So when I finally arrived here, I scrounged a world atlas and found myself. I was off Vancouver Island, which is across the Strait of Georgia off the coast of Canada's western province, British Columbia. 

What I came to do was fish for salmon with former professional football player Dick Butkus and have it taped for the ESPN television program "Suzuki's Great Outdoors." Dick Butkus is the host. 

Getting here was something. I left from Orlando. I flew to Salt Lake City, to Portland and then to Vancouver. 

In Vancouver, I waited in line for an hour with half the Asian peoples on Earth to get through customs. Then I climbed aboard an orange crate and flew to Campbell River, British Columbia, which is on Vancouver Island. 

After that I took a van and a ferry and I arrived at the April Point Fishing Lodge 16 1/2 hours later. 

The only kind of fish I had ever caught before were catfish and bream. My grandfather used to take me fishing in local ponds when I was a boy. 

But I gave up fishing. I didn't like handling the bait. I didn't like handling the fish, and I didn't want to eat anything that would eat anything as nasty as fish bait. 

So I'm not certain how I got talked into this. I didn't even get paid. But after sitting around for three months trying to get over heart surgery, I was ready to do something besides watching the coffee couple play suckface on television, and complaining about my chest feeling like I had recently dived atop an exploding grenade. 

The first thing I had to do was to learn to pronounce the word "salmon." The closest I'd ever been to one before was when my mother used to fry salmon patties that came from a can. We pronounced it SAL-mon, as in Sal Mineo, because it has an "L" in it. 

But here I was told the "L" was silent, and it was SAA-mon. I tried my best to say it that way. 

So we went out one chilly morning into the choppy Strait of Georgia. We were in a very small boat, I thought. In this small boat was Dick Butkus, a very large man, not to mention myself, a cameraperson, a soundperson, and the fishing guide, also a person. 

It was my kind of fishing. The guide cut the head off the herring, which is what salmon eat, and put the rest of it on my hook. He dropped the hook into the water and we trolled. 

I got five coho salmon to the boat, which, miraculously, never turned over. The guide took each fish off the hook, showed it to the cameraperson and then tossed it back into the water. 

I never touched a single piece of bait. I never touched a fish. I ate prime rib back at the lodge. 

I actually would have caught more salmon (my largest was about 7 pounds, said the guide) if I hadn't been doing a fishing show and the director hadn't said to me at least a couple of times, "Stop reeling in until we can get the sun on your face." 

Besides being a large man, Dick Butkus is a very nice man. He caught only one coho salmon, but he didn't pick me up and throw me into the Strait of Georgia because it was his show and I still caught five times the fish he did. 

I left Quadra Island on a floatplane back to Vancouver. I felt completely safe. I figured anything goes wrong here, we can just land right on the water 2,000 feet directly below us. 

Look for me this fall fishing with Dick Butkus on "Suzuki's Great Outdoors." If you have any trouble distinguishing between me and ol' No. 51 of the Chicago Bears, I'm the one catching all the saamon.