people he will talk to check in with him to recount their day's experience and hopefully find out where he will fish the next. "If Bill shows up in your hole, you can be sure you're in the best spot, that day, on the whole coast", Don explained. Bill is also hated by some, out of envy or competitiveness, and because he generally assumes a propriatery right to fish whenever and wherever he wants, regardless of the crowd or room or time of arrival. Some people think, all things considered about Bill, that's about right. He is also reputed to be garrulous, short- tempered, and opinionated, like all hermits. I had first read about Bill 15 years ago. It all could only have gotten better with time. I conjured these things as I settled down in my pram, figuring at least a 90 minute wait before daylight. Not one photon moved, the black being so total I was only vaguely secure which way was up. I ate a sweet roll, drank a cup of coffee from the thermos, and finally scrunched into a lying position between the seat with my feet over the stern and smoked a cigar. That took an hour. Periodically a fish would roll. We were still alone. "The bucket", Don explained, was THE SPOT. In tidewater as we were, these fall run fish were stacking up in the deeper holes, waiting for a freshet to raise the river before they run up into the river itself. Confined within the hole, the fish, by necessity, circle constantly. There is one point in their circuit, thought to be the downstream point where they turn again to face the flow, where they are most likely to snap at a fly. A good presentation of the fly at the proper depth and angle of swing is only possible from a small arc of an angle of casting positions. The boats that are "in the bucket" will have their flies in the proper spot, cast after cast, all day long, and maximize their chances for a take. Everyone else, as they are further from the proper casting point, out of it, literally, fishing-wise. At 5 o'clock we saw car lights far downstream on the gravel bar, then darkness, and the slam of doors. In the dense air, we could follow every stage of preparation, the clunk of a metal boat pulled off the racks, then dropped on gravel, the squeek of a tailgate, the thumps of packs and coolers loaded, oars clacking together. Flashlights, like land-bound shooting stars, shifted and flashed. Two fish rolled in sequence. I was getting restless. "Can you fish in the dark?" I asked. "Yeah, I've seen fish caught in pitch black." I tied on a fly with my flashlight, stood up, and began stripping line off the reel. I had no concept of where I was, or any of my surroundings. I might as well have been in the middle of the ocean, blind.
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