Fish & Fly - Jon Beer - 09/98 - Fly Fishing in France

IMPORTANT
SITE UPDATE:

Visit the relaunched
Fish & Fly at fishandfly.com

FLY FISHING IN FRANCE

Our September 1998 contribution from Jon Beer

Your average Brit is a law-abiding cove on the whole. This is not, I suspect, so much an aversion to sin as it is a mortal dread of embarrassment. Your average Brit will sin as happily as the next man but he shrivels at the thought of being shouted at if he is caught at it.

I do, anyway.

So I understand, only too well, your average Brit's apprehensions over fishing in foreign parts. What with byelaws on the use of this bait before that date, not spinning unless the river is above the mark on some bridge and beats that end three-and-a-half-fields-down-from-where-the-old-fishing-hut-used-to-be, it simple enough to fall foul of arcane regulations in Britain.

And not just the regulations. It is perfectly legal, for instance, to fish for brown trout on a Sunday in Scotland. But in places it is just not done. It is not done in the islands of the Outer Hebrides. Three of these islands, South Uist, Benbecula and North Uist run south to north and are joined by causeways. In the south of South Uist you could fish for trout on Sunday and no-one would turn a hair. In the north of South Uist and Benbecula Sunday fishing is frowned on but provided it is done discreetly you will be tolerated as an ignorant and Godless creature more to be pitied than chastised. In North Uist they will shoot first and pity you after that. You have to know these things.

It is not surprising, then, that your average Brit shies like a nervous horse at fishing regulations in a language he gave up two years before O-level, long before he came across the words for "riparian ownership" and "upstream dry-fly only". So he leaves his rods behind and goes on holidays to these places and he looks down from the bridge and sees large shapes hanging in the current and swooping up to grab a morsel from the surface, much the same as they do on the rivers at home, and he gets urges. Quite right too.

Most of the questions I get asked these days are on the practicalities, complications and cost of finding fishing on holiday. And of those questions, most are on fishing in France.

So let's start with game fishing in France.

Gaul is divided into three parts - but its rivers are conveniently divided into two categories. Category 1 is the faster, fresher water favoured by trout, grayling and salmon: category 2 is the slower, warmer water where coarse fish are the dominant species. Every departement has a handy little map that comes with your fishing ticket, showing the different categories of river in different colours, so finding likely, trouty water is a morceau de gâteau.

Having found the stuff you will need, as in England and Wales, a licence and permission to fish it.

Outside Normandy, with its chalkstreams and proximity to Paris, private fishing is rare: most fishing is in the hands of local angling associations who fish the rivers around each town or village. And here is the staggering bit: most of these "Associations pour la Pêche et la Protection du Milieu Aquatique" (APPMAs) have a reciprocal arrangement with all the others in a departement. Join one and you can fish the waters of them all. In the departement of Pyrénées-Atlantiques for example, this means you can fish over one thousand miles of pristine trout and salmon rivers and streams.

Even that is small beer in France. For a small annual sum you can join the Club Halieutique which will give you the same access to another 35 departements - most of France south of the River Loire. Oh yes, and the Club Halieutique has a reciprocal arrangement with the Club Halieutique du Grand Ouest which give you fishing in another 14 departements. And so it goes on.

So joining an APPMA is a Good Thing - and besides, you have no choice: the Taxe Piscicole - the French equivalent of a national rod licence in England and Wales - is a stamp stuck on your annual membership card. All God's chillun got to be members of an APPMA.

Now all this is unbelievable, wonderful stuff if you have given yourself over to pleasure alone and can get around to fish in 50 departements. But annual taxes and club membership are a hefty investment for a man just looking for a little holiday fishing between serious bouts of pain chocolat and tarte au raisin. Do not despair. There is a CARTE VACANCES. It is valid for 15 consecutive days between 1 June and 30 September, costs 150 francs and includes club membership and Taxe Complète (for fishing category 1 waters and fly fishing anywhere).

So what you do is to walk into the local tackle shop and ask for a Carte Vacances, pay the man F.150 and lo! - you are in business.

You will want to know where and when to do this. Next month I will take a look at seasons and the rivers in the troutier bits of France.

If you have your own information to add please drop us a line.

Jon Beer contributes regularly to publications including Trout & Salmon and The Telegraph. If you have any comments, do not hesitate to g et in touch or use the message board.