Boating USA — March 2018

By Charles Plueddeman

106 | BOATINGMAG.COM | MARCH 2018

OOFF MFFMY DOYDOCKCK ByCharles Plueddeman

F

or weeks, the sky can resemble a dirty felt blanket draped to the

treetops. The snow that sparkled the landscape in January melts

into chisel-plowed fields and hardens into an ugly-gray salty crust

along the curbs and ditches. If it snows in March, it will be wet

and heavy and sag the blue shrink-wrap on your boat. A bone-chilling rain

is just as likely.

The 31 days of the third month are especially hard on habitués of the

Lake View Inn. State regulation mandates the removal of ice-fishing shan-

ties from the lake, and the snowmobile trails close, and football season

is a distant memory, and the tax refund is

spent. Conventional wisdom dictates one

should hunker down in the bar and wait for

April — or May, if you’re a pessimist. Those

with young children find themselves drink-

ing from a cooler in the chlorine fog of the

Holidome in Green Bay. Nondrinkers retire

to the basement to spool fishing reels with

fresh line or study the Garmin owner’s manual. Or to simply crack a few

hickory nuts.

In other parts of the country, they call this mud season, or breakup, and

folks simply leave for a week or two until it clears. Alaskans, like my sister,

jet over to Hawaii. Friends in Colorado head for Moab. The Lake View crowd

finds all this self-indulgent and weak. Only Dan the Outboard Man had

March covered with a game plan we

could all respect.

After winterizing every boat in

the Lake Winnebago basin, Dan

would rinse the antifreeze from

his hair, load up some tools and a

cooler, and point his F-150 south.

Destination: Duck Key.

Dan’s Uncle Lester had a modest

abode on the water, the perfect spot

for a single man to hole up for the

winter. Shorts and flip-flops every

day. The hammock. A Corona for

lunch. There was a skiff for fishing

and plunking about. Dan would fix

outboards for cash and sent the

occasional postcard back to the

Lake View, just to let us know he

was getting along fine. The cooler

was laden with Wisconsin contra-

band essential to Dan’s economy:

Johnsonville brats and Jim’s Blue

Ribbon summer sausage. The Keys

were populated with a number of

expats from Badgerland, and Dan

discovered that a gift of summer

sausage might earn him a discount

at the parts counter or the bait shop.

And when he needed a taxi late at

night, it was there in a flash. Dan

would head north in April, tan and

rested and ready to wrench, with the

same cooler loaded with frozen fish.

The past tense of the previous

paragraph is meant to foreshadow.

Hurricane Gordon flattened Chez

Lester, which was underinsured

and not rebuilt, and thus blew away

Dan’s great gig. His postcards are

still pinned up behind the bar.

Only Dan the Outboard

Man had March covered

with a game plan we

could all respect.

PINING FOR

MARGARITAVILLE

March in Wisconsin feels like a hangover.

BOATING (ISSN 0006-5374) (USPS 504-810), March 2018, Volume 91, No. 3. ©2018. Boating is published monthly, except July/August and November/December, by Bonnier Corp., 460 N. Orlando

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ILLUSTRATION: TIM BOWER; PHOTO: MABEL PLUEDDEMAN