I have had a love hate relationship with Hampton Ferry over the years, meeting at the cafe for brekkie full of anticipation, a meeting place for hundreds of thousands maybe even millions of anglers and a place to return to in the hope that you have won something. The trip over on the ferry if you had drawn the opposite bank with anglers laughing and joking only to return about six hours later with faces as long as fourpence after struggling for a bite, any bite. Sometimes it fished its head off but usually just for one or maybe two anglers with the rest struggling yet there were some nice fish to be caught for all its moods.
I well remember weighing in four or five pounds in one match and thinking it might just get me in the money because it was a blazing hot summers day and the Avon was low without a trace of colour only to get hammered by two anglers, one weighing in about eight pounds the other just over ten pounds and both had just two fish, both tench?????
One day the Avon will make a come back and once again we might see the whole of the Evesham stretch from the town water right through to Huxley's full of eager anglers just itching to fill their nets. A dream? Maybe, but a very nice dream.