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on Friday afternoon i drove up to Gorham, Maine, to catch up with Bill, my father-figure adventure pal, who is also one of the greatest living fly fishermen in the country. at 64, he's getting on a bit, but it doesn't show. he still carries a canoe over head as if it was made of Styrofoam. Gorham is home to Bill's sister-in-law, an artist, and the person responsible for most of those large, fabric, hanging, sail-like-things found strung up in the large empty spaces in malls, office buildings and museums. we met up with her, Bill's wife, Bill's totally amazing adventure daughter (who lives in New York, works for the Smithsonian, and, after discussing it a bit, is my new sister). she's 38 but looks about 25. in three weeks she's going bear stalking in Yellowstone for 14 days alone. we were also joined by Bill's wicked hot daughter-in-law from Denver, and son-in-law from the Florida keys. we all congregated in his sister-in-law's art studio and had japanese food and drank sake. i tried to be sociable, and, while most likely failing, had a pleasant time being around Bill again. people took off and i slept on the studio floor where i was crawled on and poked at by various insects until morning. i tried to keep images such as my recently downloaded series of a brown recluse spider bite out of my head. i awoke to a teething, ferrity noise coming from outside. scratched my eyes, sat up and looked outside the studio window to see what would be the oddest animal i've ever witnessed outside of zoo. i didn't know what it was. it was dog-sized, slightly orange, big tailed, and slinked across the yard and into the woods. i left the studio and walked over the main house and found Bill and Deb chatting away on the porch with disturbingly huge mugs of coffee. "Did you see that animal?" "What animal?" Bill asked, sipping. "That big, orange.... tail .... furry animal? I just saw it run across the yard." Deb looked at me with excitement and concern and hurried off the porch and down into the yard. i followed her to point out where the visitor had been. we found no tracks. "Did it look like big cat?" Deb asked. "No, it was much larger than a cat, and wild looking. i couldn't see the face clearly because it was running away from my point of view, but it was definitely wild. thick coat, low to the ground... big." no one knew what it was, until Bill, not looking interested in anything other than his mug of coffee said, "Sounds a little like a Fisher." i didn't know what that was. but, in this group of mountain men and women, i nodded. "Yes", i said, "it could have been, i suppose." the search stopped there until just now, as i searched around on the web. there are very little resources on Fishers. i found many pages giving overviews, but most of the pictures, both drawn or photographed, didn't look like the animal i saw in Gorham. the pictures showed a weasel-type thing with a slender body. what i saw was more husky looking, more massive. i was beginning to doubt the image in my mind until i found a page showing a picture of exactly the fellow i saw. it's here, and that's it, and i like it. here they call him a "Fisher Cat" and i haven't found out if that's a different animal than just a "Fisher', which is also called a "Marten". apparently, it's very rare to see these things, so, obviously, this is my spirit animal. Bill and i left a couple hours later to do some dangerous fishing off the rocky coast around Cape Elizabeth and then on up to islands around Morse Beach. for the last 8 years, we've consistently been the only fisherman brave (stupid?) enough to attempt reaching the striped bass with fly rods (and homemade flies) while fishing from a tiny boat, just a little wider and little longer than a canoe, powered only by a 10 HP engine. we cut through swells that are often large enough to capsize boats much larger than ours, but Bill is talented enough at maneuvering this craft to keep us and the gear safe, most of the time. while we are in between the caps of waves, if we look horizontally, all we can see is deep blue water on both sides- a dizzying site as one is used to water being down under the boat. often we can only orientate ourselves to vertical after catching glimpses of the coast for seconds at a time as we dip and slide down swells. we ended up catching just a couple mackerel, but they were large enough to keep. once the tide went out, we hauled in and drove off to a campsite we were going to stay at that night, along with other family and friends. first thing up were the tents, then the fire, then the mackerel. if you prepare them right, they can be damn good right off the fire. some wine and fried potatoes later, we were all chatting about everything that came to mind around the fire until the stars came out, the temperature dropped, and we all cimbed into our tents and sleeping bags and fell asleep. while beginning to drift off, i felt like i had just taken some much needed medicine. Bill and i were first up, so we started the fire and had coffee steaming before even getting dressed. the early morning chat was accompanied by fog that slid in so thickly , i felt like the two of us were floating in null space, looking at the fire in some sort of time-out-of-place like some of the flashbacks Kuai Chang Kaine has of his master in the old Kung Fu show with David Carradine. it was great way to start the day. we fished off the rocks at Morse that afternoon, and after catching nothing, walked the beach through drizzle and cold, before trucking down to a shoreline lobster joint near Portland. other family met us there and we all chatted and cracked shells until night. because of the Phish show, traffic on the Maine turnpike was terrible so i decided to drive back to the studio in Gorham and slept there for 5-6 hours. when i woke up, i perched out on the porch with a steaming mug, sipping as quietly as possible in hopes that my spirit animal would return. within minutes, despite it being 5am, Bill came out onto the porch and sat with me a while, which no doubt kept my Fisher hidden. once i reached the grains at the bottom of the mug, i realized it was time to leave, and did so. 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