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Géopêche is currently available in 56 French departments. but by the end of the interview," smiled Laurent Nison during our telephone interview, "there may be 57! The principle is simple: Géopêche is a sort of Google Maps of fishing, giving you access to the different fishing routes with their precise boundaries, regulations, boat launches, stores, fishing card distributors, weirs and other dams... In fact, there are 63 categories and 63 different icons to help you find your way around and make sure you don't miss a thing! A few more figures, which will have to be constantly updated: 71809 watercourses and 8148 bodies of water are referenced. From Montpellier, Laurent Nison, the creator of this magical tool, explained it all to us!
Fishing.news : Laurent, how did you come up with the idea for Géopêche? We imagine this fishing map came straight out of a fisherman's imagination?
Laurent Nison: "If I wasn't a fisherman, there'd be no Geopêche! And like all good ideas, it came from the water's edge. On the banks of the Corrèze river, or perhaps the Triouzoune, in the Corrèze department. My brother, father and godfather and I had a ritual we called the "Poilus Fishing Club". The idea was simple: family fishermen would get together for a week in a gîte, spend twelve hours with their feet in the water and the rest debriefing over a bottle of wine. And when we arrived in Corrèze that year, in 2014, we found, as is often the case in gîtes, the little table with the tourist brochures, including the Corrèze fishing federation's guide, which was rather well done and well detailed.
At the center of the guide was a map showing the entire Corrèze fishing territory, with rivers, reserves and main points of interest. But it was a small paper guide, and the format of the map was not gigantic. Representing an entire department on such a small format didn't give a very precise idea of the locations of reserves or no-kill routes. There were tiny red dots... As it was out of the question for us to fish outside the rules, I looked at the prefectoral decree. And there I read that reserve 263 begins at Père Louis meadow and ends at chaussée communale 267: so if you're not a local, you've got a 50/50 chance of fishing in the reserve! That's when I said to myself, being in IT, that it would be cool to have a Google Maps of fishing, to be able to zoom in, see precise things... It took two years of development before we released V1 in 2016. We're now at V12! We've got a design that's really our own, which makes the rivers stand out, with an attractive representation of the landscape, and where we can put down data with metre-accuracy"!
So Corrèze was your first test department?
Laurent Nison: "Not at all (laughs)! That's the paradox! Every time I tell this story, I quote the Corrèze department, but they don't have Géopêche! But they will! As it happens, I had family near Saumur, in Fontevraud, on the border between Maine-et-Loire and Indre-et-Loire. On the Indre-et-Loire side, there's a small local AAPPMA that my parents knew, and they introduced me to the president. At the time, I was president of a fishing association in Montpellier. So we had a chat, I told him a little about Géopêche, and he thought it was great. He directed me to the federation, I met an agent who is still in post by the way, Damien Buzance, someone fantastic, and an ultra-motivated president. So, in November 2016, the Indre-et-Loire fishing federation was the first to contract Géopêche! It's the one I'm now using as a demonstration department. Little by little, other federations joined in, mainly non-reciprocal departments, as they have a strong tourist industry: the Hautes-Alpes, the two Savoie regions, it met their needs. So, over the years, there have been 2, 3, 4, 5, and today there are 56!
You were telling me that Géopêche is now in its twelfth version. How much has it evolved, and how much does it resemble V1? You'd think you'd have to be on the spot to do the plotting? Keeping up with regulatory changes every year?
Laurent Nison: "It's similar to V1, but twelve times better, I hope! Initially, we did a lot of plotting for the federations, but we realized that this wasn't the best process, as they were more efficient as field players. When we create the maps, we retrieve the data, trace them cleanly so that they match the hydrographic reference frame perfectly, and the federations have tools directly in the application to contribute their field expertise. They have control over 99% of the changes. And in the end, there aren't that many regulatory changes. If you have 100 fishing reserves, maybe 10 of them change every year? It takes less than 10 minutes. Updates are easy to do, and we help federations that need it. Some dates change, some courses are created or disappear, but the volume remains acceptable. The proof: we have federations that have been with us for 10 years and renew their current contracts every year, so they have the time and energy to update their data".
There are lots of icons for fishermen, but they can also participate?
Laurent Nison: "We did it gradually, but the idea of involving the fishermen we called Géopêcheurs came from the start. They can improve the map with photos, which we moderate of course, and without showing any fish, as we didn't want Géopêche to become a fishing social network. Fishermen also fulfil their role as sentinels of the environment by reporting pollution or waste areas. Géopêche enables federations, government departments and the OFB to intervene rapidly to solve these problems. Finally, I'd like to add that Geofishermen can also access a premium account for personal notes, or even keep a fishing log. This is an important tool for stats (number of catches, sizes, times...) but it can also be used anonymously to improve knowledge of the environment in terms of fish populations. It's an important tool for the future, all the more so as the OFB recognized not long ago that recreational fishing data are conclusive evidence for the study of environments".
Is it indiscreet to ask how much Géopêche costs a federation?
Laurent Nison: "I'll give you a range. We offer multi-year contracts, but they are multi-year in principle, because no federation terminates its contract after one year... In the first year, we're looking at between 2,500 and 5,000 euros ex VAT, depending on the amount of data we have to integrate at the outset. And the median subscription price is around 1,500 to 1,600 euros ex-VAT per year. I know who I'm working with: associations, volunteers, not companies. We know their means and we wanted Géopêche to be accessible. As good fishermen, we've been patient to reach a break-even point".
56 federations have signed up to the project, so what's stopping the others from joining Géopêche?
Laurent Nison: "It's difficult because we have another principle, which is not to do any marketing. We'll never have a stand at a trade show, or send out documentation by mail. We believe that if federations want to work with us, they'll find us. If they aren't at Géopêche, it may be because they don't have the resources, or because there may be an internal dynamic that isn't yet in place. For our people, who are often of an advanced age in our federations - and I say this with a great deal of respect - it's still a modern tool, but decision-making time and appreciation time are not the same as ours! We receive a lot of e-mails from anglers who want Géopêche in their departments or associations, but we can't intervene. There are, however, two AAPPMAs that benefit from Géopêche, in the Manche and Aveyron departments, in Rodez and Cherbourg, but these are two exceptions, because they asked so much of us at the time that we accepted".
Last question: can Géopêche be exported elsewhere in Europe?
Laurent Nison: "First, we're going to try and get to 91 federations in France, and install Géopêche as an information standard at the service of anglers. On the European level, we've looked at it, and we're still working on it, but it's more complicated. The structure of recreational fishing is not as good as in France. We often hear anglers grumbling: "With the AAPPMAs, the federations, there are no more fish, you're doing nothing...". But in the meantime, we're very lucky to have this associative world, with its very specific statutes. It's not the same in Italy, Spain, or even worse in England, where the notion of privacy is very important. We don't have any formal contacts with FNPF equivalents in other European countries, because there aren't any. On the other hand, there's one country that's been tempting us for a very long time - it's a question of heart and fishing - and that's Japan. In Japan, there are AAPPMAs, which aren't quite based on the same principle as ours, but are quite similar: rural associations that manage pieces of river and need modern tools to exist in this beautiful country. And that will allow us to travel"!
