Saint Nazaire Street Fishing

16th February 2014 was a day I’ll remember for a long time. After two enjoyable days at Salon des Peches en Mer in Nantes, getting acquainted with all the latest lure fishing tackle, we decided to have some fun fishing.

The night before, Masa, Dan, Chris and myself scoured over Google Earth to try and find a suitable looking area for a spot of LRF. We decided upon the north shore of the mouth of the Loire.

After a drive about we found an amazing looking spot for some rockfishing – a vast saltwater basin in Saint Nazaire. The basin had a lock, meaning there was always a certain level of water in the basin. It reminded me of the Barbican in Plymouth.

We started fishing a small fishing quay with a mixture of Isome, Shirasu and paddletails. With four of us, we quickly surveyed the immediate area and found a nest of gobies. Okay, not wildly exciting but these were French gobies and it was good fun with lots of bites, a bit of competition and a few gibes when someone dropped a fish.

After we’d had our fill of the gobies we had a little walk around and stumbled across the most amazing venue for LRF I have ever seen. It turns out that Saint Nazaire was occupied by the Germans during the war and they used it as a massive U-Boat station. The huge submarine pens were an amazing backdrop to fish. The aging concrete buildings complete with years of graffiti and neglect, were pretty cool. You can fish in the pens themselves, or into deeper water on the outside. Alas, we didn’t locate any other species, but it didn’t really matter as we were all enjoying just being there. Superb place.

Definitely would like to return some time when the water temp is higher. Or perhaps next time we visit the Nantes tackle show, for some Night Games.