The lower Var is the river that most people think of when they think of the Var at all — the one that meets the Mediterranean just west of Nice, the one that has been heavily engineered and channelised and is not a fishing river in any meaningful sense. The upper Var is a different story entirely. It rises high in the Mercantour above Entraunes and runs south-east through Guillaumes and Puget-Théniers, dropping through a series of small gorges and alpine valleys that look like somewhere between the Alps and the Mediterranean and actually are. The productive trout water is from the headwaters down to Puget-Théniers, after which irrigation draw-off and the warming of the lower valley start to tell. Wild brown trout in the upper gorges, small but plentiful, in clean alpine water that stays cold even in August thanks to altitude and shade. This is mountain trout fishing with a Mediterranean light over it — the oaks give way to pines as you climb, the sun gets hard by midday, and the best fishing is early and late. Short rods, upstream dries, and a willingness to walk the gorges between access points.

• Mixed

• Ecology: Moderate
• Chemical: Good