The Tinée rises at the Col de la Bonette — which at 2,715 metres is either the highest paved road in France or the second-highest, depending on who is counting and how — and runs south-west through a long Mercantour valley to join the Var below Pont de la Mescla. It is as wild as French trout fishing gets outside the Pyrenees: granite bedrock, cold alpine water, small wild brown trout in tumbling pocket water, and the kind of scenery that makes you forget to fish. Storm Alex in October 2020 hit the Tinée hard. The valley lost roads, houses, and in some places whole hamlets; the river itself was reshaped in several reaches by the force of the flood. The fishing has recovered, and the trout populations with it, but the landscape still bears the scars, and some access points have had to be rebuilt. It is worth mentioning because honesty is better than pretending. The Tinée is still a beautiful river to fish — more so, perhaps, because you know what it went through. Fish it from late May (earlier the snowmelt is too heavy) through September. Pocket water tactics, short rods, and an eye on the weather: the Mercantour generates storms fast.

• Granite