Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - revisited

Not Salmon, not the Yemen, but river Carp somewhere in France.

Like all good fisherman I shall not reveal the location of this fishy tale other than to say somewhere in France, not too far from Avignon, and on the river Cèze.  If you work out where it is I shall be pleased to see you because the site is usually full of Dutch people.

I fished as a teenager and somehow all the unwanted gear ended up in the caravan so whilst my daughter and wife sunbathed by the pool my son and I would go off in search of the perfect fishing ground.  Our children have long since left home, got married, had children and so on but on this occasion our son was with us on a short trip.  He flew out to Montpelier and we picked him up to stay on our favourite site for a few days.

On that first evening we strolled along the bankside and enjoyed the evening air.  There were several dark “logs” in the water which we initially ignored but when one moved we investigated further.  The logs were Carp of a size that you seldom see basking in a river and we discovered that the local fishing club had stocked the river – I don’t suppose that they envisaged English caravanners seeking their fish as prey.

Our Dutch friend from previous visits, Willem (pictured), showed us all the spots to fish and eventually he hauled in a 10kg Carp.  The battle attracted much attention from the campers and we had a large audience whilst I struggled to help him haul it up the bank.

Several days followed with little success apart from a couple of 3 kg fish which I caught, not that we minded that much because we fitted the fishing in between sipping beer or vin rouge and generally lazing around.  My son was dozing in his fishing chair when his rod bent double and pulled him to his feet.  Unfortunately that was the end of that particular story as he failed to land the fish but it was incredibly exciting.  Fisherman will know that it is more about the challenge and enjoying the environment than catching anything and my son had no further luck whilst he stayed with us.  After he had returned to England I did manage to hook that elusive 10kg Carp but due to inexperience and poor equipment I failed to actually land it.

So where are we going this year.  Well, you guessed, we are back to le Midi, this time via Carcasonne  and have an appointment to meet up with Willem at the end of May when we will – with absolute certainty – catch that monster.  So, a bit like Salmon fishing in the Yemen really.  Well, sort of, and you have to have a catchy title!