North with Doc: Doc and the Ties That Bind

“That can’t be right,” Doc said.

Doc was sitting at the kitchen table in the cabin, examining the knot he’d laboriously finished tying with 6-pound-test line to a 1/4-ounce jig. It was a mess.

“Is that the new and improved pretzel knot I’ve heard so much about?” the banker said.

“My granddaughter can tie a stronger shoelace knot than that,” the policeman said, “and she’s only four.”

“I know! I know!” the kid said. “That’s one of those magician knots that comes undone when you blow on it.”

“You couldn’t pull a Kleenex out of the box with a knot that weak,” the attorney said. “What happens if a fish actually grabs the hook?”

“Doc,” I said, “Aunt Lucy ties a better knot in her Kiss The Cook apron.”

“I don’t do a lot of knot tying as a dentist,” Doc said. He lifted the line and the knot unwound like a string on a yo-yo, dropping the freed jig onto the table with a dull plop.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the banker said.

Doc, understandably frustrated, said, “Just show me how to tie the Palomar, and I’ll be good.”

Unlike the rest of us, Doc typically fished once a year, one week a year, and that year, so long ago, I said, once again, “Thread the end through the eye, then put the end back through the eye to form a loop. You have the loop on one side and the double line with the end on the other. See that? Okay. Now tie a simple overhand knot...”

“A what?”

I grabbed a length of line and showed him.

“Okay, got it,” Doc said. “What now?”

“Keep the loop open. There you go. Drop the lure through the loop. Snug it up a little.”

“Like this?” Doc said.

“Good enough. Now wet the line. No! Don’t spit on it like you just ate a fly, you dummy. Put it in your mouth to wet it. Not the hook, just the knot. Okay, now pull it tight. Good boy. And trim off the excess.”

Doc grabbed a pair of clippers big enough to give a rhino a pedicure, and cut the knot completely off the line.

“Can you show me again?” Doc said. Later that week, after a cocktail big enough to float 18 olives on the surface, he pledged to become so proficient at knot tying that he would never again seek our advice. As chance would have it, he made good on that promise, and proved it during a memorable outing that included deliverance from what could have been a tragic outcome. Please allow me to elucidate.

The first week in June spun up on the calendar. A year, almost to the day, had passed since Doc’s knot-tying fiasco. We said our good-byes to Lars who runs Knobby’s out of Sioux Lookout, and an hour later the float plane skidded to a silky smooth landing on a remote lake on the Cat River chain. From the air we noticed the water was unusually high, but we’d fished high and sometimes fast water before, so no biggie.

Doc excused himself to go prep the boats while the rest of us stowed food and bedding, and stocked coolers. Twenty minutes later we opened rod cases and tackle boxes, affixed reels, poked lines through the rod guides, and tied on terminal tackle. We each readied two rigs, one for jigging, one for casting and trolling.

I was about to finish my jig rig when Doc walked in off the porch and said, “You guys gonna go fishing or sit in the cabin all day?”

I looked up, and Doc was at the door, two rods in one hand and his tackle box in the other.

“You’re always ready last,” the banker said. “What’s up?”

Doc said, “I learned to tie knots.”

“Let me see one,” the policeman said.

Doc showed him the baitcaster.

“Wait a minute. That’s not a Palomar.”

“While an excellent knot,” Doc said, “the very popular Palomar retains about 50 percent of line strength. I prefer the double five-turn uni-knot that retains nearly 100 percent.”

“What is this?” the kid said. “You turn into a knot snob?”

“Just did a little study, that’s all,” Doc said. “I discovered there’s a lot of science involved in knot tying, and it has become a lost art in today’s world of twist ties and Velcro.”

“Give us a while,” the attorney said, “and we’ll join you at the boats to see how your la-di-da knots compare to our low-rent tried-and-true ones.”

When we finally trooped down to the lake, the first thing we noticed were the ropes that secured the boats to the dock. They didn’t have the gnarled and messy look we expected. Each knot, tied with brand new half-inch poly rope, was identical.

The attorney watched Doc finish up the last knot, and said, “What’s that called?”

“A taut-line hitch,” Doc said. “Makes a strong connection that won’t come undone under tension.”

“Is that the same one you used to tie to the boats?” the policeman said.

“Nope,” Doc said. “Since they will be untied often, I used two half hitches.”

“Impressive,” the kid said. “You upgraded the anchor rope, too?”

“On all the boats,” Doc said. “I brought a couple hundred feet of new half-inch stuff. Used an anchor hitch knot to tie it to the eyes on the bows...”

“The pointy ends?”

“Right. And then tied on the concrete coffee-can anchors. Fifty feet of anchor rope should be enough in this lake.”

“What’s this?” I asked, pointing to the smaller rope that linked the handle of my Playmate drink cooler to the hole in an oar lock mount.

“A clove hitch,” Doc said.

“We never tied our cooler down before,” I said. “Why now?”

“For fun,” Doc said with a grin.

We ran south along the shoreline, trolled rocky points and small bays with stands of new spring reeds. The pike we picked up were few but feisty, and didn’t seem to be concentrated near any particular structure. All our knots performed as advertised.

Further along, a bubbling flow was rolling in from a dome of rock at the edge of a sparsely wooded area. From years past we recalled it as a trickle that aerated a veritable honey hole. This time the walleye bite was light, but frequent.

“I’m thinking it’s near the end of the spawn,” the attorney said, holding up a male walleye that was dripping milt.

“Why don’t we try the faster water down by the narrows?” the banker said. “We always did well just out of the current.”

The lake fed into a rock-lined ravine about 100 feet wide with a fairly sharp right turn before it rolled over a craggy rapids and waterfall into the next lake in the chain. Some years we were able to shoot the rapids and fish the pools below. But not this time.

Our three boats were in a line, separated by maybe 50 yards, when the policeman, piloting the lead boat, held up a hand to warn us that the flow was quickening at the top end of the narrows.

As the current pushed the stern, overpowering the little outboard, it was impossible for the policeman to keep the boat on a straight heading. Too close to the right shore to make a turn to the right, he goosed the throttle, swung the bow left across the flow, and did a full-power 180 to head back upstream. The momentum of the turn plus the current drove the boat to his right, or the far left side as we watched. Just when he was making headway, the prop smacked a rock, killing the engine, and smashing them into the shore.

The roaring flow kept the boat pinned against and onto the rocks with water sluicing over the side. The policeman instantly locked the dead engine on tilt, and he and the banker shifted to the right to slightly tip the boat and prevent it from taking on even more water. They weren’t panicked yet, but the speed of the stranding was shocking.

Still safe above the bend, engines in reverse to maintain our positions, Doc and I and the attorney and the kid surveyed the situation.

After a long minute, Doc said, “The danger here is trying a rescue that gets all the boats in trouble. Even if we survive going over the falls, as high as the water is, I doubt the portage is usable, so there would be no way back.”

“Can’t we pull them into the current so they could start their engine?” the kid said.

“How would we get close enough?” the attorney said. “Look at the swirl right next to them. We get within 30 feet of that mess and we’ll be trapped, too.”

“I think I know how to do it,” Doc said. “Cut the anchors loose.” He sliced the anchor rope off our anchor and bow and tied it to a handle riveted onto the stern of our boat. Then he moved to our pointy end where he tied the 50-foot anchor rope from the kid’s boat to our bow eye and the other end to their stern.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Making a chain of boats,” Doc said. “They are hung up hard, so it will take the power of both engines to pull them off.” He pointed to the kid’s boat. “We connect to them with a 50-foot rope. We’re in the middle, and connect to the beached boat with 100 feet of rope.”

“But we only have 50,” I said.

That’s why we have to grab their anchor rope, but without getting too close,” Doc said.

“How?”

Doc dug into his duffel, and from under his foul-weather gear extracted a 100-foot roll of quarter-inch poly. With flying fingers, he untied the clove hitch on the Playmate cooler, dumped our adult beverages in the bottom of the boat, and tied the small rope to the cooler handle. Doc said, “I’m gonna float the cooler to them with the rope attached. Might take a few tries.” He handed me the end. “Hold on tight.”

“What do I do?” the kid said.

“You stay upstream from our boat,” Doc said. “You have 50 feet of anchor rope, so keep 25 feet from us, max. You need to match our speed and movement, and it won’t be easy. If we get in trouble, pull us out of there.”

“Understood,” the kid said, and the attorney grabbed their anchor rope and held it high to keep it away from their prop.

With the engines in slow forward, we played with the throttles and let the monstrous current back us down the left center of the narrows, every now and then gunning the engines to keep our bows headed upstream.

When as close as he dared, Doc held the smaller coiled rope in his left hand, swung the cooler in his right, and tossed it as far as he could into the water above the policeman’s beached boat. The current pushed it toward the shore, gradually nearer their boat. Amazingly on the first try, “Got it!” the banker yelled. “What now?”

Still a good 75 feet away, Doc yelled, “Cut the smaller rope off the cooler, then cut your anchor off, and join the two ropes together.”

The banker uncoiled the half-inch rope Doc had installed that morning, and sliced off the coffee can anchor.

“How do I tie them?” the banker yelled?

“There won’t be much strain, so just do a double granny,” Doc yelled back.

The banker held the ends of the two different sized ropes together, and did what Doc said, tossed the ropes overboard.

I handed the smaller rope to Doc. He hauled it in as I carefully maneuvered to within 40 feet, the kid matching my every move.

Doc fished out the knotted ropes, untied them, and grabbed our stern-attached anchor rope to splice them together. He closed his eyes for a second, visualizing what he’d do next, and muttered, “Flemish bend.” Then he made an overhand loop, an underhand loop, and brought the end up through the figure-eight. He took the second rope end, followed the first knot, pulled it tight, and seconds later tossed it all in the water.

“You guys ready?” Doc yelled.

“Hurry, Doc,” the policeman yelled. “We’re taking on more water.”

“Okay,” Doc yelled. “We’re gonna drag you off. As soon as your boat is free, lower and start your engine. Don’t put it in gear until you are in the clear, or if the rope breaks or a knot comes loose. Don’t run over any of the ropes. You got all that?”

“Let’s do it,” the policeman yelled.

The kid and I opened our throttles until we slowly took up the 50-foot slack between our two boats and the 100 feet between us and the beached boat. The tightened ropes sprung off the surface. Doc yelled, “Go! Go!” and we both revved to full power. The ropes strained and stretched, and the knots held.

The kid and I had to weave back and forth in the current to find the optimum position for maximum torque, but when we hit the sweet spot, the policeman’s boat scraped free of the rocks, he fired up his engine, and we all made it to safe water and beyond. Easy peasy.

There was an island a quarter mile or so upstream with a sandy stretch on the calm east side, and we pulled in there.

Doc set about retying all the anchors, and I rescued the still chilled cans we’d dumped in the bottom of our boat, returning the ones not in use to the cooler.

The banker bailed gallons of water from their boat with a milk-jug urinal.

Then we sat there, catching our breaths, realizing we’d dodged a bullet.

The kid said, “I would’ve taken our boat alongside, and tried to pull them off with my hands. Or maybe even tried to tow them off somehow, but if our engine died, we’d be stuck, too.”

“Or over the falls,” the attorney said.

We thought about that for a while, and the banker said, “One boat engine wasn’t enough.”

“Or lighter rope and bad knots,” I said.

The policeman choked a bit, possibly on his adult beverage, held his blue can high in a toast, and said, “We wouldn’t have made it without you, Doc.”

For obvious reasons, nobody wanted to return to the narrows. During cocktail hour every night the rest of that wonderful fish-filled week, our perennial pal showed us how to tie knots that one day we might use to save a life. Half hitches. Grapevine bends. Alpine butterflies. And even the elegant double loop Spanish bowline to impress our friends and neighbors.

“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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