North with Doc: Doc Measures Up

“Fish on!” I yelled.

Earlier that morning I must have been momentarily crazier than Aunt Lucy’s pet weasel. Even with his long history of incompetent boat guidance, I let Doc run the engine.

We had been trolling a 50-yard stretch of downed trees whose water-logged branches stuck out a good 20 feet into the lake, picking up occasional pike while fast trolling with flashy spoons.

“Hey!” I tossed my boat cushion sternward.

With Doc’s rod butt between his knees while trying to light another of his atrocious cigars, he deflected the cushion with an elbow, and realized what was going on. Instead of shifting to neutral, he goosed the throttle. Luckily, the pike I hooked was barely a ball peen hammer handle, so it waterskied a while before Doc corrected his error.

“Would you for Pete’s sake get your head in the game?” I said. Okay, I intended to say that, but I actually used phrases a bit saltier.

“Sorry,” Doc said. “It’d been a while since we caught anything, and a few seconds to light my smoke seemed appropriate.”

“If that had been Mr. Big on my line, it would have been appropriate to beat you bloody with an oar,” I said. Or words to that effect.

“I’ll concentrate on driving from now on,” Doc said, spinning the boat to retrieve the cushion, “but I gotta say, you and Mr. Big have been strangers for so long, I doubt you two will ever come face-to-face.”

It was the third day of our annual week-long fly-in fishing getaway out of Knobby’s in Sioux Lookout. The big fish contest was heating up. We had each tossed 10 dollars into the pot for the biggest pike and 10 for the biggest walleye. While the winner’s share wouldn’t cover a Big Mac and fries today, way back then it was a substantial prize.

For decades we’d used tiny spring-loaded scales to weigh our catches, although their accuracy was iffy as you could grab the handle and pull on the hook with all your might, and not reach the 8-pound mark. Last time I saw one of those, it was in an antique shop.

We tried digital scales for a while, but the same fish on identical units could vary by as much as a pound, and the cheap ones we had were about as watertight as the convertible top on a 1963 Dodge Dart. After a day of use, or on a boat seat in the rain, they were less than useless.

At our pre-trip planning session at Doc’s house a few months earlier, we sat around the kitchen table and discussed a newfangled development in fish weight determination.  

The policeman said, “There are two formulas we can use, one for walleyes and one for pike. We aren’t out to win an international sailfish competition here. We just need to be consistent. You with me so far?” We nodded. “For walleyes, a fairly accurate formula is you measure the length of the fish. Then you take the length times the length times the length and divide by 2700.”

“Are you serious?” Doc said. “I haven’t done a problem like that since a math test in high school.”

“And probably copied the answer from the guy next to you,” I said.

Doc took a high swing at me, and knocked my hat into the living room.

“Determining the weight of a pike without a scale is different,” the policeman said. “We’ll use something called The Crawford Method. The guy figured it out using a bunch of actual fish, and it’s said to be very accurate. You take the pike’s length times the girth, divide by 25 and subtract 10.”

“Sounds complicated,” the attorney said.

“I have one of those pocket calculators that runs on a battery,” the banker said. “I’ll bring it to make the figuring easy.”

“The next issue,” the policeman said, “is what we use to measure the fish so our tools will be the same.”

“My wife has one of those flat tailor tapes in her sewing basket,” the attorney said.

“Mine, too,” I said.

“I’ve seen my wife use one of those to make the kids’ Halloween costumes,” the banker said.

“My girlfriend doesn’t sew,” the kid said.

The conversation was suddenly paused as we were momentarily lost in thought. If you ever saw the kid’s girlfriend, sewing would be the last thing that crossed your mind.

“Um...uh...well, then,” the policeman said. “I’ll share my tape with you.”

“Thanks,” the kid said.

“So, where do we measure the girth?” Doc said.

“On you, that would be where you hang over your belt,” the attorney said.

“On you, it would be around your forehead,” Doc said.

“Now, now,” the policeman said. “Let’s be kind.”

“It’s fairly easy to find the fattest part of the fish,” I said. “You wrap the tape around the back and belly, move it up and down, and what measures the most is it.”

“Makes sense to me,” the kid said. “But after we have the measurements, what do we do with them?”

“You write them down,” the policeman said. “Each boat will have a pen and paper. When we get back to the cabin, we plug the numbers into the formulas.” And that settled that.

Three months later, happily again inhabiting a fly-in outpost lake in the Northwest Ontario Bush, I unhooked the scrawner pike I’d caught, and prepared to toss it back into the drink.

Doc said, “I don’t think the length and girth of that one would even compute.”

My response was a series of explicit semaphore signals I learned in Navy boot camp. Doc’s eyes caught fire, as did his smudge pot cigar, but he gave me a thumbs up indicating he was suitably impressed.

We rounded a point that offered a view of our picturesque lake populated with small islands rimmed with towering pines, and also the policeman and the kid.

“Doing any good?” the policeman said.

“Plenty of fish, not much size,” I said.

“Got about a four-pound pike, and a walleye a bit under three,” the kid said. “Of course, that’s just a guess until we run the numbers. The good news is they seem to be getting bigger every day.”

“I think it’s because we’re finding our rhythm,” Doc said. “The years of experience are finally paying off.”

“Speaking of a payoff, you still owe me for picking up the bar tab in our Sioux Lookout hotel,” the policeman said.

“Do you take American Express?” Doc said.

The attorney and banker arrived, going as fast as their little Merc would allow, and skidded alongside.

“Whoopie-ti-yi-yo!” the attorney said. “This cowboy just boated a pike that went 9.5, easy.”

“Proof positive?” Doc said.

“It jumped around some while I measured the girth,” the banker said, “so it could have been closer to eight.”

“Or maybe five?” I said.

“That tape gets mighty slippery after a pike or two,” the banker said.

“What were you dragging?” the policeman said.

“One of those big-lipped rattle things,” the attorney said. “Cost me as much as car payment, but it was worth it.”

“So what’s the plan for the rest of the day?” the attorney said.

“We may as well go fishing,” Doc said. “Unless you want to go back to the cabin and polish the silverware.”

“Fishing it is, then,” the attorney said. And with that pronouncement, he and the banker took off trailing a bubbling wake toward the miles of rock walls on the south end. The rest of us meandered and jigged, trolled and drifted. Talked and laughed. You know. It’s what fishermen do.

That night after dinner we tallied the numbers from the day’s catch. At that point in the week the big fish were not that big. I had a fat pike with a length of 37 and a girth of 16 that calculated out to 13.68 pounds. The kid had a walleye with a length of 23 that went 4.5. Both good fish, for sure, but we’d done better.

“I gotta say you guys are doing great keeping accurate records,” the banker said. “Congratulations all around.”

Our walleye dinner was fabulous, as were the card games afterwards. Doc mixed a cocktail big enough to send a Mardi Gras dance troupe marching off Basin Street into the Mississippi. Several commented on how the annual retreat from civilization had become so important to our mental health. The kid said if he ever behaved halfway like us, he’d check himself into an old folk’s home and hope a tornado would take it away to Kansas.

The next day on the water and those after were about the same, except we saw catches that edged upward in their size. I tallied a pike at 16, and the banker managed a walleye a hair over 6. Doc was uncommonly careless with measuring anything, as was verified by several empty booze bottles in the cabin, so I wielded the tape when we thought the fish might be significant.

With one day left, the frenzy to boat Mr. Big sent us onto the lake with high hopes. Our flight out was scheduled at dawn, so if we were to claim the big fish prize, we had limited hours to rise up and be victorious.

Honey holes were mercilessly plundered, as were areas where we’d done so well in years past. After 10 hours of heavy effort, it was pretty much accepted the banker’s walleye and my pike were the top of the crop.

While packing our gear and preparing to cook dinner, Doc said, “Any reason I can’t go out alone to try one more time?”

“We’ll keep a light on for you,” the attorney said.

“It’s our last walleye fry, so if you aren’t back in an hour, you’ll get leftovers,” the banker said.

Doc said, “I just have a feeling.”

“You sure that feeling isn’t gas from the salt and vinegar potato chips you had at lunch?” the policeman said.

“Go ahead, Doc,” I said. “Be safe out here.”

Doc zipped his life vest, rummaged in his tackle box, and selected an ancient banged up red and white Eppinger Dardevle spoon. Moments later we heard his engine noise fade into the sounds of loons looning, ducks chuckling, and gulls fighting over the fish guts we’d deposited on a rock a quarter mile out.

Right at sundown, while I was drying the last skillet, and the banker was breaking out a new deck of Bicycles, we heard Doc’s boat bump the dock, and the engine putter to a halt.

“Sounds like he made it back alive,” the kid said.

Sure enough, Doc came through the cabin door with a smile as wide as the seat on his La-Z-Boy recliner.

“Do good?” the attorney said.

“Better than good,” Doc said. “I caught the winner.”

“Walleye?”

“No, a pike,” Doc said.

“Did you measure it and write it down?” the policeman said.

“It wasn’t easy,” Doc said, “but I got the numbers perfect.”

“Let’s take a look,” the policeman said.

Doc pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket, and handed it over.

“What’s this?” the policeman said.

“Length and girth,” Doc said.

“You got 107 long and a 43 girth?” the policeman said. “That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s what I measured,” Doc said.

“Let me see your tape,” the policeman said.

Doc dug around in several life vest pockets, located the flat measuring tape, and handed it to the policeman.

“Never seen one like that,” the banker said.

“Mine is printed only on one side, and only in inches,” the attorney said.

“I never noticed before, as I didn’t do the measuring this week,” Doc said.

“Centimeters,” I said.

“What?”

“Our tape has inches on one side and centimeters on the other,” I said. “You used the centimeter side.”

“But those are my numbers,” Doc said. “What now?”

“If you had paid attention in high school math class, you’d know that an inch is 2.54 centimeters,” I said. “So we just convert your numbers to inches, and plug them into the formula.”

The banker got the calculator from his already packed suitcase, and entered the 107 length, divided it by 2.54 and got 42.13 inches. Then he entered the 43 girth, divided by 2.54, and got 17.2.

“Here we go,” the banker said. “Length times girth divided by 25 and minus 10.” He hit the equal sign. “Holy moly! You got yourself a 19-pound pike!”

Even though I was beat by three pounds at the last second in the big fish contest, the pride and surprise on my arithmetic-challenged friend’s face lifted us all. 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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