Whenever Airflo's Ceri Thomas goes on a family holiday, he simply has to sample the local fishing opportunities. Northern France was no exception this summer!
Pas de Calais is a region of France that is often overlooked, especially from a fly fishing perspective. However the region is underlain with chalk and limestone rock, which means that the many rivers of the area are genuine chalk streams - spring fed and cool; ideal habitat for wild trout and just a short distance from the UK via the channel tunnel.
A French Chalk Stream
This August I had the chance to fish some of these French chalkstreams - my holiday gite was situated just a stone’s throw from La Ternoise, a well known stream only an hour or so south of Calais.
In order to fish them, for just 32 Euros you can get a regional 'holiday permit' online, which allows you as a tourist access to AAPPMA (angling association) 'en reciprocite' beats (i.e shared water) for 7 days. Getting one of these is a really easy job – no more wandering about looking for permit vendors before you can fish.
Being on a family holiday, I naturally had fairly limited time to spend on the water. So I elected to set the alarm clock early and head to the river at dawn for a couple of hours each day - with a stop at the local boulangerie for breakfast baguettes and croissants on the way home!
My first morning was a scouting mission. Finding good access is always an issue when fishing in France. AAPPMA beats are fragmented and online information and maps can be hard to interpret and confusing at best - so often, the best way to find fishing is to check google maps and then head off to likely looking spots at road bridges. AAPPMA signs and square red stiles are generally the things to look out for when you get there.
Look out for AAPPMA signs
The Ternoise at the town of Hesdin, where I was staying, looked very hard to fish with a fly rod. With steep banks, a deep channel and heavy overhead tree cover the local AAPPMA stretch didn't look inviting to me. With such easy access the fishing pressure from the locals with bait and spinners seemed to be high - I bumped into quite a few French gents with rods rigged up with size 0 mepps. Plus I didn't see or spook a single fish... On the positive side the river had a strong clear flow and was full of weed and insects, so clearly the water quality and habitat was good.
The next day, I drove 20 minutes up river to Wavrens sur Ternoise (thanks Theo Pike for the advice!) Here, off a side road, I found a spot where you could actually get in and fly fish - with reasonable room for casting amongst the undergrowth.
La Ternoise at Wavrens
The upper river was quite narrow, and took on the characteristics of a 'spring creek' rather than a classic English chalkstream. In many ways it reminded me of the wonderful trout streams in Wisconsin's driftless area.
I soon found that wading was pretty much out of the question - deep sucking silt and steep banks made things very difficult. I later found that a lot of these beats do not allow wading anyway - so the best bet was to stay on the bank. This, and the high bank side vegetation necessitated a long rod - a 9 foot #3/4 Airflo Streamtec became my weapon of choice, rigged up with a French leader and nymphs.
With no obvious signs of fish I started prospecting into the little slots, gaps and holes in the abundant weed with a single 3mm jig nymph, fished on short controlled drifts. The first fishy looking hole surprisingly produced a surprise take - a quick splashy fight and I drew a pale gold trout of about 10 inches to hand - which promptly fell off at my finger tips....
A few yards upriver I spotted a fish just sitting there in a deep sandy hole. A few flicks of the nymph and a flash of movement told me he had taken the fly! Lifting the rod and I was into a better fish. I soon saw however that this was no wild French chalkstream brown - but an ugly mug of a rainbow. No doubt an escapee from a local fish farm. Still, he went back to fight another day.
Rainbow trout
With my two hours almost up the leader twitched again and I was into a fine wild fish of about 12 inches. A nice end to the morning.
Wild brown
Next day, I fished the downstream end of this stretch. A red style draped in an electric fence wire welcomed the way! Here things were a lot worse in terms of overhead undergrowth and access. Fishing was hard and only a single fish graced the net, a moderately sized brownie. But a welcome blank saver never the less.
AAPPMA style
Day three and another spot was found, half a mile farther downstream. I fished some very nice water, but the fish were hard to come by. Judging by the well worn paths and standing spots this stretch was very hard fished. Reaching a heavily overgrown area, an accurate (or lucky!) flick of the nymphs into a shaded bend under the branches produced a nice brown and a rainbow in quick succession, with two more small but pretty brownies just upstream - a successful morning.
La Crequiose
Day four, I decided to try another stream, just 15 minutes down the valley from my gite. La Crequiose has a 'no kill' AAPPMA zone at the town of Offin. This short stretch is reserved for fly fishing only. The Crequiose was a lovely meandering meadow chalkstream, with a river bed full of gravel and flint nodules. There were definitely more fish present here - I had half a dozen or so small browns and lost and bumped many more, including a good sized one, again all to nymphs. I hadn't seen a single rise yet - but put this down to the time of day I was fishing. Undoubtedly these rivers must have good fly hatches if you are there at the right time and season.
La crequiose trout
Final day and I thought I had located the best stretch on La Ternoise yet! At Monchy-Cayeux there was great access and a wider river, much more like an English chalkstream.
Monchy-Cayeux
But with high banks and a lack of cover, the fish here were decidedly spooky and very difficult to get anywhere near. So I struggled for two hours without a flicker of interest, spooking pale ghosts as I went. With time ticking, that 'one last cast' tight under an overhanging tree averted the blank - a perfect miniature Ternoise wild brown ended things on a high.
A final fish
What did I learn?
The northern French chalk streams are truly beautiful, engaging and interesting to fish. They clearly have great water quality and do not suffer from over abstraction and drought concerns like their English counterparts. The fishing is however very hard - you can see why French river internationals are so good at their game! It was challenging, technical fishing at its very best.
It seemed to me that compared to our rivers, fish populations are relatively sparse, due to a culture of catch and keep by any method possible. The limit is six fish per day with a 25 cm size limit on most of these rivers - so only the wiliest, hook shy fish survive in the crystal clear waters. Makes you appreciate just how abundant our home UK waters really are. So would I fish them again? Absolutely.
Visit the Fishtec blog for more fishing articles by Ceri and the Fishtec/Airflo team.
