An early October weekend in Paris saw an unusual sight in the historic city centre. A group of men unloaded boxes, long tubes and lost of green buckets from a couple of Renault Espace vehicles and set about fishing! These were no ordinary men. These were Phillipe Perrot and members of the national French squad practising for the 2001 World Champs.

On the Saturday, Didier Guessard, Jean Desque, Eric Lubin, Robert Berlioux, Gille Caudin and Jean-Luc Haverbecke were hard at work on the “Gros Caillou” section downstream of the Alma bridge. For all these men this was a “first” on these banks. Normally no one ever fishes here, right in the heart of Paris. The Seine is heavily fished both upstream and downstream of Paris. It is a fantastic water for large bream and – notably – quality roach. What was as yet uncertain was whether the fish stocks were as high in the city centre.

This question has worried the French squad for a while. Didier Guessard did some exploratory work last year in the middle of Paris and the results were encouraging but this was the first time the river was put under intensive scrutiny. Fortunately the results were positive both in terms of the numbers of fish caught and their quality. The fishing was first rate and this is despite non-stop pleasure boat traffic generating large and irregular waves and the river flowing much faster in early October than it will next September. Fingers crossed that the river stays in form and gives the tens of thousands of spectators expected a fishing match to remember.


The pleasure boats give off massive waves

It was obvious that the day was going to go well from the start. Didier Guessard only had to wait two minutes to get his first fish and the others started catching just behind him. It did not take long for the anglers to relax and settle into bagging mode. On home soil the French are keen to avoid the sort of scratching matches seen too often in recent years – Killeek and Holme Pierrepoint spring to mind.

The team put together some super nets of roach all between 12 oz and a pound. This is technical river fishing on the long pole – ideally suited to the French. The bream did not show well but they will be more in evidence next September as the intensive practise sessions will draw them in to look for feed in these sections.

There are a lot of large carp in the Seine as many English carp anglers know well. Eric Lubin caught a 6kg lump during the practise session. However most of the carp are too big and powerful to represent a serious target in the World Champs. Just keeping them in the fishing zones in a world champ will be next to impossible. Eric had to run 50 metres along the bank to get his out during the practise. Just try that on with a steward on every peg and see if you get away with it!

On the Sunday they fished on the Louvre bank. The current was stronger than on the Saturday and many of the team fished right along the edges of the river. The banks of the Seine are lined with large boulders and the fish often hug the edges where the rocks offer some protection from the wash of pleasure boats. Once again 10kg a man was caught – quality roach figuring in all the nets.

What was encouraging was that the bottom of the river was relatively clear of snags. One worry about using the heart of the city was that the “open sewer” mentality would have seen more hooks catching on supermarket trolleys and abandoned cars than fish. This fortunately was not the case.

The team had planned another practise in mid October but Paris was hit by the same rains that struck England and the river was consequently out of sorts. You can write off winter and spring, as the flow will be too strong right through these seasons to learn much. Things will really start to move in July and August as the river hits summer level and the serious practising begins.

We at Déclic and Matchangler.com will keep you up to date with all the practices and news from the venue. The build up continues next month when we will be bringing you Diego da Silva – the French National Champion and Seine expert – who will be lifting the lid on how he fishes the lollipop float on the venue.