“Forty-six inches,” Doc said.

“Not possible,” the attorney declared.

“That’s almost four feet of fish,” the banker figured.

“It’s been years since any of us caught a pike that big,” the policeman exclaimed.

“Are you sure you measured right?” I asked.

“I need another beer,” the plant manager burped.

Like probably 98.6 percent of the fishing parties that fly out of Knobby Clark’s place in Sioux Lookout, our group always has a big fish contest. We each toss 10 bucks into the pot, and the guy who boats the biggest walleye gets half, and the guy who boats the biggest pike gets the other half. In more than 30 years, no one guy had won all the money. Until now.

“Forty-six inches,” Doc repeated, and we looked at each other, wanting very much to accept Doc’s claim that he landed a thirty-inch walleye and also a forty-six inch pike, but also wondering if he was stretching the truth just a bit too much.

The three contest rules are fairly simple. First, in order to claim a fish is caught, it has to end up inside the boat. None of that, “It spit the hook at the last second,” or “I was going to let it go, anyway.” It only counts as a caught fish if it’s actually caught. Some greenhorn fisherman might say, “Don’t you drag them back to the cabin, dead and stiff, to prove what you caught?” Twenty-five years ago, maybe. But not any more. We’ve done catch-and-release for so long that it sickens us to see really big fish end up on the cleaning table.

Second rule, you have to measure the fish, usually by holding it up to the ruler decal Knobby thoughtfully sticks inside his boats. The distance from the snout to the tip of the tail is the official length of the fish. You can’t just give it a glance and say, “This baby is a yard long.” And you can’t say, “I couldn’t get it to hold still, but if I could have straightened it out, it would have been....” Nope, you have to physically do the measurement.

Compliance with rule number three is more difficult to enforce. Not that we don’t trust our lifelong buddies, but just like with golf’s hole in one, or a justice of the peace wedding, there must be a witness. We typically fish two to a boat, so that’s no problem. However, sometimes a guy will take off by himself to get in some fishing when the rest of us are asleep. Like Doc did this time. Also, during the few years we had a no-show, one guy would fish solo, and often get separated from the other boats. But no solo fisherman had ever claimed a big fish prize. Until now.

“What lure did you use, Doc?” the attorney asked, pulling out a legal pad and pen, all set for his interrogation of a suspected fish fibber.

“Am I under oath?” Doc asked.

“No, but we’ll assume the recorder is running, and you have been read your rights.”

“Is this a deposition, or what?”

“You’ve been watching too much TV,” the attorney said. “All I need is the facts.”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“State your name, please.”

“Aunt Lucy.”

“That’s close enough,” the attorney said. “Now, I’ll repeat my question. What lure did you use to catch the alleged pike?”

“Objection!” Doc yelled. “The issue here is not the existence of the pike. It is the size of said pike that you have reservations about.”

“Objection sustained!” the attorney yelled back. “Let me rephrase the question. What did you catch that big sucker on?”

“A quarter-ounce jig with a yellow twister tail.”

“You’re kidding,” the attorney said. “A fish that big isn’t going to go after anything that small.”

“I beg to differ,” the banker offered. “If you’ll look back over the years, many of our largest pike have been hooked on small jigs. In fact, just last year you, yourself, hooked a monster lake trout on a jig. Isn’t that correct?”

“Wait a minute,” the attorney said. “Who’s on trial here?”

“Nobody’s on trial,” I said. “We just want to make sure Doc’s claim to the big fish prize is legitimate.”

“That is correct,” the attorney continued, “and I will not tolerate further outbursts in my court.”

The plant manager had quaffed a significant number of oat sodas to wash down his salt and vinegar potato chips, and his sudden outburst cleared the room. We all enjoyed a short recess from the proceedings in the fresh, pine-scented air of Northwest Ontario. The policeman wandered down to the lake to check out the boats.

Five minutes later, fresh drinks firmly in hand, and all of us again seated around the cabin’s dinner table, the attorney declared court back in session. He squinted his eyes up a bit, and craftily asked, “Doc, what knot did you use?”

“Palomar.”

“On your light tackle rig?”

“Yes. A Pflueger spinning reel with eight-pound Fireline.”

“Smoke or flame green?”

“Smoke.”

“Uh-huh. And where was this fish caught?”

“Maybe a mile to the south. Along a rock wall bordered on both ends by weedbeds.”

“How deep?”

“Probably 12 to 15 feet. I couldn’t see the bottom.”

“Sounds like the right depth, structure, and presentation to me,” the banker said.

“I think we can all agree a fish was caught,” I said. “But how do we know it was the contest winner?”

“I told you,” Doc said. “I measured it.”

That brought about a lot of grumbling. Then the policeman said, “I have some new evidence to submit. May I ask a question?”

“Go for it,” the attorney said.

“Doc, we stipulate that you did, indeed, catch a pike.”

“I appreciate that,” Doc said, taking a pull on a Black Russian cocktail he’d mixed in a dish pan.

“So tell us,” the policeman said. “What did you use to measure the fish.”

“W-w-well, I...”

“A bit tongue-tied are you? Well, you should be!” the policeman shouted. “I submit you were unable to measure the fish at all!”

“B-b-but...”

“I just looked in your boat and discovered part of the ruler decal is missing. It only goes to thirty-four inches. Enough for your walleye, but you had no way to measure your big pike. Did you?”

Doc took a deep breath, let it out. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” he said. “You’re right. There wasn’t a ruler in the boat big enough. So I used this.” He stood up, unhooked, and slowly removed his belt. On the back side, just below the buckle, deeply stamped into the supple leather was a number: 46.

The attorney said, “This court is adjourned.”

Thanks, Doc.

Greg Knowles has written 122 North With Doc columns.