We’ve got mail

Sometimes a friend takes the time to write us a letter. It’s always a pleasure to read from you, but this one is really special. It’s so well written I had to translate it and share it with you. This is our dope, the very reason we do all this. Thank you, Nico. You made our day.

Heya le Mouching, 

for all this, I sort of blame you, you know? For Friday’s car, full of not that much, that zooms towards the Aubrac, even if it wasn’t the plan at all. 

For the fishing license, bought in a junk joint in Aumont-Aubrac and ten minutes later wetting my feet in the Rimeize, even if it was too warm to fish a dry on it. A phone call at Remise, just a hair short of sunstroke, to ask if by any chance they wouldn’t have a room left. And you know it well, le Mouching : a cool beer on Remise’s terrace, just to show the heatwave who’s the boss. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. 

And then, the indispensable aligot, mashed potatoes with tons of Tome cheese melt in it and plenty of garlic., the perfect meal at the wee hour, air smelling of cows’ ass and wild mint. White heated banks of the Bes near Nasbinals: I know you know. And I know you’d have liked this special moment when I believed — really believed! — that the rock moving at the other end of my line was a trout. But it wasn’t.

And the day after, in stormful July on the banks of the Truyère, spent thoroughly losing my whole parachute collection — beautiful, painfully tied — in the alder trees. And at the end of the line, you know: nothing, nada, zilch. But you would have liked, le Mouching, you would have loved the fight between a milan and a swiwel, yielding the classic result: David: 1 — Goliath: 0. It was beautiful as your films and your stories.

Then it started to pour, but I kinda didn’t care. The hole on my wader’s right toe had me well prepared to the wet caresses of the rain, so I fell asleep on the Mazel dam, waiting for “it” to pass. But “it” stayed. So as a ham hock was the guest at Sainte Urcize’s table, I came back, fishless and happy. With ample provision of excuses to stay clear from the evening hatches. Anyway, I need glasses and I can’t see a thing after a couple of glasses of Côtes d’Auvergne. 

And there was this next morning: streams overflowing from the rain, the Aubrac as in a postcard, and an adequately fresh air, the Chaldette no-kill with desire under every rock, and so much rocks that life, expectations, and so on… team so well we already were Sunday evening when I started to recap the day’s catch. And I’m sure you’d like to know, because you’re inquisitive like that… but I’m shy, you see. And I’ve been taught that when you’ve got nothing to say, you’d better stay shut.

So there it is. Lots of words to thank you for all those fishing moments you put between mine. Reading you is a great pleasure.

See you soon!

Nicolas Clair