An emblematic river
The Lignon is the emblematic river of the Haute-Loire. It rises at the foot of Mont Mézenc and flows into the Loire after 85 km. Its course is criss-crossed by four dams and numerous levees that temporarily divert the flow.
The Morin levee at Tence has a long, smooth course of around 250 m, blocked at the downstream end by a small stone dam. At this precise point, the Lignon leaves the first category for a moment and enters a second category sector. This is the entrance to the Lavalette dam, a water reserve in the Saint-Etienne region. Numerous trout, often of good size, swim alongside chub, perch and pike.
When I moved to Haute-Loire, I often fished here with my mother. She was already old, but despite it all, she had kept her immoderate taste for angling, a passion she once shared with my father. It always gave me great pleasure to experience these special moments before she left us for a better world. A world where, it seems, there are beautiful rivers, and where fishing never fails. And even if these are just stories we tell children to console their grief, I believe in the great voyage!
An astonishing show
One autumn day, I attended an astonishing show in this place. I'd woken up early, with nothing to occupy my day. The weather was fine. So I suddenly decided to go fishing. Direction, the Morin levee! A few dozen minutes later, I was there, at the foot of the levee. Immediately, I felt a strange sensation, as if a new wind were gently blowing across this stretch of river. That's when I saw dozens of trout trying to get over the wall of this little dam, swimming upstream like salmon from across the Atlantic. It was the only time I ever witnessed this phenomenon. It never happened again, at least in my presence.
A touch of Quebec
In those days, too, you could sometimes spot a pair of beavers occupying the banks of the Lignon. For a few minutes, I found myself in Quebec's Haute Mauricie region. I saw myself again on the banks of the Wapous*, which I was lucky enough to fish before it fed the Gouin reservoir. On my way back to the car, a rare occurrence, I was assaulted by a swarm of mosquitoes and other mosquitoes straight from that faraway Canadian province. All that was missing were fireflies and bullfrogs!
There's no doubt about it: that day, a little wind from Quebec blew across the entrance to the Lavalette dam, at the foot of the Morin levee.
* Even if we've never seen a salmon's tail in the Wapous.
