Extended Layover Leads to New Years in Paris

I left home two days ago to host seven of my regular Yellow Dog Flyfishing guest/pals on a trip to Gabon with my friends of African Waters.  Gabon is a country on the West Coast of Africa and famous for being one of The Dark Continents most intact wild places.  I fished Gabon in 2016 and it’s been one of my favorites to look back on because of the quality of fish and the wildlife.  Some of my readers often tell me it was one of the best series of blogs ever.

 

This is a saltwater fly fishing trip for tarpon, giant African threadfin, African cubera snapper, longfin jacks and more.  It’s a difficult trip because its mostly beach fishing and all these fish are a challenge not only to fool into taking a fly, but to then land them from shore.  I told everyone when signing on for this trip about the challenges and to hope to come home with amazing new experiences with Africa’s wildlife and to hope for ONE memorable catch.

 

My friends at African Waters carefully chose this week for me two years ago based on tides.  This week’s conditions should attract many of these large fish species to be close to the beach in fly casting range.  Of course even with perfect tides weather is a huge factor.  We’re hoping for light wind and most of all, surf that’s not too huge to contend with when fly casting.

 

We booked our air for this trip months ago and expected to arrive in Libreville, Gabon last night on New Years Eve.  Instead, a month ago our New Years Eve flight from Paris to Libreville was postponed and rescheduled for today.  Luckily we had my usual buffer day built in on the front end so we didn’t lose a fishing day and instead turned a potential negative into a positive.  We spent New Years in Paris!

 

I’ve been to France twice before and in fact had some amazing trout and grayling fishing when competing on Team USA Fly Fishing back in 2002.  But I’ve never gone into Paris.  Well, I have now.  Five of us arrived in Paris yesterday before 11 AM.  We dumped our stuff off at our airport hotel and used my line, “Screw jetlag” and hopped on the train and got dropped off in dead center of Paris.  When we arrived at street level we were immediately greeted to the beautiful architecture of Europe.

 

Honestly, I’m not sure my boys liked my Paris tour idea when I mentioned it a few weeks ago.  But once we started following our nose they were fully into it.  We gazed at a streetside map then made a plan.  Our first stop was the St. Michael Notre Dame.

 

Europe is further north than most Americans know or think about.  Days are very short in winter and midday was dim.  Furthermore, the clouds and fog were thick and it was cold and raw.  Add in a pretty solid wind and the walk was downright cold.  It wasn’t long before we wandered into a pub.  Yes, an Irish Pub in Paris.  And a good one too!

 

One beer and we were back on the streets.  We followed the busy La Seine River lined with luxury boutique shops and the aromas of strong European coffee and headed for the Eifel Tower.  If you come to Paris it needs to be on the list.  Naturally there were many other sites along the way.

 

It turns out we weren’t as close to the Eifel Tower as we thought.  We were headed the right way but we got cold again and what the heck, it was New Years Eve in Paris so we settled in at another bar.  Once again it was only one beer and back on our way.

 

New Years Eve was starting to take shape at dark.  Keep in mind, in Paris on December 31^st darkness hits by 4:30 PM.  With the jetlag we all felt it was close to midnight.  It was perfect though.  The streets were filling with celebrators and then it dawned on us, downtown Paris is probably a lot like Times Square.  It was time to speed up the pace of our tour by feel and get the heck out of there.

 

We never made it to the actual base of the Eifel Tower.  We got close enough to see it from a bridge over the river.  The view was far more impressive than my lousy picture however most of the Tower disappeared into thick fog not far up.  This view here was good enough till next trip.

 

The security was insane around the Eifel Tower and strengthening as we walked.  Streets began to close and the crowds of people were more than any of we fishing bums could handle.  Our last stop was near the famous Arc.  This is as close as we were allowed.  Too bad because it looks like the Arc and the New Years lighting was unbelievable.

 

If the police didn’t shut down the downtown train stations, or if when we finally got on the train we took the right one, we’d have been back to the hotel by 8 PM.  Instead it was more like 10 PM but that’s not bad.  As usual, I slept poorly and only till about 3 AM.  I actually worked on some of my speaking tour stuff then met the boys for breakfast at 7.

 

That’s all for now.  Me and my YD group are on our flight to Libreville as I write.  We are presently over Pyrenees and my flight map says another 7 hr. and  2 min to go.  Time for a nap.  Next post should be from Gabon!

 

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing