The Cure rises on the high granite of the Morvan, runs north through the woods and water-meadows of Nièvre and Yonne, and joins its parent the Yonne near Vermenton. It is one of those quiet French trout rivers that nobody writes about, which is most of the point. The upper reaches around Saulieu and Dun-les-Places are the kind of water a Gierach-minded angler recognises instantly — small pools, clean gravel, occasional deeper corners under the oaks, and fish that have obviously never read the fishing press. The Morvan is old granite, which means the river runs clear and cold and responds quickly to rain. The hatches are honest — Baetis through spring, caddis building from May, stoneflies in the faster pocket water — and the wild brown trout are the right size for a small river: six to ten inches with the occasional pool resident that makes you wish you had brought something slightly heavier. Fish it short. Nymph through April when the water is still cold from the Morvan winter; shift to dry fly as soon as the hawthorn flies show. The best beats are in the middle Cure, above the Crescent reservoir where the character of the river is still wholly its own.

• Granite