An unmissable event
At first, I went with the son, then we poached my grandson. For the last 10 years, it's been a not-to-be-missed event that we look forward to. This year, the weather was nice, a little overcast in the morning, then clear skies afterwards, but still quite windy, which didn't help us with the lines. We're mainly fishing with toc on this opening day, which doesn't require a lot of equipment - everything fits in a pocket.
As we do every year, we're meeting on the banks of the Abers spring streams in North Finistère. These are wild waterways, there are no releases and each stream has its own local strain. Depending on the stream, the fish have different coats.
In a wild setting
This day is above all an opportunity to meet up around a simple passion in a wild setting. It's also the occasion for a little battle between us, where chambering is de rigueur... This year was no exception. Right from the start of the day, my son and I take the lead. The trout on these streams aren't very big, but they're plentiful enough, and in any case, they're all put back in the water after the photo shoot.
For the first two hours, we chain them together, the grandson staying on, but we've taught him not to give up, so he keeps going. Two hours upstream, we come across the first fishermen. We chat a bit, and they're also two fathers with their children, so we're not the only ones sharing the water, which is a bit reassuring...
We let them carry on and decided to move on to another stream. By the time we got back to the car, we'd gone down 2 km of riverbank, so we got back in the car and moved on to another spring. We started with the Wrac'h springs, and are now on the Benoît springs. Before resuming the battle, we take a break for a snack, a magical moment when the chambrage resumes in earnest, a good Breton beer accompanies the buttered ham and iced tea for the kid...
Beautiful wild trout
After a good half-hour break, the batteries are recharged and we're off in search of the wild beauties. This creek is a little more wild than the first. Very tricky to fish, once you get a little further up the crowded banks. Since storm Ciaran, many places are no longer accessible. In fact, we've left quite a few hooks there; we use fine iron hooks with crushed barbs, which disintegrate quite quickly. Often, only a few meters are fishable, or even a simple water hole. But what a pleasure it is to pull out a pretty, locally-sourced fario.
In this little game, the kid does quite well, and brings out two of the prettiest trout of the session, proving that you should never give up. As for us, we just keep on coming. Because of the overcrowded banks, we pick up a lot of trout, which proves that these streams are doing well. In some of the holes, we also spot a few minnows.
In all, we pulled out around forty farios, ten or so gillnetters, here the mesh size is 23 cm, fifteen or so between 20 and 23 and the rest between 15 and 20 cm. Of course, all these fish went back into the water. Two parr were also caught. This year, as in other regions, salmon and sea trout are closed to harvesting, as these species are threatened, but it's good to see that there are still some left...
The result of the battle isn't important, what is, is this moment of privileged sharing, this bond created out of time, these memories that we make and that remain engraved forever. It's 3:30 p.m. and time to go home, as rugby's France meets Ireland (our French team won handsomely, by the way). Long live fishing and rugby!
