Jackson: Another sad farewell for a good fishing buddy

BUTTERNUT, Wis. - It's a very tough lesson for me to absorb. Being the little boy that I am, I choose to hang on to childhood happenings, nothing more than mere memories.

My wife was astute enough to point out that practically all of the fishing buddies I've shared time with have passed away.

The latest individual, Roger Pulkka, went from Wheeling to faraway Butternut, a tiny hamlet of several hundred down-to-earth souls who are surrounded by lakes and rivers.

As I drove north through the wilds of Ashland County, Wisconsin, my good-times memory bank kicked in.

It was perhaps 25 years ago when we slowly glided to a spot on Bangs Lake where I had caught a lot of big largemouth bass on previous trips.

Arnold was sitting up front while Roger occupied the middle seat. I sat in the back of the boat, content to stretch my legs every couple minutes.

I positioned the boat on the very outside edge of a weed line. The guys were casting a weedless frog and a long Rapala.

I shot a Little Action Mac, pre-rigged plastic worm to a spot behind the boat's stern.

Just as I made my cast, I heard an expletive from the front. I turned a flashlight on and immediately started laughing, as were both Roger and Arnold.

Arnold had hooked the crankbait right in the center of the crotch area of Roger's jeans. I suggested Arnold cut his line to the lure to be on the safe side, and leave the bait dangle until we got back to the landing.

That statement, coupled to the lure hookup, brought a nonstop bout of roaring laughter. And that was just one silly incident out of so many others.

On another Bangs Lake outing, the sun just came up alongside a very big thunderstorm.

I held the boat in a shallow area on the west shoreline. I previously caught walleyes there, and Roger wanted some fish for dinner that evening. We started catching largemouth instead of walleyes.

The overhead thunderstorm turned the sky into a massive black layer with lightning starting to shoot out from the clouds.

We foolishly kept casting until a bolt hit something in the water just yards away from us. It struck just as we made casts.

Our lines instantly headed in an upward direction and the rod tips did the same, all from the electrical charge around us.

I yelled to Roger to drop his graphite rod and hit the deck. I did the exact same thing when another bolt hit the water even closer. Then came hail and rain.

I started the motor from a prone position and inched our way to the western shore. We made it to safety, laughing all the way. The incident was far more serious than what I'm describing here, despite the laughter.

At one time in Roger's life he lived in southeast Florida, taking care of his aging and ill mother.

I would frequently go to a close-by area to visit my in-laws and my mother as well.

I allotted some time to meet Roger so we could fish Lake Okeechobee together. I rented a small fishing boat with a barely usable 6-horsepower outboard.

While slowly drifting in a backwater area, we made casts with weedless lures to huge areas of lily pads. I noticed an alligator surfacing to my right but I didn't say anything to Roger.

Minutes later our boat shuddered from what I thought was a collision with an underwater tree stump.

Wrong.

A gator popped its nose on the surface and eyeballed us. This thing was huge. Three more encircled us.

I trembled when I said to Roger, "We need a bigger boat."

In between fearful choking sounds and laughter he was waving his arms around as a signal to immediately leave. And I did, without either of us getting a single strike from those famous jumbo Florida bass.

My friend, 69-year old Roger Pulkka, recently passed away. Cancer raced through his body like one of those crazy electrical storms.

• 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 www.mikejacksonoutdoors.com.