North With Doc: Doc's Moosin' Impossible

“I wonder if I could ride a moose,” Doc said.

“What? Like the Lone Ranger with a ‘Hi-yo, Silver, away’?”

“Sure. Why not? Gallop around a while. Jump over some downed trees.”

“I think it would be easier to teach a seagull to solve a crossword puzzle than to teach a moose to accept a rider.”

“I’m serious,” Doc said.

“Me, too.”

“Well, I don’t know why mooses...”

“Moose is both singular and plural,” I said.

“May I finish?”

“If you must.”

“That moose we spooked in the shallows yesterday? Those huge things have existed for, what? A million years?”

“Possibly more.”

“So why haven’t they been domesticated?”

“I’m thinking horses were so much easier to train, so moose were left to run wild. Unless you count Bullwinkle.”

“Well, I bet I could ride one.”

“Doc, let’s say you were a moose whisperer, and somehow you talked one into letting you get close enough, and you had a stepladder, because you’d need one, and you climbed up on its back. With me so far?”

“Okay.”

“Where would you sit? Moose have this big hump above their shoulders. Behind it there’s nothing to hang onto, so you’d fall off its butt. Would you sit on the neck in front of the hump, and hang onto the ears or the antlers, or what?

Doc said, “I’d probably hang onto the antlers, like a big steering wheel.”

“You think it would let you do that?”

“I’d take it slow.”

“You probably wouldn’t survive the first try.”

“Even geniuses don’t get it right the first time.”

“I wouldn’t touch that comment with this six-foot fishing pole.”

“Let’s assume I have been allowed to sit atop a moose,” Doc said.

“Fine. You hang onto whatever, and you yell ‘Giddyup, moosey!’ Then where would you go?”

“Umm. In the woods?”

I appropriately thought about a moose going in the woods for a second, then said, “Doc, I have an idea.”

“Yeah?”

 “Why don’t we put this conversation on the back burner, and catch some more fish?”

Doc grumbled a bit, and I could see he was upset as he lit a cigar big enough that Mickey Mantle could have used it to hit even more home runs. I ducked the rancid smoke, and went hunting for a honey hole.

It was a stupendously gorgeous Tuesday morning in the Northwest Ontario Bush. We had flown out of Knobby’s in Sioux Lookout at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning, and we had another four days and four nights to enjoy our annual getaway.

As decades-long beneficiaries of this hook-and-line bonanza, we had caught and released more walleyes and pike in a few days than a lot of fishermen down south did in a lifetime. It was stupid good fishing. Yet, being perpetually greedy, we longed for more and better.

Doc and I pulled into a massive bay where many trips before we had discovered an incoming trickle from a lake above. The moving water brought in fish food, and the various plants growing near the shore boosted the oxygen level. The small area attracted fish the way Aunt Lucy was attracted when she saw another pepperoni pie put under the heat lamp at the all-you-can-eat buffet at Shakey’s Pizza.

The policeman and the kid were already there, reaping the bounty.

“Walleyes are getting bigger,” the kid said.

“Crowding out the small fry,” the policeman said, as he admired a 19-incher before sliding it back to its rocky-bottomed home.

“How you guys doing?” the kid said.

“Some good pike,” I said. “And Doc wants to ride a moose.”

“Whatever the heck for?” the policeman said.

“It’s on my bucket list,” Doc said.

“I think you’d be more successful sticking your head in one,” the kid said. “Not a moose. A bucket.”

“You could probably find a goat to ride at a petting zoo,” the policeman said. “Would that be close enough?”

“Naah. I’m kinda fixated on a moose,” Doc said.

“More power to you,” the kid said. “I think we’ll fixate on a place that isn’t so full of your crazy talk.” With that, he and the policeman reeled in, the kid put the shifter in FWD, and off they went.

“Give it a rest with the moose, Doc,” I said. “There’ll be time enough for mountin’ when the reelin’s done.”

“Is that a Kenny Rogers tune?”

“If not, it should be.”

We nailed a dozen walleyes in under 30 minutes. After going biteless for a few more, we figured the spot had gotten enough pressure for a while, and we blasted off to an island-dotted part of the gigantic lake.

Dragging spoons, we did a 360 around one acre-sized island, then another, picking up both pike and walleyes in the process. The pike liked the points. The walleyes liked the sudden drop-offs. We liked them all.

After yet another long and perfect day on the water, we six lifelong friends made it back to the cabin, scrubbed off the pike slime, retied knots where necessary, topped off the boat gas, and prepared the evening feast. We took a break from fish for dinner, fired up a charcoal grill for the steaks we brought, and gorged ourselves like Abilene cattle barons.

The banker and attorney cleared the table. The rest of us grabbed adult beverages, broke out the cards, and chose our lucky chairs. Doc mixed up a libation so potent it could have been used for antifreeze in a Winnipeg highway snow plow.

After half a dozen uproarious and flagrantly offensive hands of Pass the Ace, the banker said, “Doc, I hear you are hankering to ride a moose.”

“News travels fast up here,” Doc said.

“So do moose,” the attorney said. “The one we scared off yesterday crashed through the brush and small trees like they weren’t even there. If you were on top of that sucker, you would have been beaten to bits.”

“Maybe I would have steered it into an area with lily pads bordering a nice beach,” Doc said.

“And maybe we’ll play pickleball after lunch tomorrow,” the kid said.

“Doc, why has this moose ride become such an obsession?” the policeman said. “It’ll never happen.”

“Nobody thought I’d ever bowl a 300,” Doc said.

“And you haven’t,” I said.

“Good point,” Doc said.

“What can we do to help you make this fantasy a reality?” the banker said.

“I guess the first thing would be to get a moose,” Doc said.

“What would we use for bait?” the kid said. “I’m thinking they eat berries and weeds and stuff.”

“Bushes and tree bark in the winter, and mainly aquatic vegetation in the summer,” I said. When I got some quizzical looks, I said, “Saw it on PBS.”

“Maybe we could spread a bunch of salt around,” the attorney said. “Don’t all those big cow-like things go crazy for salt licks?”

“Let’s imagine we got one to knock on the cabin door,” the policeman said. “How you gonna catch it? Make a lasso from an anchor rope? You put a loop over a big bull’s rack, he’d drag you to Cedar Rapids.”

“And if you did manage to rope one and calm it down, would you have to break it like a wild horse?” the banker said.

“Okay, boys,” I said. “How about we nip this in the bud? Doc is not going to catch a moose. Doc is not going to ride a moose. Doc is barely competent enough to walk a dog, let alone ride a wild animal that weighs 1500 pounds.”

“Why did you pick a moose?” the kid said.

“I’ve always been close to nature,” Doc said.

“The closest you have been to nature is mowing your lawn,” the attorney said.

“Enough,” I said. “Give Grizzly Adams here the cards, and let’s get this miserable game over with.”

As Doc began to shuffle, he said, “You guys just wait. It may not tomorrow, or even next week, but I will ride a moose, and I will have positive proof of my bold and dangerous adventure.”

The kid laughed so hard he fell off his chair. The banker knocked over his drink. The policeman spit a half-chewed wad of mixed nuts onto the front of his flannel shirt. The attorney sat there and shook his head at the incredible folly of it all. I cracked open another blue can and saluted the ridiculous boast with, “Here’s to Doc and flying pigs.”

The rest of that monstrously fun and fish-filled week there was no discussion about catching, corralling, taming, training, or galloping astride a wild antlered animal.

A month after we’d made a safe trip home, been welcomed by family and friends, and were back toiling at our various careers, the group got an amazing email. I brought it up on my desktop. The sender was Doc. The subject line stated: I DID IT! There was no written message, but a JPEG attached was a high resolution photo of Doc waving a Stetson in his left hand, and holding onto a moose antler with his right hand. He sat behind the moose’s beady-eyed head, and his legs dangled off either side. The photo was cropped tight, so I couldn’t see the moose’s body or Doc’s feet.

I looked at the image for a while, and wondered how Doc had pulled it off. With a few clicks and moves of my mouse, I enlarged the photo until I could make out the inscription on a small brass plaque beneath the beast’s dewlap beard thingy. It said, Capitol City Loyal Order of the Moose Lodge 2589 & Chapter 2381, Des Moines, Iowa.

If there’s a way to at least appear to accomplish an unachievable feat, my Canadian fishing friend can find a way. He’s done the impossible before, and I have no doubt he’ll do it again. I scrolled to the top of the email, hit REPLY, typed two familiar words in the message area, and hit SEND.

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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