Aire and Calder Canal

H&DAA members can fish the Aire & Calder Navigation (as controlled by the Boothferry Aire & Calder Joint Canal Committee) without the need to purchase any other permit or day ticket (just show your H&DAA membership permit to any Bailiff on the bank).

This covers a 12 mile stretch of the Canal from Goole to Great Heck and offers some exceptional summer fishing along its entire length. Catches of over 20lb is not an unusual occurrence. However, favoured spots are Rawcliffe Bridge, which is accessed down the track leading to Sugar Mill ponds; New Bridge where the A164 crosses the Canal; Beevers Bridge where the track to Southfield Reservoir runs alongside the canal (meaning that anglers can park behind their pegs): Pollington, particularly the stretch between Crowcroft Bridge and the Lock, and Great Heck which is a very good early season stretch and where there are two access points both with good car parking. On no account should cars be driven along the bank behind the pegs.

During 2008, the Canal Committee spent a large amount of money installing permanent concrete angling stances at New Bridge, Pollington and Great Heck to add to those installed at Beevers Bridge some years previously. This makes the venue very ‘angler friendly’. However, the Aire & Calder is not like one of the narrow Lancashire canals, it is a commercial waterway that still carries the occasional 300 tonne barge taking sand or diesel upstream from Goole to Leeds.

The canal has an average depth of 3-4 metres in the boat channel (which can be quite close to the bank), although it has shallower lengths at Rawcliffe Bridge and Great Heck, and is anything up to 40 metres wide. The water is either stationary or flowing gently towards Goole, but it can stop or even run back the other way due to lock usage.

The predominant species are roach and perch, but gudgeon, bream, chub and bleak are also present. Matches can be booked on any stretches of the Canal (contact Paul Caygill on 07976 779983). For further details go to www.bacjcccanalfishing.co.uk

Directions

what3words ///cheerful.legend.yelled – Beevers Bridge.