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UILLON
    P hilippe picked me up at the train station in Besançon, and we drove together in his red diesel Citroën to his apartment in the village of Chenecey-Buillon. He lived there with his young wife-to-be, Katy, on the second floor of an old stone farmhouse within earshot of the currents of the river Loue, where he had grown up fly-fishing.
    Katy was petite, good humored, and pretty, and Philippe was a handsome left-handed fly fisher with a bump on his nose; as a couple they radiated contentedness and good health. She was a medical student, like Yannid, but found time to fish with Philippe between rounds at the hospital in Besançon.
    There was not much to see in Chenecey-Buillon if you weren’t interested in fishing or natural beauty. Besides a stone bridge, a bakery, a small inn with a bar, and a church, the village was an open meadow with red poppies. To those with rapid temperaments, a life there could be considered dull, but I doubted that the word had ever entered Philippe’s mind.
    His friends hung out at the boardinghouse and bar by the river. The proprietor was tall, wore a full black mustache, and knew everyone’s name, even mine, shortly. Before I had spoken to him, he greeted us at the table with two beers on his tray.
    â€œShow him the trout,” the proprietor called proudly. When we had finished our beers, Philippe walked me to the dining room in the inn, where the skin mount of a large brown trout was displayed over the mantel of a hearth. The trout was sixteen pounds, Philippe explained, pointing out its enormous head and formidable teeth. Itwas different from any other trout I’d seen, striped at intervals with dark vertical bands. “The locals,” he explained, “call this la truite zébrée. This fish was hooked and landed by my best friend, Norbert—the third largest ever taken in France on the fly. He caught it on a size-sixteen pheasant-tail nymph in August when the river was low and clear, on line with a breaking strength of only two and a half pounds.” Like few other places in the world—Livingston, Montana, or Stockbridge, England—a skilled fly fisherman in Chenecey-Buillon was respected as nothing short of a virtuoso.
    The afternoon I arrived, Philippe gave me his lucky fishing hat to wear. We drove with Katy on a dirt road through a large farm along the river, until we came to an emerald pool, the surface dimpled with the rises of feeding trout. Katy was on the water immediately, downstream of us, making long graceful casts across the pool.
    As I prepared to fish, Philippe kindly affirmed that the flies in my boxes were useless and handed me the precise fly for the occasion. I wondered some about his tackle too, especially the enormous net that hung over his shoulder, nearly two and a half feet wide. Then I remembered the big trout at the boardinghouse. I began to cast and he gave instructions in French.
    â€œYou must have no drag on the fly,” Philippe advised, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “and then maybe, maybe, the trout will take.”
    I tried several casts to a rising fish at the tail of a pool, trying to let the fly drift as if it were a natural insect free of my line. On every cast my fly dragged before it reached the fish. “It’s been a long winter,” I yelled to Philippe over the sound of running water, and gave up, frustrated.
    Philippe took my place in the river, made ten casts from the same spot, and hooked six trout. He landed only one because of his haste to show me what the trout in his river looked like. He held it out for me to see. It was true, the trout had the zebra stripes like he had said. “It’s your turn, James,” Philippe said, handing me his rod.
    â€œApproach the fish slowly and get as close as you can before casting.” As the sun was setting over the field of foot-high corn, I hooked my first zébrée.
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    I learned that the meaning of fishing for Philippe