I am moving to France in mid March, wondering if it is worth taking my gear over??

Where in France are u going? Im from there, could point you to some spot.

I would argue the best diving within French terrior will be Corsica - north of Bastia is very good for dentex in the weed, les Iles Sanguinaires near Ajaccio are very good for a wide variety of species - best accessed by boat, but if you're a seasoned swimmer and have all day, you can do it by shore.  Don't underestimate snooping the shallows for big sar around the tip of the islands.  Calví had very good numbers of fish, but I found them to be very spooky and deep.

I saw the biggest dorade of my entire trip about 50 metres offshore of the main beach in Nice, and that includes lots of dives in the marine park in Cadaqués, Spain, so don't underestimate what you can find if you keep your eyes open.  There was also a stunner brazilian lass...

Done mostly the atlantic coast, im from brittany. Everytime i was in the mediteranean we tried to spear the very shallow water, i mean 50cm to a meter, very very early on the morning. Dont use your fins to move around, use your hands  and use all the cover u can find. Shot some dentex ( denti in french) and seabass (loup) and sar like that. Good fun. And put extra weight as well, heaps.

The problem with France is, it's full of Frenchies...

jvins wrote: Done mostly the atlantic coast, im from brittany. Everytime i was in the mediteranean we tried to spear the very shallow water, i mean 50cm to a meter, very very early on the morning. Dont use your fins to move around, use your hands  and use all the cover u can find. Shot some dentex ( denti in french) and seabass (loup) and sar like that. Good fun. And put extra weight as well, heaps. hope that help.

That's a little nugget of info.
That'd be fun.

It's also very easy to get sleepy when you can see dentex that look like they are 10 metres away and flittering toward you, when in fact they are 25 metres away and you have no chance.

Hi,

As I'm french from the south and spearo too, most of what the boys said here it's true. It's still lot of fish over there and u'll be surprised of some of the haul get shot overthere. But like people say, u need skills, and perfect knowledge of the coast, and a bit of luck too.
All the area arround antibe is nice and clear water, also mean really spooky fish and hard to get, deep too, over 20m or really shallow. Corsica is awsome, but hard too if you don't know where to go or no boat.

For the bluefin there is a ban since 2008,you can fish it but release straight and don't put it on bord. I wouldnt play with that as the fine is extremly high.. more than 20 000eur.. and u loose ur boat too. So since the ban we saw them quite often even on shore dive, and that quite impressive when something of 2m cruise in front of you..

The most effective method will be what we call "agachons", mean stay on the bottom with no movement and at the right place, for couple of min. Snooping could also be efficient in shallow and dirty water.

After good luck for find someone who will tell you some spot as everything is kind of "secret spot"..

mozz wrote: Sausage rolls at the blue lady on a saturday morning remind me of home.