A long, gentle Yorkshire river rising on the North York Moors above Scarborough and curving inland — the Sea Cut diverts its upper flood water to the coast — before meandering slowly through the Vale of Pickering past Malton and Stamford Bridge to join the Ouse at Barmby-on-the-Marsh. The famous game water is the middle river around Malton, Kirkham and Buttercrambe: clear, weedy, unhurried glides over a mixed limestone-and-moorland catchment that grow wild brown trout and an exceptional head of grayling. It fishes as a classic dry-fly and North Country spider river in summer, and comes into its own for grayling from autumn — though the club season closes earlier than the statutory date, so time a winter visit carefully. Slow to rise and slow to fall given its lowland length.

• River
• Mixed