This weekly section is proposed by Jean-Marie Gazagne.
Before tackling this surprising fishing technique called “at the luminade”, it is appropriate to place ourselves in the context of the last century when tourism was not yet flourishing. Life was difficult then. People lived in self-sufficiency.
Each family had a few sheep and sometimes one or two goats. Milk for Roquefort was sold at the Muse dairy. The small gardens near the river provided vegetables, the vineyard made it possible to have a little wine, the surplus of which was sold.
In this context of poverty, luminade fishing represented an important income: the trout served on restaurant tables, during tourist periods, were very popular. It was a specialty of the boatmen of the Tarn gorges, practiced until around 1950 from Sainte-Enimie to Aguessac. Three people were needed for this technique: the “pole vaulter” who steers the boat, the “driver” in charge of the brazier and the “harpooner.”
Harpoon trout
It was by boat, on a completely dark night, that it was done. This consisted of catching fish, particularly trout, by attracting them with light. Thanks to a fire maintained at the front of the boat in an old frying pan, where brands of resin were burned overhanging the area to be illuminated, the trout were attracted by the light. They were then speared with a fork equipped with several sharp teeth, the fichouire, in French la foëne.
To spear the trout, you had to hit a little forward so as to have it on your head. The catch was sold to restaurants for around 25 francs per kilo in 1930. (around €10). For weddings, it was not uncommon to have an order of more than a hundred trout. This kind of “fishing” was prohibited, it was then better to escape the surveillance of the constabulary who were tracking poachers. In 1943 and 1944 it had to stop. The lights would have led to confusion with the parachute signals for the maquis. Moreover, the Germans fired on one of these boats. The fishermen, Poverel and Espinasse from Rivière-sur-Tarn, narrowly escaped. This practice ceased in the 1950s.
