Read Online Fly-Fishing the 41st by James Prosek - Free Book Online Page B

was waiting and observing.
    Every morning of my stay with him and Katy, we sat on the terrace in front of the bar overlooking the river. The proprietor would bring us two cafés. Philippe unwrapped the paper from his cube of sugar, never taking his eyes off the surface of the river. He continued to watch the currents as he stirred the coffee with his spoon. The proprietor wiped the empty tables of morning dew with a blue towel.
    â€œThe fishing is very easy now,” said Philippe, by which he meant as compared to the fishing in August, when the river was low and clear and the trout were fussy. The fishing was not easy for me, though. Philippe used very specialized flies he tied himself and fished with leaders of clear monofilament up to six or seven meters. He stalked the fish with such care that by the time he cast he was sometimes within a rod’s length of them.
    He was a magician at spotting trout over the light emerald gravel. If he stared long enough into the water it was inevitable that a fish would appear. Fishing with mouche sèche, dry fly, and on the surface was of no interest to Philippe, because he was interested in catching only the biggest trout.
    â€œAll the big fish, over three kilos, are caught on nymphs,” he declared.
    At times when we fished, we waited for trout so long that I thought I could see the sun tanning my arm as we sat in the grass. We mixed the waiting with eating, baguettes and local Franche Comté cheese, and drinking cold cidre doux. When the light was not right for spotting fish we even napped, which was nice because the breezes were always fragrant in the Jura and made for pleasant dreaming.
    One afternoon, walking Philippe’s beat on the Loue, we came across a large sick trout. It was finning in a still, quiet eddy where a healthy trout would never lie. It had white fungus growing over its eyes and was probably blind.
    â€œDon’t move, truite vieille, truite malade, ” Philippe said, wading out to where it held over the gravel. “Old sick trout,” he said, slipping the net underneath him. “He was a seven-pound fish when he was healthy.”
    When held in the light, there were vestiges of gold on its broad sides. “Even in this condition it is a good specimen of zébrée. You see the stripes? Its tête énorme, and the big nageoires? It is Courbet’s trout.”
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    Philippe took me to Ornans one day to visit the house and studio of the nineteenth-century painter Gustave Courbet.
    Courbet was born in the town of Ornans on the Loue, some miles upstream from where Philippe lived. Courbet was a fisherman and through the course of his career painted several oils of the native trout from the river, one of which hangs in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. When I first saw Courbet’s Truite in the Orsay, I didn’t understand Pierre’s or André’s rapturous descriptions of it—it didn’t look like any trout I had ever seen. The fish’s colors were washed out, almost silvery, with a faint yellow cast. It had small irregular spots like cracked peppercorns, a black ventral fin as large as a sail, and an enormous and almost grotesque head. Only now, after I had seen a big trout from la Loue, could I appreciate Courbet’s painting; it was true.
    The centuries-old stone homes in Ornans seemed to grow from the river, their foundations in the currents, their terraces spilling over the river and hung with jardinière. Swallows dipped about and the occasional falcon could be seen chasing stoneflies from their perches on area cliffs. One of these homes, the one with the fadedblock letters BRASSERIE on its side, had once been the studio of Courbet.
    The artist was a quiet hero; you didn’t see the crowds here at Ornans that you did at Monet’s home in Giverny. We walked down a narrow cobble street, rue Maison Courbet, to Courbet’s door.
    The three-story house was spacious; we walked up and down