My son Scott put this question to me the other day, after he confirmed that I was, indeed, getting on in years: “Dad, what’s left on your bucket list?” I told him that life had been generous with me, especially with hunting and fishing adventures, and that there really wasn’t anything that I am burning to squeeze in before the Final Journey.
He pushed. “Aw c’mon, Dad, everybody has things they would still like to do.”
“Well, yeah, I guess if time and money holds out I’d like to visit Scotland and hunt one more Colorado elk.”
He seemed satisfied with that answer. There were a couple of things that I didn’t tell him. To be around long enough to see my grandchildren grow would be a gift. You do a lot of looking back in later years, I find. That’s how I came to put together my second book, “Backtrack.”
For me, looking back is mostly an act of appreciation, not regret or wishful thinking. If there were a bucket list of the past, I can think of one revisitation I would make: To spend an evening around a campfire again with the Crater Lakers.
Who were the Crater Lakers? A bunch of colorful characters who loved to “let their hair down” and fish trout in the North Woods. Over a number of years we got together every Memorial weekend and “roughed it.” We fished hard, partied hard, and laughed a lot.
Two events stick in my mind. One year, two of our fishing buddies were long overdue on the first night at camp. They were backroad imbibers and got turned around on a logging road and, with the help of strangers, finally got to camp around midnight. The next morning they failed to make the 4 a.m. wakeup for the “morning rise.” While I was moving their truck out of our way, I could not believe my eyes. On the passenger side, amid a pile of sandwich wrappers, cans and miscellaneous flotsam on the floor, was what was left of a once-lovely Sage fly rod. Not in a case, it had somehow been snapped in pieces during the long, late-evening trip through the labyrinth of North Woods logging roads. The broken rod, I knew, was a loaner to the guy who broke it, and offered up as an act of friendship by none other than the Man himself, famed Bangor Daily News outdoor writer Bud Leavitt. I knew Bud, and how he treasured that particular rod. There would be hell to pay! You can imagine the ribbing taken that fishing weekend by the recipient of Bud’s generous nature.
A year later, after a few days of steady drizzle and fog, the Crater Lakers teamed up with another group of like-minded trout men and put on the Mother of All Fish Fries. I mean, it was a happening! The big tarpaulins we strung up around the campground and over the crude old picnic tables would have put Barnum and Bailey to shame. No elephants or tigers, but lots and lots of small brookies and fiddlehead greens. We pooled our Coleman stoves and fry pans, our three-day catch of trout, our fiddlehead pickings and multiple jugs of wine and spirits.
The piece de resistance was a double batch of beer biscuits baked by the campfire on a reflector oven.
When you are tenting and fishing in three days of mist and drizzle, a bellyful of pan-fried brookies, buttered fiddleheads, and fresh baked biscuits, all washed down with an adult beverage, can really take away the curse.
Of course, the common thread in the adventures of the Crater Lakers was always the fellowship and endless laughter. There are so many other stories, to be saved, perhaps, for another day.
You get the point, son. My lifetime repository of wonderful memories is full to the brim. That may explain why my bucket list is short.
The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WQVM-FM 101.3) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is vpaulr@tds.net . He has two books “A Maine Deer Hunter’s Logbook” and his latest, “Backtrack.” Online information is available at www.maineoutdoorpublications.com.
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