‘Fishing is about fishing and ‘being there’, and catching, is a bonus!’

This post is a tribute to my guide for the day, for whilst I did not net a fish, it was not for want of trying, nor for his putting me on to rising fish. I fancy that my blanking was more a case of small wild fish, flashing at my offering, and my poor timing, or slack leader, preventing my connecting from a number of fish which rose to my dry fly.

Did it matter? Not a jot, for we were fishing the headwaters of the Dourbie, very close to its source in the Cevennes, in a most astonishingly beautiful part of Languedoc-Rousillon,

and at an elevation of more than 1500 metres on a sunny day on which to be there, seemed more important than catching fish. Maybe the sunny skies contributed as much to my not catching, but they enhanced the beauty of the stream and its gin clear hue…

To Eric (Langlume) my great thanks. We had a wonderful day together…he speaking in his broken English, and me, in my broken French. But converse we did, and continuously and happily with much laughter.

He told me much about where we were to enhance my appreciation of these parts. His picnic lunch of, du pain, sauccisse et fromage, matched the mood of the day perfectly, as did the carafe of ‘vin de pays rouge’ to wash it down.

Would I recommend him as a guide…most definitely.

Would I wish to spend a day with him, again…’absolument’.

Our day was spent with me on dries. Fly life at that altitude was significant, and sedge dominated. Long leaders in that place were important, given the spookiness of the fish in bright light, but the waters meandering between the exposed rocks, made control of the drift, quite hard.

I would love to return here. The drive from Ganges (I stayed at the very desirable and ‘confortable’ auberge, Les Norias, on the banks of the Herault river, which I fished the night before for some rising whitefish) was itself, worth the visit to the department of Gard.