A New Adventure in France

Monday 9th August was the day that new requirements to show a ‘pass sanitaire’ or health pass were extended to cafés and restaurants as well as long distance train travel and some other large public places. There have been many demonstrations against this new law in the run up to its wider roll out and a lot of discussion as to how it will work for non-EU tourists, including Brits. The suggested route was to scan our NHS certificate QR codes into the French ‘TousantiCovid’ app and, figuring that the French were likely to be more receptive to their own app rather than the NHS app, we set that up on our phones. On the 9th we tried out a café in Prayssac. Service was definitely slower as the owner was having to scan the app for each customer as she took orders at each table, but, success! We presented the app and our QR codes were accepted. Even if they don’t work elsewhere at least there’s one place we can get a drink. Interestingly, we didn’t have to present any identity so in theory the QR codes could have been anyone’s!

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There be river serpents..

In one of our blogs from last year’s trip I recounted that my father was a fly fisherman and my memories are of him in his huge waders with cane rods and making his own flies at home with a table-mounted vice and magnifying glass attachment.

Now I have my inflatable dinghy I needed any opportunity to spend more time in it so I thought fishing might be the answer. Monday found me in Bricomarché selecting the cheapest equipment I could find – a telescopic rod with reel and spinners, some weights, a float with a hook and spare hooks. As I had no idea what I was doing it was a kind of pick and mix affair with an ‘I’m sure that will be fine…’ approach. On return to the campsite I showed my spoils to long term fisherman Rob who put the things together and advised me on their use. He asked that if I caught anything over 5 inches could he have them for bait fish as he uses them to catch the giant catfish in this area. In the six weeks he’s been at the campsite this year he’s caught a huge number of fish over 1.5 metres from the small motor boat he trailers down from the Netherlands.

Rob also gave me some maggots saying “put them on the hook like so, through the backside, so they still wriggle in the water”. Off I set in my little boat. Mooring up to a tree branch at the bank of the river, setting the bait depth at 2 metres, within seconds I had my first fish on the line, a 5 inch roach, so into the bucket with it to save it for Rob. After about an hour that’s all I had, one puny small fish, so I gave up until later in the day. I took my insignificant catch back to Rob who promptly let it slip through his fingers back into the river as he went to put it in his keep net!

Later on, as the sun went down and the river was millpond smooth, I paddled out and moored to a buoy near the far bank of the river. I set my rod and watched the float drift in the flow of the river. I soon had another fish, about the same size as the first. I put that in the bucket for Rob. Another maggot, another cast and the quiet of the evening was broken by the sudden and dramatic movement of the line being stripped off the reel as something huge took the bait and headed for the depths. The next five to ten minutes were as if I was in a Hemingway novel as I reeled in, my tuppence ha’penny rod bending under the strain and then the fish would be off again. If I hadn’t been tied to the buoy I’m sure it would have taken me and the boat with it. Still not sure what I’d caught, I finally caught a glimpse of it as I reeled it in to the boat. A metre long catfish with skin like an inner tube and a big gaping maw of a mouth grinning at me. I’m not sure if it had teeth or not but, either way, there was no way I wanted this prehistoric fish in my boat. I didn’t even want to touch it.

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I did have my German Mercator lock knife, made from the finest Solingen steel. Struggling to open it without stabbing myself or my little inflatable boat, I cut the line, letting the river serpent go free. I’m still not sure about this fishing lark. I thought I would pass a pleasant, peaceful evening with my thoughts but, at any time, there are monsters in the deep, lurking….