North with Doc: Doc Gets Carried Away

Doc was dating a Radio City Music Hall high-kicker who was barely in her twenties. With flurries of kisses sweet as strawberry wine she promised eternal devotion, and he reciprocated with a two-carat sparkler.

The star-crossed love affair burned up on reentry when Doc took fishing tackle on their romantic sightseeing cruise around the Statue of Liberty in Upper New York Bay. Before he could make a second payment on the ring, the redheaded beauty left him for an Oldsmobile salesman out of Hoboken.

“You always have dreams like that?” I said.

“Must be my allergy medicine,” Doc said, sitting at the kitchen table in Knobby’s Devil’s Rapids outpost cabin on a sunny Northwest Ontario morning.

“Sure,” I said. “Or maybe a reaction between your meds and the King Kong cocktail you had last night.”

“I did that?”

“Just twice.”

“Well, discretion is the better part of valor.”

“You’re quoting Shakespeare now?

“I thought Willie Nelson said that.”

The policeman came in from the bedroom. “I listened to your dream, Doc. You ever been to New York City?”

“Never had the pleasure,” Doc said.

“But you dreamed you were there.”

“I watch Seinfeld reruns,” Doc said.

“That explains a lot,” the policeman said.

The kid and attorney eventually dressed and shuffled in from their bunks, as did the banker. When our group of six was installed at the table, Doc said, “I don’t know about you guys, but I had to sleep on top of the sheet again. Anyone remember when it was so hot at night?”

“Long, long ago,” the banker said, “but this one is a scorcher like none I recall.”

“We’ll have to dress down again today, for sure,” the banker said.

“How about we skip the stove and skillets this morning?” I said. “Have toast and cereal for breakfast? Keep it simple?”

“Good idea,” Doc said, and we broke out the Cap’n Crunch and Honey Nut Cheerios, Froot Loops and milk. And bread and butter. And peanut butter. And red raspberry jelly. And mini-donuts. And orange juice. And coffee and creamer and sugar. And paper plates, paper towels, cups, glasses, spoons, bowls, and butter knives. Kept it simple. Sure, we did.

After a hard look at the 10-day forecast before we left Iowa, we were much better prepared for the heat than we’d ever been. The previous two days we had stripped to shorts or bathing suits and T-shirts, wide-brimmed hats, slathered exposed skin with SPF 2000, and it was bearable in the boats, but not comfy.

Maybe not surprisingly, the water was much cooler than the air, the walleyes and pike were active, and the fishing was excellent. While we hooked and released dozens of snakes, the larger pike were consistently large.

Doc gill-grabbed a dandy, needle-nosed out a treble, and said, “What do you think? Four? Four and a half?”

“Five pounds, easy,” I said, dodging Doc’s cigar smog as I put the engine in troll mode again. “We’ve caught some really good ones, so Mr. Big has to be around here somewhere.”

The sun was unrelenting, and Doc said, “Let’s go back to the beach we found yesterday.”

I was more than ready to cool down, so I cranked up the little Merc, and 20 minutes later found the 40-foot stretch of light brown sugar sand where we had stopped to dunk a day earlier.

I tilted the engine, ran the boat up on the beach, shut down, and tossed the anchor into the bushes, just in case a sudden tsunami would come ashore. I was neck deep in the drink in no time at all. Doc, on the other hand, had other ideas.

He opened his garbage bag that in years past typically contained foul weather gear, and extracted a shrink-wrapped bundle that he proceeded to inflate with huffs and puffs and wheezes and groans.

“You sound like Aunt Lucy’s Harley with a busted piston ring,” I said. “What’s that thing going to be?”

Doc paused long enough to catch his breath to say, “It’s a fisherman float.”

Sure enough, after half an hour, the big donut began to take shape. Fifteen minutes later it was blown up so tight a quarter bounced off the side would have made near-Earth orbit. I could see where Doc’s rotund rear might be mighty snug in the donut hole.

“Is there a weight limit on that thing?” I said.

“If there is, I’m gonna ignore it,” Doc said.

I have to admit it was quite a sophisticated unit. It even had a back rest and little side pods.

“One for drinks and one for tackle,” Doc said.

He stuck a few lures into one pod, some adult refreshments into the other, and grabbed his baitcaster rig as he said it would be most appropriate for such a platform. I would have given a house payment to have a camera crew on hand as he wrestled it into knee-deep water, and tried to climb on board.

After sliding off three times, he said, “You want to give me a hand here?”

I took his fishing rod and steadied the thing while he backed into it, and sat down with a splash. The water was just deep enough his butt didn’t drag the bottom.

“What now?” I said. I handed him his rod.

“Goin’ fishing in the cool, cool water,” Doc said.

“Where you headed?” I said.

“Where the fish are,” Doc said.

With some effort I pushed him off, and I watched as he paddled a bit with his hands to move slowly out of the small bay. When he was almost around the bend, the afternoon sun had crossed over the treetops just enough to create an Edenic shady expanse. The sandy shallows were a perfect place to roll up a life vest, and use it as a pillow to take a nap.

When I awoke sometime later, there wasn’t a sound besides the light lap of waves at the shore, and the soothing whisper of gentle wind through the scattered stands of maple, oak, birch, and pine.

“Doc?”

No response.

“Hey, Doc!” I yelled. Nothing. I figured he floated around the rocky point heading downstream, and I’d find him 50 yards away in a relaxed stupor.

I loaded the boat with everything we’d brought to shore, retrieved the anchor, pushed off, fired up the engine, and went to collect Doc.

After 20 minutes with no sign of the cigar huffing scoundrel, I sighted the rest of the crew yanking one walleye after another from one of our favorite honey holes.

“You guys seen Doc?” I said, as I coasted in a bit too fast, and banged my bow against the banker’s boat.

“You drive here often?” the banker said.

“Sorry about that,” I said. “Kind of in a hurry. Doc took off in a float tube, and I haven’t seen him in a couple hours.”

“Took off in what?” the kid said.

“Has one of those blow-up fishing floats,” I said. “We were in the sandy cove, he climbed on, and I have no idea where he might be.”

The gang was reluctant to leave such a productive spot, but there were already six walleyes on the stringer for dinner, so they cranked in, started engines, and we began our search.

“He can’t have gone far,” I said. “He was sitting in the water like a supertanker loaded with crude oil.”

We ran back to the spot where Doc set sail, so to speak, and moved along the shoreline, slowly retracing the route we’d used to get there from the cabin. You’d think a person Doc’s size would be easy to spot, but he was so close to the water, we mistook small islands for him several times.

Finally, the policeman said, “We got a possible sighting. Dead ahead.”

Another quarter mile closer, it looked like the supertanker was on fire, but it turned out Doc was smoking one of his smudge-pot cigars.

When we were within 100 feet, Doc yelled, “Don’t come any closer!”

We all throttled down to an idle, and stopped 20 feet away.

“Doc, you’re in the middle of the lake,” I said. “You don’t want us to rescue you?”

“Yes, but not until I land this fish,” Doc said. His baitcaster rod was twitching at the end, then bent a foot, and Doc quickly loosened the drag.

“What have you got there, Doc?” the kid said.

“A giant pike,” Doc said. “I hooked it an hour ago. The fish, the breeze, and the current pulled me out here.”

“Why didn’t you just land it?” the policeman said.

“How?” Doc said. His pachydermic posterior was sunk down into the blow-up donut with his elbows resting on the sides. “I can barely hold the rod, let alone grab the fish.”

The attorney said, “I have the biggest net. Can you pull it in? We’ll come alongside, and I’ll try to get the net under it.”

“Do it,” Doc said. “I am about worn out.”

Doc tightened the drag a half turn, and slowly cranked the reel handle. It turned out the pike was nearly as exhausted as Doc was, and when it surfaced, the attorney expertly cradled it.

“What a fish!” the banker said.

“Incredible!” the kid said.

“Don’t dare take it from the water,” I warned. “After all this time hooked I doubt it would survive handling.”

“You don’t want it for a trophy, do you, Doc?” the attorney said.

“The memory is all I need,” Doc said.

“I’ll take a couple pictures,” the policeman said, and he clicked away while the attorney gently freed the treble of Doc’s Dardevle spoon from the monster’s toothy jaws.

There was a measuring decal inside the attorney’s boat that went to 40 inches, and he held the fish hortizontal for a second or two in the water. Then he grabbed its tail, pulled it back and forth a few times to make sure the gills were working, let go, and the enormous beast made one powerful kick and was gone.

“How long?” Doc said.

“At least 45,” the attorney said.

“Anyone know how that translates to weight?” the kid said.

“Sure was a healthy, well-fed fish,” the policeman said. “I bet it was near 25 pounds.”

“No wonder it was able to pull you around the lake, Doc,” the banker said.

“Took a lot of finesse on 12-pound test to keep it from breaking off,” Doc said. “A few times I was almost out of line when it stopped pulling and I could reel again.”

We celebrated Doc’s amazing catch by hoisting chilled refreshments, and the kid said, “What now?”

“Let’s go back to the cabin and get these walleyes ready for dinner,” the attorney said.

“Great idea,” the kid said. “My turn to clean the fish.”

“How about a side of baked beans?” I said.

“I’ll toss a salad,” the policeman said.

“We probably have time for a game or two of cribbage before we cook,” the attorney said.

With that, we fired up the engines, and began to head south when Doc yelled, “Hey! How about me?”

“How fast can you paddle that thing?” the policeman said.

Doc ranted colorfully for a while, actually off-colorfully, then I tossed him an anchor rope, and eventually towed him to the nearest dry ground where I freed him from the donut, and he climbed on board.

Years later, as we relate that unlikely event to disbelieving ears, Doc’s one-time fishing float is deflated and sitting atop the dusty rafters in his garage. If it wasn’t for his frequently pushing the limits of our fishing fantasies, life would be so much less fun.

Thanks, 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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