I'm pleased to say Luc Pierssens is back in ESF and talks about a trout stream in Belgium.
The river Lesse in south-east Belgium flows through some of the most scenic and environmentally preserved areas of the Ardennes region. I discovered this gem early in my fly fishing career and it soon became one of my favorite and regular weekend fishing destinations. About sixteen years ago a career change implied relocation, and by coincidence, we ended up settling down in a small village 600 yards away from the river. Moving to a rural environment surrounded by thousands of acres of forest and traversed by miles of brooks leading to a couple of very fishable rivers has been a life-changing experience. A sort of accomplishment. Looking back, I have realized that it saw the nature-loving, environmentally conscious fishing bum that I am also embark on a sort of philosophical pilgrimage through the approach of the sport and relationship with the river.
Hatches
Having a trout river on your doorstep offers many advantages. Choosing the right moment to go fishing is made easier through the fact that you can monitor insect hatches from home, be it the occurrence of the various species or the actual intensity of the hatch. Insects will travel all the way from the river and end up in our car park hovering over the roof of the cars. It is not clear whether it is the colour (deep blue works better than grey) or the accumulated heat that attracts the duns and the spinners. Sedges prefer to rest on the windows of the house or cling to the stones, like the large brown sedge hatching in the autumn.
Honey holes
Living close to a river enables you to know it better, whether you are actually fishing it or simply walking along its banks through the seasons. You will find out after a few years in which stretch or pool the first trout will rise in the spring. These indicators will allow you to make swift assessments whether some dry fly sport is on the cards or not. You will identify "honey holes" (as the Americans call them), these special places where season after season trout will always lie in wait of some food or just rest. You will share these secret lies with your best mates and fish them with the young lads with the promise of a first trout caught on the fly. In the spur of the moment, when the magic has been accomplished and they are "hooked", you make them swear to God that they will always release the little beauties back into the river.
Addiction - Getting your fix
Having access to good fishing on your doorstep can also get into your system and the danger of addiction looms. After a long and sometimes boring day stuck in an office, the temptation is sometimes too great after evening dinner to escape hastily down to the river to find some respite and empty your mind while casting your fly into the running water. Catching a couple of fish or more comes as a relief while blanking puts you in a bad mood. Reflecting on this, you realize that these stolen moments do not come as a true enjoyment of our great sport but feel as if you need a fix and suffer from withdrawal symptoms if the river does not cooperate. I soon realized that in that frame of mind it is sometimes better to leave the fishing rod in the car and concentrate rather on localising rising fish, maybe stalk a large fish and mark its hunting territory, or just enjoy and observe the fly life on the river in order to build a better understanding of the occurrence of various fly hatches. The information collected will render your next fishing session more enjoyable especially if it is undertaken with no rush and in the right frame of mind.
Giving back
Many amongst us love our river so much that at some stage we decide that we want to give something back. Embarking in conservation and restoration efforts seems to be the logical path to follow and one that yields considerable satisfaction. So much so that in some seasons one realizes that more time has been spent on the main river or spawning brooks trying to put right the errors of the past than actually fishing. These activities will profoundly change the way you appreciate the river and its fish. It will affect your fishing behaviour: In severe drought periods when the rivers are at their lowest your conscience will dictate to you to refrain your fishing effort because of the stress fish experience when water temperatures plummet and dissolved oxygen values fall back; come the autumn, when fish activity increases and they stock up on food to prepare for the winter and go through spawning activities, even if good sport can be had one sometime feels it is about time to give these fish a break and let them get on with life...; Operating a fish trap to study spawning brook migration, one can even experience emotional moments when encountering recognizable trout (battle scars or unusual markings) that were caught earlier in the season. A couple of seasons ago I had a couple of encounters with a nice cock fish which exhibited a large bright orange spot in the middle of the adipose fin, fly-caught in the spring and trap-intercepted in December.
In contributing to restoration efforts on your local river you will soon come to the conclusion that you also need to deal with fishery management otherwise your work could be jeopardized by the greedy few who still think that a river and its trout population are a commodity that can be exploited without limits. This will require patience and a great deal of dedication to overcome frustration and sometimes anger. You know your river well and you are caring for it. Although you have seen the light and are convinced that a river can manage itself if given the right level of protection, you will also have to learn to share this precious asset with others.
Boredom and experimentation
It must have occurred to me a couple of seasons ago that boredom was starting to creep in when I found that I was fishing the same stretches over and over again. This feeling is somehow not soothed with the distraction brought by occasional visits to some other neighboring rivers and regular sessions on some fascinating rivers like the Tweed and Cumbrian Eden. I found that my local fishing sessions needed some extra impetus associated with them: the mother of all hatches that happens a few days per year; training youngsters or going fishing with the special friends; experimenting and testing the new patterns from contemporary masters (some of them contributors to ESF I am glad to say) or re-writing history with the north country spiders.
In many ways your local river has the potential to become a lifelong partner. The first encounters start as a tumultuous love affair, learning to know each other. Thereafter, the decision is made to seal this relationship into something durable, living close to each other. Season after season this relationship turns into something stable and trustful but sometimes also with a few disputes along the way when the complications of modern life get on your nerves. Finally, a sort of equilibrium settles in whereby one enjoys each other's company in many subtle ways, still very much in love but more like an old couple having spent decades together…
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