North with Doc: Doc Gets Snuffed

“How about this?” Doc said. “This morning I was standing at the kitchen sink with a Phillips screwdriver in my hand, and I can’t for the life of me remember what I was going to do with it.”

“I can come up with guitar chords and words to songs I played in 1974,” I said, “but I can’t find the car I parked at Costco an hour ago.”

“On the other hand, some things I’ll never forget,” Doc said. “Like the road to Sioux Lookout. We’ve been to Knobby’s so many times I could drive there in my sleep.”

“Doc, the way you drive, I’m pretty sure you already have.”

Doc mumbled something that was a physical impossibility, and I heard a clunk. He must have laid his phone on the kitchen counter. Then the sound of ice cubes. Lots of ice cubes. And the glug of a bottle pouring. And pouring. If I knew Doc, which I did all too well, he was mixing a cocktail in a 40-cup coffee urn.

It was Wednesday night a couple decades ago, and I was at home in Arizona, talking on my cell to my lifelong fishing pal back in Iowa.

When Doc returned a couple minutes later, he said, “Ahhhh.”

Not particularly anxious to stir his ire again, I said, “You all packed for the drive up Friday?”

“I’ve packed and re-packed 15 times,” Doc said.

“One year I discovered the only underwear and socks I brought were the ones I was wearing.” I said. “Got home and found a whole duffel of stuff I’d forgotten in my closet.”

“Nothing like doing laundry on a fishing trip,” Doc said. “Or forgetting your deodorant.”

“Now that you brought up the subject of disgusting odor, I was hoping you’d forget your cigars this trip.”

“I would sooner leave my tackle box at home,” Doc said.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” I said.

“When does your flight get here?” Doc said.

“Tomorrow at five.”

“See you then,” Doc said.

Two days later the six of us gathered at Doc’s house, and we loaded a rented nine-passenger van with our groceries, clothing, and tackle for a week of far away fishing.

With everything eventually jammed into the van’s cargo space, Doc said, “Listen up, boys. It has been brought to my attention that one or more of you consider my driving, um, unsatisfactory.”

The policeman had taken a large swill of Coke, and he spit it all the way to the street.

Doc continued, “I have been accused, unfairly, I might add, of malfeasance behind the wheel on previous trips north.”

The banker said, “Doc, it’s no secret you got your license in a Cracker Jack box.”

“The dotted lines are just a suggestion to you,” the attorney said.

“As is the speed limit,” the policeman said.

“Last year you spent more time on the rumble strip than in your lane,” I said. “All that banging loosened a filling in my right rear molar.”

“Enough talk,” the kid said. “Let’s head north.”

“Who gets the first leg?” I asked.

“The man who holds the keys,” Doc said. With that pronouncement, he climbed into the driver’s seat, waited until we were all strapped in, started up, selected reverse, and immediately backed over the 30-gallon galvanized trash can he put on the curb for that day’s pickup. I shot him an “I told you so” look, held out my hand, and he gave me the keys.

After Doc hastily gathered and re-bagged a foul mixture of egg shells, banana peels, coffee grounds, and Kentucky Fried Chicken scraps, I competently aimed the big van toward Canada. Doc witnessed a safe and speedy trip from the third row of seats, as we would not allow his hands anywhere near the steering wheel.

At Knobby’s, Lars and staff helped us with the required paperwork, the plane was loaded, and into the wild blue yonder we zoomed. Splashdown accomplished, gear unloaded and stowed, rods rigged, and boats prepared, we began our umpteenth hunt for walleye honey holes and the elusive Mr. Big pike.

As custom would have it, Doc and I shared a boat. As much as he hated trolling, that was how we spent significant time on the water, at least until we located fish. Doc seldom offered to steer. That was fine with me, as his questionable car driving skills matched his rare times at the helm. What wasn’t fine with me is that, while trolling, Doc’s cigar smoke hit me like the daily end loader scrapings from a 5,000-cow dairy farm. The only breather was when one of us hooked a fish or a snag, and I could stop during the retrieve, or return to the offending holdup. During those occasional pauses, the malodorous fragrance hung around Doc like the dust cloud around the Peanuts Pig-pen character.

“Doc,” I said. “I’m gonna need an olfactory transplant if I inhale much more of that skunk smog.”

“Sorry,” Doc said, “you want me to drive for a while?”

In so many words, few of them printable, I explained to Doc that him driving was not an option, so I put up with the continued discomfort while underway. Fortuitously, we soon hooked a walleye or three, and stumbled upon a honey hole that kept us stationary for almost an hour.

It was our turn to provide fish for the nightly feast, and with a stringer full of chunky 2-pound beauties, I zipped back to the cabin and fresh air.

After doing a spectacular job of filleting the catch, I got to relax while the others set the table, and prepared the feast. A stack of magazines left by Knobby’s previous parties captured my attention, and I skipped the ones with mostly flesh-toned photographs, and found a dog-eared In-Fisherman magazine with a feature article that immediately grabbed my interest. I began to read.

Halfway through the first page, I thought, well, lookee here. These innovative anglers discovered that boat control is key to trolling for walleyes and pike, and a straight ahead approach is way too fast, especially post-spawn. The perfect speed to troll for pike is 2.4 mph, and for walleyes 2.0. No way that slow-down could be accomplished with a fast idling little outboard. Unless ... it went in reverse. Well, I never.

The next morning Doc said, “You want me to take over the tiller to save your wuss of a nose?”

“Not at all,” I said. “I have found a solution to much of that problem.”

“You bring a gas mask?”

“No, just a different way to troll.”

On the run back to the cabin the previous afternoon I had seen the tops of new green reeds that stretched for a quarter mile or more, then lined a large bay like fur on a parka hood. The water would be shallow and warmer than in the main lake, but if it was at least 3 feet deep, there would be a good chance the pike would be lurking there, waiting for lunch to wiggle by.

I fired up the outboard, untied the mooring line, and was underway before Doc could light his cigar. A 20-minute run south brought us to the edge of the reeds. I cut the throttle, and did a one-eighty before shifting to neutral.

“You forget something at the cabin?” Doc said, thinking I was heading back the way we had come.

“No,” I said. “Get your big rig out. It’s time to troll.” I quick snapped a Five of Diamonds on my baitcaster, shifted into reverse, opened the throttle a tad, and tossed the lure 30 feet behind the bow.

Doc decided to watch my foolishness for a while, and took a moment to light a dog poot cheroot.

My GPS was about as trustworthy as a senator in campaign mode, so I don’t know if I just got lucky with the 2.4-mph speed, but I hooked and released five ferocious fish in under 15 minutes. Best yet, I suffered none of Doc’s stogie pong.

After a bit of rummaging around in his tackle box, Doc produced a beat up Professor No. 3, and his lure soon paralleled mine as I backed the boat along the reeds.

In a matter of seconds, we doubled up. It took me longer to land mine, as it was twice as big as Doc’s, but the reverse trolling technique had made believers out of both of us.

We made two more passes on that stretch, landing a 34- and a 36-incher, as well as many of the ax-handle variety. Doc got so excited he puffed his panatella down to a stub, and put it out before it burned his upper lip.

Life jackets zipped and rods stowed, we took off to share our turnaround technique with the rest of the boys. We found them at the far south end where the Cat River emptied into another lake. The dark and deep narrows had been a productive perennial drift.

“How’s the bite?” Doc asked.

The attorney held up a snap stringer loaded with eating-sized walleyes. “Caught all these an hour ago,” he said. “Been rejecting dozens bigger and smaller.”

Not in the least reluctant to use jigs with salted minnows or chartreuse twisters, and even small spinners on the walleye hordes, we joined the fishing fun and did very well by the numbers, but not much in the tonnage department. In fact, Doc wearied of so much the small fry action he said to me, “Why don’t we try trolling again?”

The banker said, “Never in my life would I think Doc would actually ask to troll.”

“Maybe that’s wacky tobacky he’s smoking,” the policeman said.

The kid said, “I’ve known Doc’s aversion to fishing from a moving boat since my first trip with you guys.”

“What’s the deal, Doc?” the attorney said.

“I call it reverse psychology,” Doc said.

I said, “We’ve been backtrolling.”

“Doing very well, too,” Doc said.

“As calm as it is, the boat is easy to steer along the shore,” I said. “Wouldn’t work in whitecaps.”

“I’ve seen photos of boats on big water with those backtrolling boards on the rear,” the banker said. “Need those things to keep the waves out.”

“Don’t need ‘em here,” Doc said.

“What do you say, partner?” I said. “Do another back door run for Mr. Big?”

Doc zipped his life vest in answer, and we zoomed away from the rest. Not half a mile away we came upon a long, skinny bay that neither of us remembered on previous trips to that lake. The depth finder read 6 feet at the entrance, and there was a gradual shallowing as we moved forward.

While I was readying my gear before reversing the boat, Doc put flame to his rank robusto. He took a long pull, and whoofed the smoke in my direction.

The stench hit me like a ball-peen hammer. When I drew in enough clean air to make my vocal cords work, I said, “That is the worst one ever.”

“It better be,” Doc said, admiring the 6-inch ick stick. “It’s a Cohiba. Cost me twentyfour bucks.”

“You gotta be kidding.”

“It’s the only one I brought, so I’m gonna enjoy it.” With that, Doc prepared to take another pull. I jammed the shifter into reverse, jerked the tiller, spun the boat into backtroll mode, and missed the caustic cloud by mere inches.

The bay was extra productive. At first the pike were plentiful but puny, but as we rounded the back of the bay and headed to the main lake, chunkier specimens hit our spoons with a vengeance. We were underway with our lines out when I saw one of our party had discovered the bay, too. It was the attorney and the kid. Instead of slowing to greet us, the attorney had a bit of juvenile horseplay in mind, sped in and, at the last moment, veered away from us.

If we had been moving bow-forward, it would have caused little more than a wobble. But in reverse, the engine dipped sharply into the trough, and when the wake hit the flat aluminum stern, it splashed hard and high.

I shifted to neutral and pulled the tail of my shirt from my jeans to wipe the water from my sunglasses. On the pointy end of the boat, Doc’s lower half was relatively dry, but his head and shoulders were sopping wet.

The attorney, completing a tight circle in his boat, returned to the scene of the crime, and stopped alongside to survey his handiwork. “Sorry about that,” he said.

Doc was sputtering like Aunt Lucy spitting seeds at the annual VFW watermelon eating contest. While the volume of lake water that hit him was much smaller than the soaking torrent I experienced, it was more than enough to cause extreme damage. To his cigar. He held the limp $24 carcass in his palm for a few seconds, then tossed the soggy remains over the side.

I heard his teeth grind, saw his face turn crimson, and knew for certain he was about to give the attorney a ration of unbridled wrath when the rod in his hand bent double, and the drag zzzzzzzed like a bumblebee caught between a storm window and a screen.

Doc played the monster masterfully, lifted the beast by the gills, twisted the treble hook free, and showed off the biggest sag-bellied pike we’d seen in a decade.

“Incredible,” the kid said. “If that’s what you get with backtrolling, I’m in.”

“That, and one more thing,” Doc said with a grin as big as a watermelon slice.

“What’s that?” the attorney said.

The lake water was still dripping from Doc’s chin when he winked at me, and said, “Stink bait.”

Doc was totally justified to be monumentally ticked off at losing his prized cigar, but he quickly realized that it was insignificant compared to the possibility of losing a friend. His good judgement won out, and for that I let out a massive sigh of relief, and thought, only to myself, “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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