PARIS – On a recent winter afternoon along the Seine, a Parisian teenager pulled a fishing rod out of a narrow holster, hooked a glittering rubber fish and threw his line into the water.
The fisherman, Eliot Malherbe (19), was soon accompanied on the river bank by his friend Kacim Machline (22), an art student. But first, Mr. Machline painted a green striped fish on the concrete walls in their place on the river, in a renovated former industrial area near the Jardin des Plantes on the left bank.
The Seine used to be the fishing grounds of working-class older men who had run away from the river during their retirement days. Nowadays, a younger and more diverse generation disrupts the scene.
Many of the younger anglers were first attracted to the Seine by the promise of other adventures. The quays in the city offer some of the largest skateboarding areas of the city, and for graffiti artists, it offers areas with little traffic so they can discreetly spray their labels during the night.
While the more leisurely fun at fishing may seem like the same thrill, it’s not, said Manuel Obadia-Wills, 40, a former graffiti artist and skateboarder – and now a fisherman in his spare time.
“There is a buzz, an addictive side, a repetition until you reach the moment of grace,” said Mr. Obadia-Wills said. ‘In skateboarding, it’s the perfect trick. When it comes to graffiti, it’s about the adrenaline rush when you’re in a forbidden place. If you are fishing, this is the most beautiful catch. ‘
Like skateboarding and drawing graffiti, fishing in the Seine can also be legal at times. Many fishermen go to work or school – although France has officially banned fishing even during the winter since 1669.
During the official fishing season from May to January, young fishermen meet in certain places – near vessels that stretch for miles along the river and including fish shelters, or at the Canal Saint-Martin or Canal de l’Ourcq, where the water is calmer and warmer as in the Seine.
Eager to find unexplored soils, however, it dares to find confined areas such as under Bastille Square at ‘the tunnel’, as it is known, a kilometer-long underground canal covered with a stone vault. The city recently closed its entrance to try to prevent people from entering.
Although they continue a centuries-old tradition of fishing in the shadow of Notre-Dame or under the Eiffel Tower, younger fishermen have brought up-to-date rules and codes.
The most important among them: The ultimate goal of the day catch is no longer to share a meal with friends and family. Instead, the goal is to share on social media of close-ups images of pike, perch, sanderers, welsh catfish and other species – and then release them back into the river.
“Fishing is a sport and fishing is our game partner, so we release them,” said Grégoire Auffert, 21, crouching on a parapet of the Quai Anatole France, with the Tuileries Garden across the river. “You would never ask a tennis player to eat the ball.”
The new generation uses artificial plastic baits to lure the fish, not the natural baits like the worms that are still favored by retired pensioners. The fish do not swallow the bait, and fishermen can hook it to their cartilage, causing the least damage.
The new uses are aimed at protecting the increasing biodiversity in the Seine. In the 1970s, there were only three fish species in the river, but after decades of water purification policies, there are now more than thirty – although plastic bags, industrial waste and, more recently, electric scooters with lithium batteries still pollute the river.
“The environment has been constantly improving and the coronavirus pandemic has intensified it” by providing a quieter environment for fishing, said Bill François, a marine scientist. He pointed out that there have been fewer tourist boats on the Seine in the past year. During the summer, he said, “we observed a very good reproduction.”
Thierry Paquot, who studies urban life and teaches at the Paris Urban Planning Institute, sees urban anglers as a push from city dwellers in France to be more in tune with nature.
“There is a whole new range of practices that are heading in the same direction, such as urban agriculture,” he said.
He said that a generation of young adults, suffering from growing economic insecurity, find a sense of community in the tradition of fishing, which has changed them through an ecological awareness and through sharing their passion through technology.
The fishing federation in the Paris region has 8,500 members, all of whom buy an annual license for about $ 120. Add those who buy a daily license for $ 15, and those who fish illegally, and the total number of people fishing in the capital, can, according to the owners of fishing shops, be more than 30,000.
“The number of fishermen remains fairly stable, but now young people are clearly more than people of a certain age,” said Marcelo D’Amore, who has been selling fishing gear in Paris for the past thirty years, first in a sports chain and now at Giga. -pêche ”- which means something like“ mega-fishing ”- a store he opened in 2016 in the east of Paris.
The increasing attractiveness of Parisian fishing to the younger crowd has attracted the attention of entrepreneurs such as Fred Miessner, who says he noticed the trend in the early 2000s and nicknamed it “street fishing”. With a business partner, Mr. Miessner – who also fishes in the Seine – launched French Touch Fishing, a wholesale fishing tackle company, and Big Fish 1983, a collection of streetwear for urban fishermen, including hats, printed T-shirts and polarized sunglasses.
“We did not recognize ourselves in the old codes,” he said. Miessner said. ‘We did not wear plastic boots, military fatigue or sweaters for sweaters. We fished and then went to parties with our friends without putting on clothes. ”
Its brand and others like to sponsor young fishermen who have become social media influencers in the community. Mr. Machline, the art student, receives hundreds of dollars worth of goods from a company in exchange for posts the brand mentions to its 4,000 followers on Instagram.
Some fishing practices remain unchanged in the social media era. While it’s important to share photos of the day’s trophy catch, fishermen avoid making their exact locations clear to protect them from ‘crabbers’ – as they call those who identify good places from the pictures.
And bragging about the size of the catch continues unabated.
On a recent late afternoon, after a day by the shore, Mr. Machline a plump 15-inch seat caught in the Bassin de l’Arsenal, a ferry near the Place de la Bastille where the Canal Saint-Martin meets the Seine. Mr. Malherbe, his friend, captured the moment on his cellphone, then the fish was immersed in the water again.
“I always put my arms out in front of me,” he said. Machline said with a proud smile. “That way, the fish look bigger in the picture.”