Avon Recce

After 3 recent trips to Manor Farm resulting in big fat zeros - neither my mate nor me could muster even a sniff between us - I decided to do a bit of a recce downstream of Evesham. This coincided with wife plus wife's sister wanting to do some shopping therapy at Evesham Garden Centre. Ideal for a 2 - 3 hour investigation of the river downstream.

After dropping them off I firstly headed to Fladbury, a destination fished in my childhood, too many years ago to mention on a family site such as this! I parked at the car park at Jubilee Bridge and was met with a wonderful, sunny and dry bit of the day. However, I did take the precaution of putting on my boots and salopettes. 10 minutes of (warm) walking brought me up to the little footbridge just before the mill.

According to the EA river levels site, the Avon's running at 1.63m which is above the top of the "normal" range, but all you guys know that from your outings. The river was pushing through hard with loads of crap coming down and the colour was a milky chocolate. Saying that, I could still make out the tops of several platforms although most were under water.

I went on to Wick, a stretch totally unknown to me but I was told that the Barbel Society have a stretch there. After trying to make sense of the BAA's book, I eventually parked up having negotiated a very rough track (not sensible in a Ford Focus!) but came out on Wick A S water, nowhere near the weir. En route I skirted some game bird fenced off areas and eventually found a half-submerged footbridge (an overstatement if there ever was) which took me to the BAA stretch opposite the boatyard.

Here the steeper banks made it impossible to make out too many swims but a few yards upstream brought me to the weir. I must say it looks a nice spot.

The river today was in a pretty bad mood but I'll keep an eye on the EA site and definitely give the Fladbury/Wick stretches a go soon. That spreadsheet is calling!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-vP49oy4KM