Fishing in Yorkshire: Everything you need to know about fishing in Yorkshire's rivers

Sub divided into West Yorkshire, East Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and North Yorkshire, we are spoilt for choice between the Pennine range of hills (the backbone of Yorkshire), the Yorkshire Dales National Park, the Vale of York and the North Yorkshire moors.

For the purpose of this article, I am going to concentrate on the Dales and the rivers that run through them.

These include the Wharfe, Ure, Nidd, Swale, Aire, Derwent and these drain into the Ouse, which runs through and occasionally floods, York.

The Ouse and Trent (which drains most of Nottinghamshire) meet up at Trent Falls at Blacktoft and become the majestic Humber flowing on its way to the sea carrying all the Trent and Ouse water, the Ouse being fed by the Yorkshire rivers.

The best-known Dales are Wharfedale, Swaledale and Wensleydale.

The River Wharfe has been my most productive river over the years, with trout at Grassington, trout and grayling at Burley-in- Wharfedale, trout and grayling in Addingham, trout at Ilkley and trout and grayling at Otley.

I lived in Wetherby for many years and fished at Wetherby and Boston Spa where I caught a variety of species, trout, grayling, barbel, chub, pike and perch.

My uncle Mark Keates and his son David told me the tale of seeing a dead Salmon at Tadcaster weir pool in the 1950’s.

Over many years I have caught dabs, the sea fish variety at that weir pool as it was the first upstream from the sea. Nowadays, with the addition of salmon ladders most of the Yorkshire rivers have a salmon population.

Swaledale recollections are vividly imprinted on my mind. Especially the chub around Morton on Swale and great fun with large barbel. The Topcliffe stretch was favoured by my Huddersfield Police angling club for matches.

I was not the flavour of the month as I had a good technique for filling my keep net and usually won the match prizes.

It was a nice coach trip from Huddersfield centre into wonderful Yorkshire countryside starting with pub brunch and ending with a pub meal on the way home where the prizes of cutlery, glasses or a reel or fishing bag were presented. I still have a fishing bag and knives and forks from those halcyon days.

Fishing on the Ure then and today was a more gamey experience, as salmon, trout and grayling fishing is improving year on year. The careful water management has paid dividends as testified by the increase in salmon numbers.

The Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust in conjunction with the Swinton Estate have undertaken work to allow for a successful smolt release programme. It is hoped that the programme will be sustainable and produce the desired results.

The Nidd rises in Great Whernside, Nidderdale and is best known from its glamorous Knaresborough setting, running under the famous viaduct and past Mother Shipton’s Cave. Its confluence with the River Ouse is near Nun Monkton.

York Yacht Club used to favour mooring up at the confluence, perhaps 5 boats and 20 boaters and having picnics. As a special treat we would all walk into Nun Monkton to the Alice Hawthorne (a very successful racing mare) Inn and sample their delicious food in the very English village atmosphere, complete with a gigantic 88 feet Maypole.

It was rather convenient to wander back to the boats after a few drinks for a chat, a sleep or even to fish a while.

Although not possessing a Dale, the Derwent rises on the Fylingdales moors flowing through the Vale of Pickering and the Vale of York, finally joining the Ouse at Barmby on the Marsh where my good friend Mark took me fishing on several occasions.

It holds a good head of course fish and has an interesting tidal barrage designed to hold back the tidal Ouse. It also maintains a good depth of water for abstraction for the City of Hull at the Loftsome Bridge water treatment works.

The Aire and Calder are better known for their transportation qualities rather than fishing. The Aire and Calder navigation links Wakefield and Leeds to the Humber and out to sea via Goole.

Six hundred ton barges use this system and although coal has been replaced with gravel and petroleum etc. countless road journeys are still being saved.

I remember the River Calder being initially stocked with coarse fish, roach, bream, perch and chub after its massive cleanup. The Aire is stocked by the Environment Agency with barbel and also has a good ‘scale’ of trout, graying, dace, roach, chub and pike.

The River Don and the River Rother grace South Yorkshire and also support salmon, trout, barbel, chub, roach, skimmers and dace.

Sheffield has always had a keen angling community and I’ve found Sheffielders well represented on the East Yorkshire beaches, fishing the Scottish salmon rivers and the coarse fishing matches.

Salmon have been seen and caught in all our Yorkshire rivers and will have left the sea via the Humber or the Whitby Esk.

In the 2023 statistics for Yorkshire rivers around 100 salmon were reportedly caught. In the River Tyne over one and a half thousand were reported to have been caught.

Over the last three years catches have levelled off, but as most statisticians recognise anglers are a fickle bunch prone to exaggeration or the opposite, depending on their agenda.

Here endeth the Gospel on Yorkshire Rivers. I hope you have enjoyed it and will visit or even fish some of the areas I have covered.