The Good the Bad and The Ugly!!

On this week around many of the river's in France, the stocking of Rainbow Trout will be taking place. My local club helped with the stocking this season, and I tagged along to take a few pictures, for the blog.

I have mixed feelings about this, but being a foreigner in this wonderful country, I am doing my best to understand why you would WANT to do it, when you could be stocking with native fish? Or stocking coarse fish (roach, bream carp etc) that would be re-cycled by catch and release.

I'm told it's to give the fisherman "fish to catch" at the start of the season, but many of my French friends feel its more to do with justifying the cost of the fishing licence!

It is very cheap to fish in France, just 70 euro a year. Compare that to other civilised countries like the U.K , where you pay to fish most rivers, or lakes, as well as having to pay for a rod licence. Depending on what kind of fishing you want to do, Game or Coarse, you can spend anything between 6 euro to 1000 euro per day.

I would suggest anyone fishing just twice a week for Trout (as I do) would spend 500 euro a year! That's 7 times more expensive than France!!

I know from friends all over Europe, as well as International Anglers I speak to, they all pay considerably more. Countries like Slovenia and Croatia have caught on to the fact, Game anglers will pay to fish pristine river's, full of quality fish, and these countries are now more expensive to fish than they ever use to be.

So at 70 euro a year is it really the cost of a licence that's prompts this stocking.!?

Well yes, I think it has something to do with it, but not everything. Generally the river's in France, are poorly stocked, and many of the fish (carp, perch, pike) end up on the table for food. The French are also very heavily into spinning, and use barbed treble hooks. The average coarse fisher also fishes with barbed hooks, and has little understanding of safe unhooking and handling methods.

Now don't get me wrong, many of the match fishermen, and the carp anglers fish to a very high standard, and are very good at fish handling, but they are the exception, not the norm.

For one thing it seems everyone older than 50 years, has a fishing rod. This may be a holdover from when times were tough and food short, and you could go to the local river, and catch your dinner. They may only fish a few times a year, but if they pay 70 euro, they want something for there money! and they want to eat it too!!

One good thing that does comes out of it is, it takes some pressure off the natural brown trout (of which I am fond) The stocked rainbow will swim around in the area near to were it was stocked, until it gets caught. By mid May when wading is allowed on my river, all the rainbows will be taken, and the early season anglers gone! and the occasional angler will have taken enough tame trout to justify his outlay.

If things are to get better, then 'fishermen of all kinds' have to have fish to catch. The first step is to clean up the rivers (see previous posts on this blog) and the environment around them. Then stock the river with fish that are native, and with species the various rivers can support!! The cost of the fishing licence will have to increase, but that's the price of having quality fishing on your doorstep!