Fly-Fishing the 41st Read Online Free PDF Page B

me.
    â€œAre you sure this is what you want?” she asked and kissed me.
    â€œIf it’s what you do,” I answered.
    â€œI can be one of the little fishes you admire so much,” she said and put her arms around me.
    â€œI would like to show you my cathedral, the trout stream.”
    â€œThe way you describe it,” Yannid replied, “I want to experience it with you.” She loosened her embrace and kissed me on the cheek. “Let’s go back,” she whispered, and we walked through the cool evening along dark streets to her apartment.
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    The first thing I had noticed about Normandy was that the days were shorter than at home (I was decidedly north of 41°N), the second was that it never got very cold and that it rained a lot. It seemed to rain for weeks, and the level of the Seine continued to rise. I found it hard to leave Yannid’s cozy apartment, though I contemplated later taking out my fishing rod and trying to catch a fish—it was not for lack of time to myself that I didn’t; I think I was intimidated. I rarely saw Yannid because she was either in class or on a shift at the hospital. I began taking long walks along the river, watching it swell with more water before my eyes, and every day, until it resembled a sea with waves, and on windy days there were whitecaps. I couldn’t even consider how I would fish it. I needed to find a guide.
    M EETING THE R ETIRED V ETERINARIAN P IERRE A FFRE
    F or years before he introduced me to him, my friend Nick Lyons had told me stories about a mad sports-fisherman from Paris named Pierre Affre. As an author, publisher, and traveler, Nick had met many fly fishermen, and all sorts of enthusiasts and aficionados of the rod and line. Pierre, though, through his skill, intuitiveness, dedication, and outright weirdness, was according to Nick above the others, and of nearly mythical status. One of Nick’s favorite stories about Pierre was about how he’d managed to get a hook lodged in his penis while tarpon fishing in the Florida Keys.
    â€œNow a tarpon, as you know, is a big fish with a hard mouth,” Nick explained as he told it, “so you need a sharp hook and a big hook. I don’t know how he did it, but it was a windy day and the line came sweeping by his pants as he cast it, and there it was. I’m in pain every time I think of it.”
    I later collected many of my own Pierre stories; one in particular that I heard from his close friend Peter best exhibits his true loucura for fishing. “I used to accompany Pierre when we were in our twenties to Iceland to fly-fish for salmon in summer. As you know, it’s near the Arctic Circle and in July there are no nights. Pierre used totake speed pills so he could fish ’round the clock. He’s a mad fisherman; I don’t think he slept or ate for five days, he just fished.”
    Nick shared with Pierre an understanding of the fisherman’s (and thereby the predator’s) folly. Fishing is a philosophy to them, a lifestyle, a source of frustration, and also of comfort, the same philosophy understood by the man who had introduced them to each other, the late hotelier Charles Ritz.
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    After months of anticipation, I called Pierre one morning in his office on rue Dauphine in Paris, in the sixth arrondissement. “Ah, James,” Pierre said softly yet urgently, “I have been expecting your call. Nick wrote me a very nice letter about you and sent a copy of your book. We have a lot to discuss. It is important for you to come to Paris as soon as possible to see me.”
    â€œOkay,” I said quickly, for I was very excited too. “I will get a room in town.”
    â€œDon’t worry about a room,” Pierre said more strongly, bringing out his French accent, “you can sleep in my office. I would put you up in my apartment but I have three young children and no space. Anyway, Nick tells me you are with your fiancée