The first mention of Port-Maubert appears in the 16th century. It is one of the ports with an intense wheat trade activity on the Gironde estuary. Trade is mainly with Bordeaux. The goods are loaded on barges which transported their cargoes according to the tides and the winds. In the middle of the 19th century, work changed the appearance of the port. At the same time, a landing stage was built to accommodate steamboat passengers. In the 1860s, the State ceded its land to build houses, warehouses for goods, a fairing slipway and establish a shipyard (the future "le Chérif" shipyard). At the entrance to the port, a steam flour mill processes and exports a large part of the cereal production of the Jonzac district. Port activity was at its peak: wines, wheat, potatoes, and other goods flowed in from all over Saintonge to be shipped to Bordeaux, Libourne, Pauillac. The fishing activity continues, the fishermen use boats equipped with nets the "filardières", some come out of the shipyard of Port Maubert, the "Chérif". Fishing has been mentioned in the estuary since the Middle Ages, a modest activity which grew with the modernization of the ports in the middle of the 19th century. The sturgeon, called here "Créac" or "Créa" is one of the fish caught for their flesh. According to tradition, a Russian princess would have come to St-Seurin-d'Uzet. She would then have undertaken to re-teach them how to prepare caviar and when she left, she would have forgotten her umbrella, now carefully kept in St-Seurin-d'Uzet. More specifically, the Prunier house, a great Parisian restaurateur, undertook in 1921 to organize the production of caviar in France and sent Alexandre Scott to St-Seurin-d'Uzet to teach the preparation of caviar to the fishermen of the region. From this activity by several production sites develop as in Port Maubert. The intensity of fishing, in addition to pollution and the modification of natural environments, leads to the scarcity of sturgeons. Its fishing declined in the 1960s and was finally banned in the 1980s, the sturgeon becoming a protected species. Since the 1990s, research has been carried out to reintroduce the original species of sturgeon, the sturio. At the same time, Baerii sturgeon farms are open along the estuary to provide caviar. In the 1980s, sturgeon fishing was banned and fishermen reoriented themselves towards pibales, hitherto practiced on foot or in skiffs with a landing net, and which now is done with boats equipped with "haveneaux": the "pibaliers", also used for shrimp fishing. Today the activity of Port Maubert is mainly linked to fishing and yachting, while a sailing school allows learning how to handle the Optimists on the hunting basin in complete safety. Local fishermen perpetuate the activity and offer the product of their work in the form of numerous recipes sold at the on-site shop.
Translated by Google •
In the know? Log-in to add a tip for other adventurers!