Back steps the ideal spot for some serious thinking

At this stage of the game I’m convinced that serious thinking requires serious sitting. In accordance with that, I suggest three places ideally suited for making monumental decisions: duck blinds, deer stands, and back steps. Obviously, the amount of intellectual exercise practiced in blinds and on stands is constrained by hunting seasons. Fortunately, there’s no closed season on back steps.

Fact of the matter is, at this time of year there’s no better place for sorting out thoughts, especially if the steps are handy to a lawn that needs raking and rolling. That was the situation recently, when after fetching my outboard from the rafter-high clutter of the garage, I ambled toward the back steps. There, I sat and slumped into the elbows-on-knees, head-down position that seems universally accepted as most conducive to mind searching.

The morning sparkled with sunlight and a brisk northwest wind buffed the sky to sapphire brilliance. The wind, however, couldn’t penetrate the high cedar hedge surrounding the backyard. The back steps, therefore, were toasty-warm. Because my wife was off somewhere making an offer on someone’s great grandmother’s rolling pin, or the like, I seized the opportunity to check my list of mental notes attendant to spring fishing. You understand, I’m sure, that solitude is necessary for such profound deliberation.

While robins played hopscotch on patches of bare ground, I studied the outboard lying on the stone-slabbed walkway. Didn’t I change the plugs just before duck season? Sure I did. I remember changing the oil in the lower unit at the same time. Motor’s OK; with a pat and a couple of pulls she’ll purr like a kitten. What else now…. let’s see…. shear pins. Don’t forget them. Because of my innate ability to run an outboard onto the one strikable rock in any body of water, I invest heavily in shear pins.

Gas. I’ll need new gas. The half a tank left from last fall must have collected some skip-sputter-stop condensation by now – worse than wet kindling. There was something else…oh yuh, a new primer bulb for the tank. Better pick up a couple of small hose clamps, too; fuel line connections just love losing pressure. Boat’s OK, registration’s good until the end of the month so I’m legal for a couple of weeks, anyway. Trailer registration’s good until August…. hubs’ll need a squirt of grease. Taillights. If I remember right they’re shorted out – again.

As a flock of cedar waxwings fluttered among staghorn sumacs fuzzy with spring “velvet,” my thoughts shifted to trolling tackle. I checked off streamer flies, figuring I have enough to fool all the salmon in the state. Thanks to Frank Gray, my supply of needles for sewing on smelts will last until I make my last looping stitch. My tackle box holds miles of leader material, too many snap swivels, chain swivels, spoons, and a raft of lures whose names I can’t remember. It also contains tools for the outboard. But unless my fishing partner is mechanically inclined, they amount to nothing more than a sham.

For once, my reels are ready. For hauling feathers, I’ll use a Hardy wrapped with sinking fly line. For trolling smelts, a Medalist wound with two colors of lead-core spliced to 150 yards of backing; and tell me that isn’t the height of optimism. Rods? I’m all set with a couple of old 9-foot sticks – one graphite, one glass – that I don’t mind beating around in a boat.

After a cursory thought or two relative to thermos jug, bait bucket, life jackets, raingear, landing net, oars, extra spark plugs, etc., I allowed I was prepared for this year’s first openwater outing. But since the backdoor thermometer was getting redder in the face, I couldn’t see any reason for discontinuing my cogitation.

With that, I made a mental cast toward May 1 and the opening of Atlantic salmon fishing. It brought an immediate double rise: buy an Atlantic salmon license and take my double-ender boat out to Fred Bean’s place for fitting with an anchor rig. Reflecting on salmon-fishing gear, I recalled replacing the backing on my reels last year and stopped there. To even consider a new rod, reel, line, etc. would have been totally ridiculous. Salmon flies? I’ve been tying them forever.

Sitting, almost snoozing, on the sun-warmed steps, I mused my way through May, June, and July without contriving a reason for accumulating more trout or bass-fishing paraphernalia. But August. Aaaah, the backyard brimmed with the smell of ocean and images of bluefish. Clearly, then, I remembered last year’s promise to equip myself with a saltwater spinning outfit. What I want is a rod with enough muscle to heave a big plug or a “pogie,” and a reel big enough to let a brawling “blue” know who’s boss.

Abruptly, my morning mentation was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle pulling into the driveway. Directly, a door opened and closed and seconds later my wife appeared on the walkway. “Well,” she said, “I can see you’ve accomplished a lot this morning.”

“You better believe it,” I replied glancing at my watch. “In fact, I’ve mapped out a whole summer’s fishing in a little more than an hour.”

Apparently, only certain people realize there’s more to sitting on the back steps than meets the eye – let alone duck blinds and deer stands.