fishing for dace.

[jpbfly]

Today I went fishing for dace with my buddy JM...hope you haven't heard me shouting and swearing...these fish are devils...but captivating.You have to be very patient and quiet for dace can make you mad,they come up to the surface and gently touch your fly with their funny nose without taking it in the morning I spent an hour on a little group,changed my tippet,then my fly,then tried to fish downstream so that my fly could come first...finally caught some.We went on fishing both on dry and nymph on sight and could catch a good number all day long,with some chub and also "blageons".It's the fastest fish to catch and spilt the fly or the nymph I know,the biggest are only 25 cm,it's a nice fish with an orange little stripe.I took a pic of a small one to show it to you.The weather was fine,the water clear,no canoe hatch...so we spent a good time on the river
a little blageon

JM "at work"

JP...caught one at last

Hérault river.

[Hardyreels]

Beautiful country Jean Paul.

[jpbfly]

Sad you didn't say...handsome fishermen Ard

[mcnerney]

JP: Great looking fish, the yellow strip is cool looking and that stream really looks good! Sorry fishing season has come to a close for you!

Larry

[Kerry Pitt]

Hey who is that Manly looking fly fisher!!?? What a pretty little fish, but what awesome country to be able to go fishing in. I have never heard of fishing for Dace, up in Northern B.C. they have the Northern Dace which is black with gold stripes, but they get very red bellies when they spawn.
Thanks alot for sharing, excellent stuff!

[Pocono]

That is pretty country, J-P. A nice little stream and the background of the village or the houses along the banks is a nice plus. I've never fished for dace before, but I've used dace patterns to fish for trout. One of the dace flies that I like is Art Flick's black nosed dace; which in our parts, is a small baitfish for trout and can be well imitated with a #8-10 streamer hook.

I agree with the other posters, that local fish (Blageon) is nice looking. It looks like what we call a Creek Chub; but the mouth looks a little like a sucker. We also have a Creek Chubsucker and, FYI - the dace that we have here do have orange coloration at the base of their ventral fins. Is your Blageon a Chub species?

[jpbfly]

Allan I don't know if the blageon is a chub species,it can be found only here in the south of France ,but I know this fish is often the first one to take flies on the surface,but as it's very fast and usually rather little it's not easy to strike.As for the dace which is bigger(up to 30,35cm)it's really exciting because it's very suspicious,I'll try to take a closer pic next time I catch one.The chub is widely spread and it's not rare to catch fish over 50cm,we can find it now in upper parts of streams where there were only trout some years ago,one of the visible effects of climate changes