Last night I got the truck back. After two weeks at Ford, sitting untouched, it felt great to start that old 7.3 and listen to the rattle and clacking of the diesel. Spent a bit over a thousand dollars for two new high pressure lines to be installed and it’s still leaking from somewhere in the steering system. I had a million things to do but with my frustration level in high gear I needed a break from life so I loaded up the boat and headed to the river. Before I left the house, I tried to get Finn in the truck. For a decade he’s had his “load up” command and he loved it. He always perked up as soon as he saw me throw the rods in the boat, he knew it was go time. If he wasn’t going on a trip with me and had to stay home, he’d pout until I returned. A while back he got his foot stuck in the running board of my wife’s car while loading up and now refuses to go near a vehicle. It was a complete accident, but it’s been almost two years since I was able to get him into the truck and so in that time he’s never been back to the river. He still gets excited when he sees me load the boat and truck, but as soon as I tell him to load up, he slinks away and won’t look at me. It’s absolutely heartbreaking to see.
That dog grew up in riding in the front of many different trucks and was falling out of boats as soon as he was old enough to be in one. He’s traveled thousands of road miles and just as many river miles with me over the last decade that he’s been with us.
I’m not ashamed to admit that last night as I launched the boat and ran up river that I was overcome with emotions. When I stopped the jet up near a bridge with cement hogs on it, I picked up a rod with a popper on it and cast a bit, but I wasn’t feeling it. I was just going through the motions and it felt robotic. A few smallies lackadaisically struck at the popper and after a few more casts, I set the trolling motor to hold a line and I sat down and had a good cry. I thought about the hundreds of hours of water time and the adventures those brought. I thought about the hours on the highway with his head resting in my lap as we searched for good water to fish. I thought about the time in northern Minnesota when he was sleeping on the bow cap after a long day of musky fishing and when he woke up, he slipped off and disappeared under the front of the boat while the Mississippi was ripping pretty good. I thought I’d lost him that day and when he popped up behind the transom in a panic, I grabbed his collar in one hand and lobbed his soaking wet hundred pound body into the boat while running the tiller on the motor with the other. I’ve always thought about how sideways that day could have gone. It spooked me pretty good. He wouldn’t wear a dog’s life vest and so I was always careful after that with where he slept in the boat.
I floated silently down the river and watched the swallows swooping on the white mayflies that were coming off the water. I watched the herons standing soundlessly in the shallows, hunting for their evening meal. A few deer came out of the woods to stand near the banks of the river. Life continued as normal on the river as it has for centuries. The only thing that felt different was looking at the back bench of the Hog where a brown bear should have been sitting and seeing an empty boat. I wiped my eyes and picked up my rod and started casting. The water is low and so I tied on a longer leader but last night the smallies were hungry and weren’t shy. I picked up a whole bunch of decent fish as I headed down to the confluence and the only bad thing was that my buddy wasn’t there to give them his usual fish kiss before they slipped back into the river, confused as hell.
It hurts to mourn the loss of my best fishing buddy while he’s still with us but I’m damned thankful of the years we got to spend on the water together. I know his old bones hurt and he refuses to let me pick him up, but I’m praying I can design a slow sloped ramp this weekend and see if maybe, with a lot of positive reinforcement, that I’ll be able to get him back on the water with me a few more times before the snow flies.
