French fishing is totally different to the UK. Here, most fishing rights belong to the State, unless the bank is part of the garden of a residence. So by buying an annual permit for E95 per annum, I can fish more or less anywhere. There are fishing clubs but they don't own the rights to their own waters, which seems odd.
I have been looking at one or two stretches of the Charente itself with a view to a hemp-pellet-boilie approach - unheard of in France. Local fishermen don't normally fish for chub or barbel but the occasional one is caught in matches. Remarkably, the local stretches of the Charente has had barbel to 12kg caught in it - that's 26lbs in English money! And the chub go to 5-6kg - 11 to 13lbs. There have been carp caught in the river to 35kg (> 75lbs) and there are also some large catfish. So definitely worth a good go, especially as it is only 6 miles from our home.
(In fact, in the Charente where it passes though the centre of the town of Cognac near here, I have come across shoals of chub basking in the sun where the biggest fish might have been 7lbs)
Five miles from home is a tributary of the Charente called the Boutonne. In the main, it is a medium sized river of medium flow averaging about 5 or 6 foot deep. But it also has a few stretches where it is split via weirs into two or three streams separate from the main river. Yesterday morning I spent a couple of hours on one of these side streams and was amazed at what I found.
Like the UK, France has had a very dry winter and the side stream is currently only about 2 foot deep and crystal clear. As a result, loads of fish are visible and I have seen some great fish. Firstly, the stretch contains a good head of chub with one or two fish perhaps running to 5lbs. Secondly, there is a good head of barbel. These are not huge fish, most seem to be about 3-4lb, but there was the odd one that might have been 6-7 lbs. There are also some quite small barbel. I caught a 15oz barbel once on the river Severn in the late 1970s and that is the only one I've ever caught less than 2lbs, but I would guess that some here were under 1lb - I could break my low after nearly 40 years!
Finally, I spotted a small shoal of what I think were big roach. There was maybe a dozen fish in the shoal, with the best well over 2lbs. It is ages since I have caught a 2lb roach!
The real thrill will be fishing a crystal clear river that is only 2 foot deep for such fish. Until I can get more bait in the UK (the hemp-pellet-boilies that I plan to use on the Charente), my likely bait is sweetcorn. I bought four large tins this morning and the fish seemed very happy to eat it straight away (including the roach). So that is my current plan - put 3 or 4 tins of sweetcorn into half a dozen spots where I have seen fish over a period of a few days, and then give them a go.
And there is no river close season for barbel and chub (there is for trout, pike and perch though) but you can't fish nights - indeed the times you can fish are set every day for the year - on May 30th it is 5:48 to 22:16, which seems very precise!
A typical view of the Boutonne side stream
Several good chub on the shallows - biggest of these was probably pushing 5 lbs
At one point, there were 15 barbel on the patch of gravel above - then they holed up under the tree roots on the far bank. Biggest was perhaps 6 lbs - but how to catch them in such a small, shallow stream?
Two possible swims on the main bit of the Boutonne - five foot deep and slow moving and full of snags. Ideal for barbel and chub?
Can't wait to give it a go soon.
