By Dr. Rosmann

Jeff is a good fisherman and a good person. He is the prince of a friend everyone wishes for: honest, generous, funny, with clever left-field humor that endears him to everyone, and optimistic except when he fishes with my son Jon and me.

Jon and I had developed a ritual of fishing the Norfolk River in northern Arkansas around the opening day of the major league baseball season several years prior to when we invited Jeff for what became an unforgettable trip in 2014. Trout fishing below the Norfolk River Dam was usually sublime.

The Norfolk River Dam has 12 spillway gates for water to power two electricity generators that are activated when power is needed on the electrical grid. Depending on the number of gates that are open, the water allowed into the river below the dam fluctuates.

When all the gates are open the river can be turbulent and fly-fishing can be difficult from the one-person pontoons that we used to float downstream while maneuvering ourselves with fins and oars.

While driving my Jeep from Iowa we listened to the Chicago Cubs lose their first game of the season hours before we arrived at the cabin Jon had reserved. When dawn arrived, all the spillways were open; the Norfolk River was running high and fast.

We agreed that Jon and I would float the eight miles downstream from the dam to a dock where Jeff would wait for us with my Jeep and trailer, and fish wherever he could wade.  Jon and I worked hard to catch enough 13-15 inch trout for supper when we arrived at the dock around 4.30 p.m. Jeff caught zilch.

The next morning the generators at the dam were turned off and the water flow was low, which meant fish would be concentrated into pools. I offered my pontoon to Jeff for the day and he gladly assented.

The guys set off around 8 a.m. I drove to the parking lot by the downstream dock. I fished in my waders with usually productive flies that my father-in-law had tied. Around noon Jon called me on his cell phone to ask how I was doing. I told him fishing was so-so.

He advised me to use a fly I had invented, “the little black fly.”  By 4 p.m. I had captured my limit of five trout, all bigger than 16 inches.

When I called Jon on my phone, he told me he had caught five even larger trout, but he wasn’t sure how Jeff was doing.

An hour later Jon called to tell me Jeff hadn’t caught any fish and was struggling to drag his pontoon over shallow stretches of the river. He had lost an oar. Jon was waiting for Jeff to catch up.

Two hours passed without word from Jon or Jeff; dusk was setting in. I called Jon around 7 p.m. when lightning lit up the western horizon. The weather forecast on my Jeep’s radio predicted heavy rains with high winds for our area.

Jon said he was with Jeff and would accompany him to the dock because Jeff was completely exhausted. Fortunately, both of them had LED headlamps to illuminate their way for the remaining half mile to the dock.

Minutes dragged on until the clock in my vehicle said 8:30 p.m. I turned my Jeep to face upstream and kept the headlights on to signal Jeff and Jon where I was waiting for them. Lightning bolts now spread across the entire western sky and thunder roared.

Finally, I spotted Jon and Jeff’s headlamps around 9:00 p.m. Jeff was cursing as he slogged through shallow water to the dock. Jon had ahold of his right arm. Between labored gasps for breath, Jeff muttered, “I’ll never go fishing with you guys again. Never, never!”

While Jon dragged his and Jeff’s pontoons from the dock to the trailer, I removed Jeff’s flippers and helped him stagger to my Jeep’s passenger seat. Jon and I finished storing fishing gear in the trailer while lightning flashed around us and thunder boomed.

Jon and I scrambled into the Jeep just as the first huge drops of rain mixed with melting ice splashed onto the windshield. Torrents of rain and ferocious gusts of wind blasted us so violently that I postponed driving to our cabin. I prayed silently for protection for all of us.

Jeff was the first to speak when the pounding rain diminished and the wind subsided. “Don’t ever ask me to go fishing again. I thought I was going to meet my maker. I was praying my wife would be okay if I died.”

Only Jon and I ate supper that night. The next morning Jeff greeted us. “I’m never going fishing with you, ever.”

Silence followed. Then Jeff announced, “Next time I’m bringing my boat, but it won’t be here.”

In October 2016, I wrote about another near-death experience fishing in Jeff’s boat on Lake Thompson in South Dakota.

Dr. Mike still fishes and can be contacted at: mike@agbehavioralhealth.com.