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We drove up to Mts Aubrac to take our flies fishing… the weather forecast warned us …”foul weather”…but we weren’t expecting that! The Aubrac we love so much because it is like no other place, maybe a cross between Iceland and Scotland, was green as the wet Normandy with yellow patches from groom flowers. Not a single soul on sight, only dtrong wind bringing scattering showers whipping our faces. A real autumn weather. The Bès had the right level, we ran to it like kids, (we say Bès like if it was a person, we don’t say River Bés, we respect and fear Bés), Bés our childhood river, our first trouts, our first joys our first frustrations. So on Bés (like if you were saying Bess) nothing was happening, not a rise, not a hatch…from time to time a caddis would cross the river wriggling, but no trout would eat it. Nymphing? You must be jocking! It’s Bés! No nymphing on Bés, only dry fly!
Trouts were not hungry with all the food they had this spring, it rained so much that tons and tons of food went straight to them, enough to eat for several month! Usualy, you would cast a fly close to the edge of the grass and DZING you would catch a trout, only if you were as quick as a karate champion! Little trouts black and dark with red spots like evil eyes, so quick they would jump on everything because they only had a few month to feed before the long winter came.! So I casted along the banks of Bés and casted again, nothing happened. Mybe we should have gone to the little streams like Riou Mau or Greuzette, they are shelterd from th enorthern wind. I tried a last cast behind those long grass at the Bottle Pool and as soon as my stoenfly hit the water, quick as a lightening a trout caught it, I set the hook and there she was… a beauty, small and fat, not like the usual trouts, but more like trouts from Normandy, a big fat belly! I understand now why they didn’t look at our flies, they are fat as calfs going to the market!
Going back to the car, Jacky reminded me an old saying “Bés has got moodswings, Bés pulls you by the feet, you should never trust it” ! Dang, with my brand new felt soles, like an iceskater dancing, I twisted in the air and landed on the very same cowshit I slipped on! COvered in shit I was stinking so bad…Jacky and I were laughing like kids again, when fishing, if you are not humble, you will be humiliated!”. We got back to the car after I washed in the river and headed to our friend’s hotel “Chez Remise” where Fred and Isabelle, the owners, gave us a hot soup, like in winter. It was the first day of summer and I stank of cowshit!
