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IMPORTANT
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Ski-ing
for Trout - Part Two
Our January 2003 contribution from Theo Pike
Fly rod in hand, Theo Pike continues his account of his recent trip to the French Alps.
Day 5
Council of war. If only for the sake of sanity and something new to try, we need a change of plan. Let’s take our elusive French guide at his word about the sawmill at La Solitude, put it together with last night’s rise on the Menoge. And see what happens.
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So we give fishing the morning off, and catch a Sunday chairlift into the mountains of Switzerland. It’s improbably picture-postcard. Random, thick-collared music of the cowbells drifts up to eye level with clouds from the lower pastures, and dissolves with them in peaceful blue sky over the Dents du Midi. By the time lunch calls us down, we’re high on sun and ozone. We’ve also sorted out a full day’s cross-border ski-ing for next season, by sight alone.
Below the Pont de Bioge, where the Dranse d’Abondance meets the Dranse de Morzine, the combined rivers are wide and powerful. No longer pocket water, this is a canyon periodically scoured by hydroelectric flumes, its floor jumbled with boulders the size of bungalows. Predictably, it’s also the spiritual home of white-water junkies and corporate bonders up from Geneva. Out of curiosity we set up camp at one of the few points where there the road comes within a hundred vertical feet of the water, and amuse ourselves watching gaggles of day-glo ducklings float by on rubber pillows. Superficially daring, out there on their own, they’re actually tied to their guides with lengths of rubber bungee. Between the bobbing business structures, I wade deep into the current to fire out casts over the milky blue water with my thunderstick 10 foot graphite. “Vous pechez a l’americain?”, calls one of the managers, not paying attention as he’s swept over the rapids. Even here, The Movie has its fans. But I’m still unsure if it’s fear in his voice, or simple incredulity.
Light starts to leave the canyon: it’s time for the main event. I change rods, and we head upstream. The mill falls obligingly silent as we approach, and, wonder of wonders, there’s a rise out in the riffle beside the yard. Skidding down piles of sawdust that seem to define the bank, I do a world class job of putting the riser down. Seeing nothing else, I get under cover of a line of willows, and stalk upstream to shoot a sidecast into a miniature pool.
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Sylvain’s sedge disappears in a little spout of water, and suddenly there’s a six-inch trout bouncing down the rocks towards me. He’s strong for his diminutive size, silvery, with parr marks on his flanks. I raise a prayer of thanks as I release him into the icy stream. At last, at last – a fish!
Behind the mill, the current slows to walking pace, almost as flat as the Menoge. Upstream, there’s a very definite rise in another glassy glide. Sally gets the fish in her binocular sights as I replace Sylvain’s by-now-unravelling sedge (did we do him an injustice?) with Selectafly’s silver version. I take a long time scanning the water for treacherous cross-currents, then drop the fly right into the trout’s feeding lane. No question about it – a snapping take, and a surging struggle on light tackle. Glittering, much larger this time, the fish comes to hand, and I wonder if these silver fighters are really youthful “truites lacustres” working their way down to the wide open spaces of Lake Geneva.
Above the bridge, the Dranse reverts to type. Nothing’s moving but shallow, brawling pocket water under cast-pinning trees. I’ve cracked one stretch of this stream at least - let’s sink a Stella and celebrate!
Day 6
Our Sunday recce of the mountains, we discover, stood us in good stead. Over the border in Switzerland, there’s a steep little valley out of Morgins. In the valley, there’s a road, needlessly studded, in our view, with signs representing the planets of the solar system (why this continental obsession with ambient education?). And by this road that knows knowledge but not wisdom, there’s the Viexe, stairstepping down through deep pine groves that remind me of the North America of my childhood. Inquiring at “La Poste”, we pay 25 Swiss Francs for a day’s fishing.
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The Viexe is beautiful, some of the most perfectly, Swissly, improved wild water I’ve ever seen. Down the faster runs and chutes, artfully wedged pine boles clog the current with trouty habitat. Flatter water gets broken up with rocky weirs and plunge pools – from a certain angle, one wide stretch has the air of a giant underwater chessboard. Dodging shafts of sunlight, I pick my way upstream in a state that’s close to Nirvana.
But – no fish. We can’t work it out – have the worm drowners got here first? We end the morning in a mountain meadow at En They, where the heavy dew still smokes off the grass, and I decide to break with convention.
Are there trout in here or not? Scoping out yet another likely-looking pool by the stream-shadowing footpath, I abandon all pretence of subtlety, and thunder up to the edge. Reconnaissance by fire, the American military calls it - and like their interpretation, this works. At last I get a glimpse of a fish, a wraith fluttering back to cover in the finest natural logjam I’ve never seen.
We linger over cheese and charcuterie before returning to the chase, this time on hands and knees. The sun’s on the water now, but from no angle, even the hill above, can I actually see this trout. What the hell, I think. Over the logjam it is. With more subterfuge than style, I scramble and balance into some semblance of a casting position. There’ll be no second chance here.
Miraculously, the line lays out straight, first cast up the pool, and a gleaming wave rises up and engulfs it. Then I’m splintering over the branches of the dam, desperate to control this fish and stop him getting underneath me. He leaps with a single furious flash, then subsides and sulks in the depths. It’s only when I’ve got my hand around him that I can really even see his shape against the gravels – a good pound’s weight, butter yellow, fiercely spotted, perfectly, spawningly camouflaged. Unhooked, he dematerialises instantly into his element.
How can an autumn river work so differently from its sister, a single southerly mountain ridge away? In the Dranse, to all appearances, the trout rise in the evening if they rise at all. In the Viexe, the only surface feeding happens when the sun hits the water and brings off the sedges. Fishing back down, I’m just in time to take another pounder that’s slurping down sedges in a tongue of current before the sun slips behind the Tete du Linga. To all intents and purposes, that’s it for the day. Dusk is already falling as I patrol the long run by the upland meadow, passing a spin fisherman and another with a worm on a 20 foot pole, neither getting lucky. Me, I’m happy with my high-floating Silver Sedge.
Day 7
It’s lucky we got over to Switzerland yesterday. As far as we can establish, Tuesdays and Fridays count as “jours de treve” – days when the fish, and the fishermen, get a rest – so no more action up on the Viexe. Knowing what we now do about the habits of the Dranse, we’ll spend our last day exploring its mountain tributaries, and reconvene at La Solitude for a final evening rise.
Remembering good things I’ve read about streams with their headwaters in mountain lakes, we ease the car up single track roads beside the tumbling little Maleve to the Lac des Plagnes. Far from the ski economy’s beaten pistes, the upland meadows are littered with ancient, dying, chalets – some half-demolished, no doubt, for recycling of their period features somewhere closer to civilisation. On a bench by the lake, we find a single bait fisherman dredging the bottom while stocked charr and rainbows (says the guidebook) dance after dragonflies in the distance. We’re reminded of our drinking session with Chris and Coral, last ski season’s hosts, in the Avalanche bar a few nights back…
Chris: “ Sunday morning, it’s the last day of the lake fishing season. So they’re going to put all the rest of the rainbows and salmon trout into the Lac de Vonnes up in the village, and we’ll have a competition to catch them out. It’ll be about a 6.00am start…”
Theo: “Sounds fun - what do you catch them on?”
Chris: “Maggots, of course…”
We never do establish why this fisherman’s still at it, apparently three days after the end of the stillwater season. But the overflow from the reservoir headwaters has shrunk to a stagnant trickle through thirsty willows, and we leave him to his unreachable trout.
It’s clearly a day for improbable names. So back down the Val de Frogy to 12th century Abondance, complete with Blackadderesque abbey window dedicated to the “Blessed Ponce of Faucigny” (our shoulders are shaking as we leave), and picnic by the rocky Dranse at Centfontaines. As ever, the sun is shining, and sedges are so numerous they’re almost a mist in the valley. Why no fish eating them? Maybe that’s why there are so many.
Evening at La Solitude. Sally scans the water with her binoculars, I prowl the margins for two long hours as sunlight fades on filmic, Tolkeinian peaks above. If those really were migratory trout, two nights ago, they’re well migrated now.
The fish finally reveals himself, rising at random in a glide no more than a yard square, surrounded in the channel by cast-destroying deadfall. Twice, as I put the sneak on him, he goes down. Twice I retreat, still on my knees, until he starts rising again. False casting, lengthening line… The Silver Sedge falls short. I let it drift. Cast again, too long, the tippet sliding over the brush, miraculously not snagging while the fish swirls in another corner of the pool. Finally, a cast that’s not perfect but will do… a black nose tipping out of the water to take the cocked-up Sedge, and an angry, head-shaking, pound-and-a-half-on-light-tackle tugging that I’m quick to get on top of before he ties me up in the timber.
He’s a beauty: a big “fario” for this water, yellow and struggling for freedom as the camera flash freeze-frames and then galvanises him back into action. Knowing he’s the last fish of the holiday, I feel his weight in the current till he’s ready. He doesn’t take long.
Dusk falls with little grey bats flittering over the water. Time to go. Time for a last, artery-clogging Haute-Savoyade tartiflette of cream, potatoes, cheese and bacon slowly browned till it bubbles. And in the morning, “au revoir la France”!
For flights: Gatwick - Geneva Cointrin return: Easyjet: £120 for 2. Book via http://www.easyjet.com
For car hire: Geneva Cointrin: Alamo / Nova / National: 369 Swiss Francs (£159 approx) for 8 days incl full tank of diesel and unlimited mileage. Book via http://rentacar-europe.com/switzerland
For accommodation: Le Renard, Chatel: B&B for 7 nights: £255 for 2. Email Rob Brown at RENARD-HOTEL@wanadoo.fr or visit http://www.renardhotel.com
For more information about Haute-Savoie, the French-Swiss borders, and local places to stay, visit http://www.chatel.com and http://www.portesdusoleil.com
Not easy fly-fishing, but worth it!
For permits in France, see any local tackle dealer. Ours, valid for 480km of water in Chablais-Genevois, came from Sylvain Dubacq at La Taniere, Chatel: visit http://www.lataniere.com or email contact@lataniere.com . 10 Euros (£6.30 approx) per day, or 19 Euros (£12.00 approx) per 15 day “carte touristique”, fishing by any method where unrestricted in Class 1 waters
For detailed information about local restrictions, close seasons, etc, see http://www.unpf.fr or contact the Chatel Tourist Office at http://chatel.com for a copy of the annually published guidebook “Guide de la Peche” for Haute Savoie
For more information on fishing the Menoge, visit http://echosmouche.free.fr/em0900_002.htm
For permits in Switzerland, visit local post offices. 25 Swiss Francs (£10.75 approx) per day
For a useful currency converter, see http://www.xe.net/ucc
Theo Pike is a writer first and a small-stream fly-fisher second – though it’s sometimes less clear cut than that would suggest.
Currently he’s working for an advertising agency in West London, but he can also be contacted for writing and editing commissions through his freelance website, www.blackrussian.cc