Serre-Ponçon is the great Durance reservoir — 2,800 hectares of mountain-held water in a setting so good it is almost embarrassing to admit you are there for the fish. It is a mixed fishery in the fullest sense: wild trout in the feeder streams at the head of the lake, perch and pike along the drowned willow edges, pike-perch out in the deeps, and the occasional large brown that has grown up on a diet of whatever else swims in here. Fly fishers come for the pike — large flies, floating line, patient probing of the drop-offs — and for the first and last light hour when the trout move onto the shallow margins at the Savines end. The water level drops sharply through summer for irrigation release, which exposes and reshapes the banks faster than any fishery has a right to expect, so take local advice on what is currently reachable. Absurdly scenic; genuine quarry.
- Reservoir
- Alluvial
