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. 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. Plus I didn't see or spook a single fish. 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. With steep banks, a deep channel and heavy overhead tree cover the local AAPPMA stretch didn't look inviting to me. The Ternoise at the town of Hesdin, where I was staying, looked very hard to fish with a fly rod. AAPPMA signs and square red stiles are generally the things to look out for when you get there. 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. Finding good access is always an issue when fishing in France. 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! Getting one of these is a really easy job – no more wandering about looking for permit vendors before you can fish.īeing on a family holiday, I naturally had fairly limited time to spend on the water. 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. 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. 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. Pas de Calais is a region of France that is often overlooked, especially from a fly fishing perspective. Northern France was no exception this summer! Whenever Airflo's Ceri Thomas goes on a family holiday, he simply has to sample the local fishing opportunities.
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