Most people know the Ardèche as the river that cut the famous gorge — the cliff-walled circus below Vallon-Pont-d'Arc that shows up on every postcard of southern France. The trout water is higher up, a long way before the river has any business being dramatic. It rises at Mont Mézenc on the high granite of the Ardèche plateau and runs south through Thueyts and the Pont-de-Labeaume basin before reaching Aubenas, where the character starts to shift towards the Mediterranean lower river and the trout start to give up. The productive beats are above Thueyts. Small fish, plenty of them, in clear granite water that responds exactly the way a Cévennes spate river should: quick to rise, quick to drop, honest hatches when the conditions line up. April and May are the best months. The upper Ardèche has been a wild-trout reserve for years in several reaches — check the local AAPPMA rules before you go. Short rod, upstream presentation, nothing fancy. The tourists never come this far north.
- Granite