Fly Fishing in Burgundy

By George Davis - For many, the mention of Burgundy evokes sensual memories of wine – earthy and complex – and gastronomic adventures among friends. But sybaritic nostalgia aside, there's another Burgundy that opened herself up to me during a foray into the wooded hills and valleys of the Morvan, a rural land that stretches between Clamecy, Vézelay and Avallon in the north and Charollais and Autun in the south.

Summer in Paris, though popular (perhaps too popular?), is hot, humid and mobbed with tourists. Sure, it’s still Paris and one of the best places in the world to be, even condemned to perpetual gridlock and stickiness, but there are those moments when you catch yourself longing for a cool, tranquil escape. It was one such moment, as I wandered along rue de Grenelle in the seventh arrondissement, that a fly fishing boutique DPSG (Des Poissons si Grands, http://www.dpsg-fr.com, 160 rue de Grenelle, 75007 Paris) rose up from the sweltering sidewalk like a tantalizing mirage.

I entered to find myself in a miniature shop, stocked with the esoteric essentials for fly fishing, “la pêche à la mouche”, and populated by several tweedy late-middle-agers. Despite the intimate quarters, my entrance went undetected. Conversation continued in amicable, chatty French, so I interested myself in the wicker creels and hand-tied flies.

I’d been living in Paris for three years and, aside from a single trout fishing trip to Aveyron in the Midi-Pyrenees, fly fishing opportunities in France had mostly eluded me. I had investigated my options on several occasions and had even joined a Paris-based fly fishing club that permitted me to cast around a private pond in the Bois de Boulogne in pursuit of lethargic catfish and carp. Now, lingering in the boutique transported me to the bucolic streams and rivers of my memory: the bolder-strewn Ausable; the languid Bouquet; the vast, powerful Miramichi; the Dungarven, the Renous,…

I was drawn out of my reverie by a smiling character of slight stature and build. A former Sorbonne professor, economist, concert violinist, gourmet and published poet, Michel Winthrop is also a fly fishing guide eager to share his love and wisdom for angling with guys like me. Our conversation was relaxed and easy, somersaulting along in a freeform pidgin accommodating our linguistic needs and limitations. He understood my wistfulness for the rivers of North American, and before long we were arranging an outing at the end of the first week in July to the Parc Naturel Regional du Morvan in Burgundy.

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