Local fishing legend Dean-O Hicks dies

Editors note: Local fishing legend Dean-O Hicks died Monday after losing a battle with pancreatic cancer. This is a story about Hicks from last June.

Dean-O Hicks is part fishing guru, part local legend.

He's a businessman, boat captain, radio show host and the vice president of the Estero-South Fort Myers Lion's club. He's a fishing tournament organizer, a husband and father.

At 46, he's lived a life worthy of several biographies, including a tour of duty in the Army training Central American rebels in guerrilla warfare during the 1970s, a master freshwater trout fisherman in northern California a decade later, and a regular with the Jerry Jeff Walker entourage, a singer most famous for the 1968 hit, "Mr. Bojangles."

These days Hicks runs a high-end tackle and custom rod building shop in San Carlos Park, a business that cranks out coveted fishing gear for Southwest Florida sportsmen. Reels Inc. is only a 10-minute drive from his waterfront home, where there's a 22-foot offshore boat docked out back.

A wife, kids, house in sub-tropical Florida, a successful business. It would seem Hicks has it all. And he does, for now.

Mentally, emotionally, spiritually — he's is fit for another half-century. His body, though, is frail, he says, mostly due to a spinal chord injury suffered in the Army. Hicks fell during a training exercise while stationed in Colorado in 1979.

Slowing down is not really his style. But doctors, family and friends are telling the classic Type A personality to cut back, to shorten the 18-hour days. But he won't. He admits it.

"I've always said the hardest thing in life is getting out of bed," Hicks says, remembering multiple stays at VA hospitals. "I've seen guys just lay in bed for six or eight years on drugs. That ain't me, man. That's not living."

• • •

The phone rings as Hicks scrolls through e-mails. He picks up the receiver, leans back in his chair, whips his shaggy hair over his right shoulder and takes a long drag off a Kool cigarette.

It's early on a Thursday morning and Hicks is busy making equipment orders, fielding hundreds of e-mails from friends and well-wishers, and helping the Lee County Sheriff's Office put together a charity fishing tournament.

He's trying to make up for lost time after a recent two-week hospital stay in Miami. Spinal chord injuries like Hicks' can expose the body to dangerous internal infections.

Hicks has suffered several bacterial bouts, and this time he told doctors to put a tube in his chest so nurses could administer antibiotics in Fort Myers instead of at the hospital in Miami. Doctors agreed, and planned to put Hicks to sleep for the procedure.

Patients aren't supposed to drive after anesthesia, but his 1985 Mercedes sedan was his only ticket home that day. He re-creates the conversation with the doctor.

"He said, 'Who's your ride home?'

"I said, 'I'm my (expletive) ride!'

"And the surgeon screamed, 'Stop! You can't drive home after anesthesia.'

"So I said, 'Fine. Just fillet me awake.'"

So they did. Doctors cut a hole into Hick's rib cage, inserted the long tube, taped him up and released him. "I was cut open at 1 p.m. and driving home from Miami at a quarter 'til 4," Hicks says. "And, man, rush hour in Miami on a Friday."

Everything is relative, including pain. Hicks has proven that time and time again. In addition to the spinal injury, Hicks' right leg was surgically removed after yet another tragic accident in California.

He was clearing lots for his brother (a general contractor) when a tree fell and crushed his leg. Hicks took the accident in stride. He's never tried to cover the plastic peg with a sock or shoe. It's his peg, as much a part of his life as fishing and work.

And it only adds to the man's swashbuckler mystique.

• • •

Hicks plays fast and loose with the English language. He's created his own variation over the years.

He throws around words that sound like an alien language from "Star Trek." Quirky terms. No one's quite sure where they came from, but they've become a trademark for those who know him.

"What's cattywampus, Mikey," Hicks shouts from his office to one of his reel repair guys.

"It's like this," Mikey Bullis explains, tilting his arm at a 45-degree angle.

Hicks limps out of the office, looks over a few rods, picks one up and gives a down-home explanation. "Cattywampus means it ain't right," Hicks says, shaking a custom built rod that will sell for $800. "This is cattywampus. See how it ain't straight."

Then there's "the hoogie water on the giggy bob." That's code for: There's a yellow Post-It note hanging from the wall near the reel repair table.

Hoogie water, he explains, means a reel in for repair, One that's been looked at by Hicks or one of his crew. The giggy bob is the board where orders are tacked.

The word "phenomenal" is a way to curse without cursing. It's a multifunctional term Hicks uses on his radio show. Whenever he feels like dropping a four-letter bomb, he pauses and says, "That's just phenomenal," with a deep, drawn-out tone.

• • •

He was born Dean Hicks outside Detroit. Dean. Not Deano. No friends or classmates dared call him that. And Hicks hated that name. Hated being synonymous with the the dog from the "The Jetsons" cartoon.

Then he started riding Harley Davidsons in Southwest Florida. Bikers are notorious for knowing friends by their first name only, or by a nickname. Hicks was dubbed "Deano, the one-legged biker guy."

And it stuck.

"That's what everybody knows me as. That's what they call me. Dean-O. People can remember that," he explains. Hicks added the hyphen and the capital O.

Just mention the name Dean-O in any fishing circle in Southwest Florida and you'll see heads nod. Single name recognition right up there with Prince, Cher and Madonna. Almost.

• • •

Hicks isn't comfortable with personal questions. Don't ask about his health. Don't look at gray, fish-shaped ashtray with the Harley Davidson pig head sitting on his desk and think about asking him why he smokes.

"Don't write about that," he says, snuffing a butt into the top of the pig's black biker hat. He'd rather talk about fishing, kids, business or the Lion's Club.

Or music. His face lights up like a boy in a bicycle warehouse.

"Bruce Springsteen," he says proudly when asked what's in his CD player. "He's true Americana. Americana, man." He smiles and shakes his head. "He's true Americana."

• • •

Hicks is a Robin Hood-style pirate at heart. Fitting since the physical world has blessed him with a full beard, a barrel chest and a deep voice. He collects money from the community and gives to the poor.

He does it by sponsoring fishing tournaments, and he's supported by family and friends. Kids need clothes or a warm meal, organize a fishing tournament. A friend got crippled in a motorcycle accident, raise money for a handicapped van with a fishing tournament.

And there's the Lion's Club. "I love it," he says, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. "That's my thing."

His kids, 21-year-old Clay and 12-year-old Deanna, consider Dad a hero, and they look to him for guidance in school, work, fishing and life.

"He's a great guy and he does a lot for the community," Clay says. "And he's taught me a lot about life and fishing and community service."

Clay has helped organize a charity tournament called Casting for a Cause the past two summers. It started through the Kiwanis Club as a way to help a local family buy a wheelchair-accessible van for their son, a friend who was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident.

Clay's also right at home in the store.

"My favorite part of the job is educating people," Clay says, toeing the family line of help, help, help. "When someone comes in who doesn't know what they're doing, and when they come back and they tell you all about their first snook — that's what I love about it."

Deanna finished sixth grade this year and talks about Dad like a star-struck teenager.

"He's really funny, and he does a lot for everybody," Deanna says. "We like playing cards and watching TV and playing basketball. And he's always there to help me with life and school and everything. I don't get math that well. He does, so he helps me with that."

Even competing tackle shop owners have a soft spot for the guy.

Dave Westra runs Lehr's Economy Tackle in North Fort Myers and is a regular on Reel Talk Radio, the long-running fishing broadcast on several Southwest Florida stations (airing live Saturday mornings at 8 on 770 AM). They compete for business, but they're also close friends.

"You wouldn't think the two of us together were competitors when we're on the radio," Westra says. "But there are times when we even help each other. If he needs something and can't get it, I shoot something down to his store. And he does the same for me. We try to take care of each other.

"I have a lot of respect for him, but, frankly, he works too hard," Westra says. "Physically, it's breaking him down."

• • •

While Hicks was in the hospital in Miami, fishermen who post on a Florida Sportsman Web site sent more than 2,000 notes urging him a speedy recovery.

"I've got to find a way to do less. I've got to. No choice. That's why I've got this," Hicks says, pulling up his shirt to expose his right rib cage and a 10-inch tube that's used to administer large doses of antibiotics.

The year 2013 is his first goal. That's when Deanna graduates high school. By then Clay will be ready to take over the family business.

"In a perfect world Clayton would be 27 years old and it would be marvelous to hand it over to my son then," he says, a broad smile stretching behind his grizzled beard. "I guess I'm going to have to cut back on a couple of things (like charity events, fishing trips and volunteer work). My life is always crazy, and I love it.

"When we purchased our home, we went on a 12-year plan. Everything — home, vehicles, etc. — will be paid for by then," Hicks says. "I'll be 54 years old and Deanna will be graduating."

Friends and family hope Hicks will slow down. And maybe prolong his life.

"I look forward to sitting in the director's chair (behind the counter) and just running my mouth and sitting around," Hicks says with a smile. "But I don't know if I can make it another seven years. I don't know."

His wife Terry puts it more in focus.

"He has to slow down, but I don't know if he can. It's just not in his nature."