught during the club's taster day at Embsay Reservoir.

The haul included: brown and rainbow trout, around the 1kg mark, a decent tiger trout, and a good number of smaller perch weighing in at around 250g.

Youngster Charlie was the winner on the day with a decent perch.

Sport at the second Sunset Series match on Whinnygill Reservoir showed a big improvement from the first match a fortnight ago.

Results: 1. Russell Heaton, 2.155kg; 2. Simon Chenier, 1.355kg; 3. John Leatt, 795g; 4. Michael Ickringill, 245g; 5. Malcolm Mawson, 140g.

Local anglers will be shocked to learn that the River Aire features high in a recent Greenpeace analysis of river water samples for pieces of plastic.

The worst offending river was the River Mersey which contained more than two million pieces for every square kilometre.

These include everything from straw and bottle top fragments to tiny plastic microbeads, as well as larger items such as cups.

Using the same sampling technique, they uncovered 108 pieces of plastic in the Thames, next came the Aire with 63 pieces, followed by the Severn at 42 pieces and the Trent with 35 pieces.

The Greenpeace results came from analysing a total of 13 rivers.