Fencerows: Tom Headed North
By John Luthens
Most anyone versed in the finer aspects of outdoor pursuits knows someone like Tom: One of those guys who’ll take the time to find the hidden lake – a spring-fed and mirrored place, mist hanging low at nightfall and every cove holding the promise of thrashing water.
A guy like Tom is a patient watcher, studying the break in the snowy alders to find where the swamp buck will try and make a run for it. He’s perseverant and persuasive, and his eyes shine at the telling of such things, regardless if a fish ends up on a stringer or a buck ends up hanging in the camp yard.
I’ve known him for years, worked alongside him for countless hours. When he said it was time to move on, those who knew him best gathered at the local watering hole to tell stories and say our farewells.
“What are you going to do now, Tom?” We asked.
“Going to head north and be a carpenter, build some houses in Oconto County– outdoors, all year, in every type of weather that northern Wisconsin can throw at me,” he said.
A casual observer may have thought that Tom had one too many at his farewell party. I work in the graphic arts trade. Tom’s worked in the very same trade longer than me. He taught me well, so I’m pretty sure it’s an indoor type of thing.
“Build houses? Outdoors, all year – even in winter? Have another round, Tom. You’re on a roll.”
Ahh…but then again, you don’t know Tom.
Fond Remembrances of Tom.
I recall my first musky-fishing outing. Tom hauled me onto a wind-swept lake. It was Halloween, but it felt like Christmas. Tom rigged an electric trolling motor on an aluminum row boat, and we charged into the wind with the pace of a snail, our quickset-rig suckers leading the way.
The down-wind drift was another story. If the lake had a no-wake rule, we broke it. The wind scraped me like a dull razor, even though I was bundled against in the warmest gear the sporting catalogs could sell me. Tom, he just wore a flannel shirt and a smile. We never caught a fish. That’s the stuff legends are made of.
I also recall following Tom through a northern blizzard on an ice-fishing pilgrimage; snow piled up so deep that 4-wheel drive was useless as roller skates. We cut fallen hemlocks out of our path to get close. We wrestled our fishing sleds through snow-draped pines from there.
It was cold enough to vaporize water thrown in the air from a boiling pot. Oddly enough, there was so much heavy snow on the lake that the water rose up like a flood through our extension-auger holes. That upwelling water was anything but vaporized. It was extremely wet and cold.
Tom managed the conditions without a shiver. And me – let’s just say the color spectrum ’aint come up with that shade of blue yet. It was once in a lifetime fishing trip. I think I caught a perch, but I’m not certain.
But it was on the eve of the gun-deer season a few years back that Tom’s ice-cold fortitude and my willingness to follow him was sealed into legendary status in what will forever be known as the “Great Refrigerator Incident.”
One deer camp needed some extra cooling power, having no bearing whatsoever with storing venison and everything to do with storing liquid fuel for deer camp stories. Tom’s camp had cooling power to spare, I happened to have a truck, and I just so happened to be in Tom’s camp on that fateful night.
The distance between the two camps was measured in multiple county lines and hampered by my own buck fever. By the time the fateful deer drive was over and the thirsty hunters finally got their refrigerator, it was somewhere around Thanksgiving. It was a real trophy, and while I didn’t get to parade a buck in the back of my truck that year, I still got more than my share of stares from every hunter I crossed paths with.
Tom left behind a blaze of stories and headed north, and I’m sure going to miss having him around for the summer months. But when the leaves start to swirl and it grows colder, I figure it’s a sure sign that I’m going to run into him again. I can’t help but wonder if one of those houses he’s building needs and extra refrigerator.