Le Figaro Bordeaux
“He’s going to be missing at the end of the pontoon.”
His ship, moored at the Cité du Vin pontoon, will no longer take tourists on board.
The death of Jean-Marie Hauchecorne, a true
“figure of the Bacalan district”
, plunges many Bordelais into sadness.
For around four years, he has offered locals and vacationers the opportunity to discover his daily life as the last river fisherman in Bordeaux, by boarding his boat,
“Les tontons flingueurs”
.
This
“dealer of happiness, fish and unusual walks”
died on February 6, announced his son, his parents, his godson and his sisters.
It notably offered night fishing,
“walks and tastings”
as well as
“half days with a professional fisherman”
.
Welcoming between six and eight people per crossing, Jean-Marie would take the fishing traps sunk in the muddy waters of the Garonne, to immediately taste his catch of the day, cooked on a stove.
Shrimp and glass eel fisherman
Very present on social networks, Jean-Marie Hauchecorne regularly published photographs of the fish and shellfish he caught, as well as the way he cooked them.
He collected white shrimp but also
“pibales”
(or glass eels), being one of the few fishermen able to catch and sell this fry of the critically endangered European eel.
He also participated in the project to repopulate Lake Cazaux, for which 60% of the pibals fished were intended.
A mass will be given in his honor at Saint-Rémi Church, Friday, February 16, at 10:30 a.m.