French/Spanish road trip

[rubble]

Spending nearly 3 weeks in France and Spain this August.

Have fly fished Brittany (our first stop) before with mixed success but I expect I'll be sea fishing mostly as I'll be real close to the beach.

Heading along the west coast to Spain after the first week, no timetable or stays booked yet but I've heard nice things about the Basque area for trouting. Anyone got any intel they'd be kind enough to share?

[Pete Tyjas]

I've fished in that area of Spain and ended up staying in a hotel on the road that heads towards Andorra. It was my friends birthday and his wife organised things. She'd booked a guide for the first day as a present and we caught fish on nymphs during the day and after a heavy thunderstorm, fished a great caddis hatch.

We went back the next day and the river was blown but opposite where we stayed (it was hotel owned by a guy who was sadly injured doing the Paris Dakar and there were motorbikes placed around the lobby areas) was a river. It reminded me of the American Mid-west and I actually saw 2 salmon move in a lovely pool. The trout population was relatively low but we soon spotted barbel and sight fished nymphs for them in the crystal clear water. We caught the odd trout but we loved the barbel so much that we concentrated on them.

It is up there as one of my most favourite trips.

I guess I'm saying that if you head that way take a few heavy nymphs and see if you can find them. I'm told they will rise to terristrials too but we didn't see that when we were there.

[rubble]

Jun 10, 2023 6:39:10 GMT Pete Tyjas said:

I've fished in that area of Spain and ended up staying in a hotel on the road that heads towards Andorra. It was my friends birthday and his wife organised things. She'd booked a guide for the first day as a present and we caught fish on nymphs during the day and after a heavy thunderstorm, fished a great caddis hatch.

We went back the next day and the river was blown but opposite where we stayed (it was hotel owned by a guy who was sadly injured doing the Paris Dakar and there were motorbikes placed around the lobby areas) was a river. It reminded me of the American Mid-west and I actually saw 2 salmon move in a lovely pool. The trout population was relatively low but we soon spotted barbel and sight fished nymphs for them in the crystal clear water. We caught the odd trout but we loved the barbel so much that we concentrated on them.

It is up there as one of my most favourite trips.

I guess I'm saying that if you head that way take a few heavy nymphs and see if you can find them. I'm told they will rise to terristrials too but we didn't see that when we were there.

Thanks Pete, looks interesting

[Pete Tyjas]

I can't recommend it highly enough. We arrived for trout and left with a passion for barbel.