The equipment used
The rains of the past few days have raised the water level, but it's not tainted, so conditions are pretty good. At least on paper. For these big river fisheries, I use a relatively long rod of around 2.50 m, today an Abu garcia Veracity 8.2p M, fitted with a size 3000 reel. As for the line, it's 12-centime braid connected to a 2-metre 26-centime fluorocarbon tip. It's a solid line, so there's no need to finesse. The fish haven't been fished in months and the water is high, so you need to be able to bridle a nice fish in the current.
Here we go
I attack in a current area. I use a soft lure and cast facing me. I fish with the rod high and follow the lure's downward drift. I hardly retrieve any line, just give the lure a few sweeping taps to lift it up from time to time. With the cold water and the early hour of the morning, I imagine the fish are stuck to the bottom.
I take a few steps forward between casts to comb the current. The first touch comes and, after a good fight, here comes the first fish in the landing net. These wild trout are truly magnificent. Unfortunately, they are subject to a lot of aggression, from various forms of pollution to repeated droughts. So they don't need any more than that, and I take great care of them. I only use single barbless hooks and keep handling to a minimum. There's no question of carrying the fish out of the water with my hands. A quick photo when the place allows it and it's back in its element.
The lure is the new Rapala Kickman 7.5 cm soft lure in "brown silver" fitted with the new 5 g Ori jig heads. A particularly harmonious combination.
It's with this same menu that I catch a second fish, still scraping the bottom. The photo here was so quick that it's out of focus!
I then move on to a deeper, quieter area. In these conditions, I like to send out strong vibrations to decide a fish from afar. I choose the famous Smith D contact, a very dense lure that allows me to fish these large, uniform areas relatively quickly. There are no marked spots here, so I cast in a fan pattern to cover as much ground as possible. It's on the lure's descent that I take the only hit in this area.
We're now at the warmest (or coldest!) point of the day and a few rays of sunshine are breaking through. I decide to finish the day by fishing a little higher up in the water.
These are the latest additions to the range, which will bring me the last two fish.
The new Smith D contact FES, much less dense and therefore complementary to the original model, will provide me with a magnificent copper-colored trout. A real marvel.
And the Rapala Floater elite 85, a floating lure that moves a lot of water due to its size. I'll come back to these two interesting new products in detail.
A superb opening, and it's always a pleasure to see these magnificent wild trout again. Don't forget to take care of them.
To do this, swap treble hooks for single hooks and crush the barbs. There are plenty of references on the market. In particular, a fine range of quality products made in France by the VMC brand.
