North with Doc: Boy Howdy Doc

“Hey, Doc! Hold your horses!”

Even though Doc at the tiller was as rare as a senator without a yacht, he was at the helm once again, plowing through the water like Aunt Lucy plows through snowdrifts to make it to the Legion on Bingo Night.

“What’s the problem?”

“I’m trolling here, Doc.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Doc said. “Fish can swim this fast.”

“Maybe if they’re running second in the Kentucky Derby,” I said. “What’s your hurry?”

Doc throttled down, and my big-lipped cranker that had been cutting a furrow into the sandy bottom eventually bobbed to the surface. 

“Just got tard to death of moseying along,” Doc drawled.

Uh-oh. This did not sound good.

“Ridin’ herd on this here red-faced dogie is mighty tirin’,” Doc continued.

“It ain’t a dogie,” Oops. Didn’t mean to say ain’t. “It’s a 14-foot aluminum Lund that has been in steady use since 1981,” I said, “and it handles the water like it was new.”

“I reckon you’re right,” Doc said. “But you s’pose we could giddy-up to a walleye honey hole instead of this infernal trolling? I’m right quit of it.”

Too late. Doc was in cowboy mode. I knew that to ask him to cease and desist would be futile, so I reeled in, and Doc powered up to join the rest of our party at a spot we’d fished, it seemed, since we were old enough to straddle a saddle.

When we arrived, Doc said, “Howdy, boys. You desperados a-puttin’ yer brand on some walleyes?”

“What do you think?” the policeman said. “Gabby Hayes?”

“Sounds to me more like Festus from Gunsmoke,” the banker said.

“How long has he been like this?” the attorney asked me.

“Twenty minutes or so.”

“What was it last time?” the attorney said.

“A few years ago he talked like a pirate for a day,” I said. “And, sadly, we joined in.”

“What’s going on?” the kid said.

To allow the newly sworn town marshal to explain, I said, “Tell him what’s going on, Doc.”

“Thank ya kindly. By gosh and by golly, I will,” Doc said. “This here fly-in fishing ain’t my first rodeo, and I’d be dag nab regrettin’ it if it were. Was. Whatever. Land sakes, I’m excited as a weasel in a hen house.”

“He have a stroke, or what?” the kid said.

“Doc will once in a while take on a different identity,” I said. “It appears this time he is, what would you call it? Cosplaying? He’s cosplaying he’s a cowboy without the costume.”

“I think Doc just fell off the chuck wagon,” the banker said.

Totally ignoring the conversation going on around him, Doc fired up a cheroot the size of a saddle horn and exhaled a ghastly swirling smog into the pristine Northwest Ontario air.

“He’s sure into it now,” the policeman said. “Pee-shoo! Smells like the horse apples at the O.K. Corral.”

With that comment, Doc began wailing the first verse of “I’m An Old Cowhand From the Rio Grande.” When he got to the yippee-yi-yo-ki-yay, the other boats skedaddled out of sight around the nearest island.

“Doc? Doc!” I yelled. “Put a hobble on that, will ya?”

He got a grin on his face as big as Texas, or maybe Wyoming, and said, “I reckon I shall.”

“Look,” I said, “slipping into Slim Pickens is fine for a while, but the boys are here to fish, not to be assaulted by your tomfoolery.”

“I’ll cut it back a notch,” Doc said. 

“I ‘preciate that, podner.”

For a couple hours, Doc was mostly speechless, grunting like he was atop a cutting hoss out on the purple sage, lookin’ fer strays and dodging cactus and rattlers.

We did some damage at the walleye hole, the other fellas having left a few stragglers for us to corral. I strung up a trio for our contribution to dinner that evening.

Doc dropped his hand over the side, and the hideous stub of his cigar fizzled in the water. “Purt near smoked that one to the last roundup,” he said.

“You mind if I grab the reins for a while?” I said.

“Suit yerself,” Doc said. “I’m gettin’ a hanker for some shut-eye.”

I trolled while Doc took a nap. For the better part of an hour I hugged the reed beds, idled past fallen trees, and skirted rocky points. Pike hit like the 3:10 to Yuma, and I sent them all back with barely a howdy do.

The dead calm all morning was gradually replaced by a stiff breeze, then what I estimated to be a steady 15 mile an hour wind.

As Doc snored like a mule with a bad head cold, I weaved among a dozen islands peppered with more rocks than trees. I spied the other guys ahead, their boats rafted up out of the wind, enjoying bologna sandwiches and adult refreshments. It was a boat-bound shorelunch. I pulled into the rock-walled bay.

Doc stirred, sat up, looked around, and said, “Well, slap my chaps and call me Betty! It’s a box canyon!”

I cut the engine for a smooth hook-up with the gang, and the kid passed over our share of the eats.

The attorney said, “What do you think of this wind?”

“In all my born days, I never done seed nothing like it,” the banker said.

“I recall one time,” Doc said, “the wind was a-blowin’ so fierce, it would knock you right off your horse.”

“Where was that?” the banker said.

“I’m thinkin’ Montana,” Doc said. “I been ever whar, ya know. Fact is, I got too much tumbleweed in my blood to settle down.”

I knew for a fact that the farthest Doc had been from Iowa the last 40 years was these annual trips to Knobby’s, but I held my tongue.

We chewed on our vittles for a spell, and Doc said, “While I set my favor on jerky and campfire coffee, this fare ain’t bad at all, at all.”

As Doc was winding up and lunch was winding down, I said, “You guys catch anything in here?”

“Nary a one,” the policeman said, “but that’s right sensical ‘cause we ain’t even tried yet.”

I started the engine, and stopped 20 feet from the sheer rock wall. Before I could get my spinner rig out, Doc was at it again.

“Have rod, will travel is the card of a man!” he yowled past a fresh-lit cigar clenched in his teeth. He tossed a jig tipped with a salted minnow a couple feet from the wall and let it coast to the bottom.

“What’s that about?” the kid said.

“Have Gun, Will Travel is on the business card of a TV Western guy named Paladin,” the banker said. “Doc just changed it a little bit.”

“Next thing you know he’ll be trying to sing the themes to Sugarfoot, Cheyenne, and Wyatt Earp,” the policeman said.

“I’ve heard of Wyatt Earp,” the kid said, “not those others.”

“Way before your time,” I said. “It seems like, for a few years in the ‘50s and ‘60s anyway, there were more Westerns on TV than anything else.”

“What do you do when Doc is like this?” The kid said.

“He gets in one of these moods, there’s not much we can do,” the banker said.

“We try to humor him,” the attorney said. “Then we join the party.”

“Seriously?”

“Watch this,” the attorney said. “Hey, cowboy! That’s a mighty fine hat you got there.”

Doc tipped his baseball cap, and said, “Thankee kindly, stranger. It’s the best John B. Stetson I could find.”

“Where in tarnation did ya git it?” I said.

“Broken Arrow Trading Post,” Doc said. “Cost me a five dollar gold piece and a beaver pelt.” He set the hook, and pulled in a nice walleye.

“That’s a ring-tailed beaut, it is,” the policeman said. “Mind if we saunter on over to try our luck?”

“Reckon I’d be rightly pleased if you did,” Doc said. 

The kid put his engine in gear and sidled his boat up next to Doc and me. We were soon joined by the attorney and banker, and enjoyed a bonanza of walleyes.

After the bite slowed, the policeman said, “Me and the boy here is purt near plumb tuckered.”

I translated for the kid. “He says you are worn out. Weary of catching so many fish.”

“Thanks,” the kid said. “Next time I’ll bring my cowboy dictionary.”

The wind had risen, and it was kicking up waves of growing intensity that crashed into the southeast corner of the lake. Trouble was, our cabin was to the northwest, three miles through open water. I had no doubt that the waves were pushing food into the fish that lurked there. I also had no doubt the conditions were good for catching, but not for fishing. 

Doc said, “What say we git ourselfs back to the ranch and rustle us up some grub?”

“Let me fetch up these here walleyes first,” the policeman said, pulling his stringer from the water.

There was no argument from us posse members when it came to seeking shelter as soon as possible, so we cranked in, rummaged around in our trash bag luggage for rain suits, and put them on.

We zipped our life vests over our rain suits, secured rods and tackle boxes, and prepared for a wet ride.

“Head ‘em up! Move ‘em out!” Doc yelled.

The kid raised his eyebrows.

“Rawhide,” the attorney said.

“What’s that?” the kid said.

“Another TV Western,” I said.

“Rawhide sounds more like diaper rash to me,” the kid said.

Doc whistled, then yelled, “Yee-haw!” and we motored up in unison, hell bent for leather.

Doc turned around on his seat to face the bow, grabbed the anchor rope with his left hand, and wildly waved his right like a bronc rider as we bucked through the waves. His considerable mass that far forward drove the aluminum hull into the wave troughs, and created huge spray as the white-capped crests broke and streamed by either side. I was so glad I’d invested in a good rain suit.

The ride felt like eight seconds that began on a Brahma bull, then it stretched to a battering 30 minutes. Home at last, we tied up the boats, grabbed what we could carry, and just as we made it to the cabin porch, the wind-driven rain began to sweep in sheets across the lake. Water ran down the windows like whiskey overflowing a shot glass.

“I reckon it ain’t a fit night out for man nor beast,” the banker said. He found a cutting board under the sink, cleaned the fish right there in the kitchen, and lit the gas under an assortment of pots and pans. In 30 minutes the cabin smelled like home. If your home happened to be Dodge City, Kansas, in 1875.

The attorney stoked a pinewood fire in the Franklin stove.

The policeman improvised a clothes line, and we hung up our dripping rain gear and life vests. “I feel like I was rode hard and put up wet,” he said.

It was soon toasty warm inside, as the storm continued to rage.

Doc measured hisself a glass of red eye that would have knocked the suspenders off a sod buster.

A fried walleye dinner was served.

“Finest steak I ever et,” Doc said. “My compliments to Cookie.”

“I’m flat honored,” the banker said.

“I like my beef to moo when I stick a fork in it,” Doc said, “and this here slab of cow is done right to my likin’.”

Food was et, plates was warshed and put up, and we had a look-see at the calming weather outside.

Doc said, “Well, buckaroos, it’s been a long ride. While I’d entertain a hand or two of five card stud, I’ll be better rested for tomorrow if I turn in now.”

“I vow you ougta check your bedroll for varmints,” I said. “Might be a Gila monster curled up on your saddle blanket.”

“I shore nuff will,” Doc said.

With that, he retired to the bunkhouse, stomping on the plywood floor like he was wearing his finest hand-tooled boots from Amarillo. There was a lull between distant thunder claps, and we swore we heard spurs jingling as Doc strode to bed.

I looked at the guys sitting around the table. In one voice we said, “Naaaaah.”

Doc’s antics have entertained us for decades, but every now and then his performance reaches the status of Best Actor in a Fishing Story. We can’t wait for the movie.

Much obliged, Doc.

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North with Doc columnist Greg Knowles lives in Green Valley, Arizona. A 5-­volume set of the first 20 years of North with Doc is available in e-reader form at amazon.com.

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