Civil war in the Bearn?

Béarnais amateur fishermen in the Pyrenees accuse the professional Basque fishermen off the coast of plundering the stocks of returning salmon to the detriment of their right to catch up to three fish per year on their fly fishing lines. Naturally the professionals refute this and claim they are being pilloried for following their right to make a living by netting the fish at the river mouth at Bayonne.
It is reckoned some 20000 salmon will return to the Gave de Pau and the Gave d'Oleron and attempt to return to their spawning grounds in the mountains.
The methods used by the professionals are claimed to be illegal: use of nets at unauthorised depths, preventing the fish from passing. They claim, however, that the tides will raise the depth and allow many fish to pass unhindered.
The amateur fishermen up stream reckon that if more specimens were in the rivers they could lead to an increase in tourism, with salmon stalkers no longer needing to go to Scotland or Norway for their sport.
Stocks are carefully monitored by government environment officers, but the dispute has apparently gone to court for clarification. Both sides agree that cleaning up the water is necessary to keep the fish coming.

Record big fish

We cover the story of giant catfish each year, but the silure caught this week by Albigeois Jean-Christophe Conejero was the longest on record.

Measured officially by an expert at 2.74 metres this fish caught in the Tarn was 1cm longer than the previous record. 

The river Tarn clearly contains many of these enormous fish and M Conejero says he has caught "hundreds", but now having set the record thinks he has achieved his goal. A few years ago a film, used in a BBC wildlife documentary, showed silure attacking pigeons on the banks of the Tarn at Albi. We would be wary of taking a dip near there!

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Fishy tales

"Silure" caught near Albi

We often see pictures of these giant catfish caught in the Tarn around Albi and Gaillac, and read stories of them attacking ducks and pigeons. Indeed in David Attenborough's latest "Life on Earth" series a sequence was shown of the pigeons in Albi being trapped by silures. Latest research has dispelled the myth that they grow to over 3 to 5 metres, the biggest ever recorded being 2.70 metres.. In an American journal the researchers of Ecolab, who were the first to film underwater footage in the Tarn - and record the communication sounds the fish make, say that stories of giant specimens are based on a larger Russian species not found locally.
Nevertheless we bet there are Tarn fishermen who swear that a whopper got away.
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Trout fishing opens today

Members of local fishing associations will be heading down to the rivers today, ready to take up rods in pursuit of trout. Many have been breeding stocks and many new fish will be released into the streams this weekend, as has been happening over the last week or so. We can't help feeling that the troutlings (or troutlets) will have been washed downstream after all the rain recently.

One concern, as seen n this picture, is that the rivers are full, not with trout, but with flotsam wood and with jetsam plastic bottles and debris often thrown or left by the anglers themselves.
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This one did not get away

Walking along the banks of the Aveyron at Feneyrols this morning we spotted a couple of young men fishing from a boat. They rowed over and proudly displayed a 2/3 kilo pike they had landed. The chap on the left may be ringing a local fish merchant to negociate a sale, or maybe telling his partner to get the chips on.

Nice pike - sorry a bit out of focus

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Chassing finished, pêching begins

Samedi c' est l' ouverture de la pêche dans le Tarn
The sports change with the seasons and trout fishing in the Tarn begins Saturday and the trout are plentiful and rivers are well stocked.
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Varen, the bureau for fishing in the area is elected.

L’assemblée générale de la société de pêche de Lexos a élu son nouveau bureau:

Président:éric Savignac; vice-président: Michel Cere; trésorier: Pierre Pequignot; trésorière adjointe: Régine Couffignal.

En Tarn-et-Garonne, la vente des cartes de pêche 2014 se fait principalement sur internet, sur le site www.cartedepeche.fr

Pour ceux qui n’ont pas internet, une permanence se fait au syndicat d’initiative, le vendredi de 10 heures à 12 heures, à partir d’aujourd’hui 31 janvier. Il est conseillé de téléphoner à M. Péquignot, au 05 63 65 42 06ou au 06 32 40 55 87.

Val says we sometimes get people renting who want to fish in the Aveyron, so having information on where  to get the permit is useful.

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