Catching fishes

Here, I want to share with you photos of fishers from Northern France with the variety of practices they have at disposal, from retired fishers going out and patiently waiting for fishes to professional fishermen embarking on trawlers for days of fishing and their local environment too.

Fishers where I live are just like migratory birds. you won’t see any one of them during winter, but just when spring finally arrives, you start to see small, scattered groups of them on the banks of ponds, wetlands and rivers, from first light when they reach their usual spot (they are creatures of habits after all, just like birds !) and leave after a couple of hours to get back to their nest and feast on their catches. They also compete with other birds : you’ll hear them complaining about cormorants, stealing fishes from them. It’s true they have a great appetite. Every day, you can know for sure you’ll find fishers according to the time of the day and season. And then winter comes again, they vanish.

I used to be alone in these places, coming so early to take photos, minutes after the sun has risen, but spring has come and so have all these fishers, enjoying themselves on the banks of the Somme river. At least, I was glad other people could appreciate these beautiful morning lights, this splendid scene, with the fog softly sliding on the water and the birds singing.
I observed them, both the birds and the fishers, doing their best to catches fishes. the latter, throwing their bait vigourously, with the help of their fishing rod. It just boils down to probabilities, you’re taking your chance each time you throw the bait, throwing it a given number of times, before you finally catch a fish. This young man I met in the tiny hamlet of Éclusier-Vaux, this morning, came from the département of Pas-de-Calais, north of here, with a bunch of friends. Some birds travel farther than others when food is scarce.

This morning’s lanscape, that I was happily sharing with these morning birds :

The dough on one hand and - soon - a fish in the other !

Earlier this year, back when fishers did not venture in more remote areas like Éclusiers-Vaux for fancy, fat and big fishes, they could be found in more populated areas to keep practicising during hibernation before returning to their favourite areas in summer. I thus met Alfred, a sedentary fisher, always going to the exact same spots since a couple of decades, next to public waters part of a park where the city defensive walls -today partially flooded- once stopped ennemies. He tells me, he goes by the nickname '“Alfred la pâte”, which means “the dough” because of his very own preparation to bait the fishes : a mixture of butter, potatoes and yolk. I could tell it works wonders because he kept getting tiny fishes. He then tells me he only comes to catch tiny fishes, while proceeding to place the fresh catch in his fish tank.

Mr. Mignet, who seemed to carry the memory of the place in his silence and his thoughtful look.

On a day in my village of Péronne, I meet a group of cheerful and talkative gentlemen, most of them retired and others on vacation, who have come together to fish, or simply there for the moment with their friends. They tell me with pride their recent catches: pike, catfish, pike-perch of fifty centimeters, one meter, one meter twenty... I start to hope to see a similar catch today. Among them, Mr. Mignet, former fisherman and cormorant hunter, mandated by the department to kill up to 180 of them per season. The purpose? To prevent them from decimating the fish stocks.

The fishing rods are set. Chance and patience will do the rest

Fishing competition in Aisne

Let's talk about their equipment. On one side are the men fishing trouts, who have come for the release, and on the other, those fishing carps. to each species of bird their fish. The former have a simple fishing rod, a cloth to handle the fish when it's out, some baits, a few tools and a bench of course, to sit on. The carp fishermen, on the other hand, come with very long collapsible rods -they keep the second half when the fish is about to be caught- so long that they bring some kind of rolling trestles to move their rods forward and backward, umbrellas, whole bags of cans to lure the carps and other things. I see them constantly switching from one rod size to another, changing the type of rod, being busy, sitting on their gear, filling the little box at the end of their rod with food which they will release into the water to attract the carp, and finally lighting a cigarette when patience alone takes over. On the other side, on the other pond, a single, simple rod with a worm at the end of the line and is enough for the trout.

One weekday evening, on the edge of a pond, a grandfather watching his grandson fishing told me about a fishing competition the next day. I naturally decided to go, to see this crowd of gentlemen (almost only males) gathered, perched one might say, in lines, following the contours of the ponds.Fishing contest are a popular entertainment here : today is the trout release where the participants hope to make a good number of catches, even if many are there to have fun and have a good time, from that I am told. I am struck by the calm atmosphere that reigns there, it adds to the tension where fishers seem more serious. It is a cloudy day, with light rain, which suits perfectly the nature of the event, a competition where the silent fishermen, sometimes sheltered by umbrellas, handle their equipment with great skill.

A fisher showing me his "easy" catch as he says, a troot

Another truit, the 15th one, according to this gentleman

A carp, held by a chatty fisher, telling me about his passion

Pouring all sort of food in the water to lure the carps

Another carp, after an intense 5 minutes duel

Catching fishes

Fishing competition in Aisne

More soon !