Freshwater fishing season starts this Saturday

For nearly 1.6 million fishermen in France, daybreak this Saturday, March 11, cannot come soon enough. It is the opening of the freshwater fishing season for brown and rainbow trout, char, Arctic char and other fish from the salmonids family, which runs until September 17.

Casting off and using live, natural bait (called pêche au toc) as well as fly fishing will be permitted in Category 1 and Category 2 rivers from 30 minutes before sunrise at about 7.30 and up to half an hour after sundown.

The arrival of this long-awaited day sees the National Federation of Fishing in France (FNPF) in rude health, with 1,559,271 permit-holders shown in latest figures from 2015. This makes it the second biggest French sports federation after the French Football Federation (FFF), which has more than 2.1million registered players, ahead of the 1.3million licensed hunters.

The FNPF reports a growing enthusiasm for fishing among young people, with 362,572 permit-holders under 18 years of age - 23% of the total.

It carried out a study in 2011 on the economic impact of recreational fishing in France and showed that spending exceeded €2billion, including €790m of direct impact from purchases relating to fishing equipment, boating, aquaculture and fish farming.

The indirect impact was €340m (tertiary and industrial), with €510m for salaries of direct and indirect employees and €390m for other associated economic activities such as accommodation, catering and transport. On average, a fisherman spends €680 per year to indulge his passion.

France has 500,000km of fishable waterways, 3,700 fishing associations and up to 40,000 volunteers who help anyone passionate about their pastime.

In the practical section of the May issue of The Connexion newspaper you can read how the fishing permit system works and who may have one. To subscribe, click here.