Jackson: Outdoorsman's colorful outlook already missed

In over five decades of doing this outdoors stuff, I have encountered hundreds of personality types, ranging from what I consider normal to the top end, where eccentrics and weirdo free-range sorts collected the minutiae of the world.

And every character I met managed to find their way into stories and somehow managed to tickle an occasional reader.

News hawk Colonel Don Buehler was one of those rare ones.

I pulled my father's old, Army rain poncho out of my pack and used something akin to today's duct tape to rig two of my extra paddles, which served as vertical supports for an impromptu rain shelter.

I looked over to Don Buehler's canoe and saw he'd done the exact same thing.

We were caught in the middle of a drenching rainstorm on Clark Lake, one of the many crystal-clear fish-laden gems of Michigan's Sylvania Wilderness Area in the Ottawa National Forest.

It was summer of 1971 and I had just discovered the magnificent smallmouth bass fishing available on all of the various lakes within the Sylvania tract. Sylvania had just opened as a federal property after being deeded to the feds by the Fisher family (Fisher Body, a General Motors supplier of car bodies.)

I worked for Buehler as part of a hotshot radio news organization situated on the exact border line separating Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.

And he and I had shared a boat numerous times on many of the Twin Cities lakes.

And the Sylvania is a place I knew Buehler would go nuts, catching and releasing trophy-sized smallies.

We made the long paddle to Loon Lake, where we decided to set up our tent camp. Loon Lake is a midpoint location with fabulous Deer Island Lake on its upper end.

Buehler was an excellent woodsman. He had a campfire going in minutes and started preparing a surprise dinner. Strips of marinated beef over wild rice was the chef's choice.

Because it was midsummer we had enough time and sunlight to make the portage to Deer Island after dinner.

It took ten minutes to locate several schools of chunky smallies. We used plastic worms and Mepps spinners to entice fish in the 2- to 4-pound class.

Buehler noted in his typical stoic manner, "It's like I died and went to smallmouth heaven."

I learned enough woodsman lore to write a book, derived from Don's year's of trekking through the forests of Cable, Wisconsin, as well as northern Minnesota.

It was early March of the following year that found Buehler and I sharing his boat on the Mississippi River. Our goal was to locate river walleyes, but Mother Nature refused to cooperate.

We launched at Red Wing, Minnesota, and immediately discovered the ice barrier right in front of us.

"No problem," Buehler yelled over the outboard's noise. And we were off. In less than 50 feet were on top of the ice instead of cutting through the mass.

So we both just sat there, laughing ourselves silly while floating with the massive flow, in a boat with a cooler loaded with great sandwiches and cold drinks.

"Enough of this," he barked while starting the outboard again. A third member of group was another broadcast team member. He thought Buehler was nuts, but said nothing.

And then out of nowhere Buehler yelled "Prepare yourself men, we're going through to find some walleyes and sauger." And Don did just that.

When I left the Minneapolis radio outlet to work for one of the major networks, Don would often stop by my home and stay the night. We always kept in touch.

Four days ago, I received a telephone call from his oldest daughter telling me Don had died.

Buehler moved to North Carolina to be closer in distance to that daughter. I sensed something in his voice during our last phone conversation, but didn't bring up any alarms bells. And then he checked out.

Buehler was in his 80s and his only regret at the time was not being able to join me on our annual smallmouth trips.

He was a masterful investigative reporter and outdoorsman. He was a great friend as well, and I will miss him dearly.

• Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, catch his radio show 7-9 a.m. Sundays on WGCO 1590-AM (live-streamed at www.1590WCGO.com) and get more content at mikejacksonoutdoors.com.