The power of positive thinking Spring brings out that feeling in its purest form for sportsmen

Look around long enough and you’re sure to find a few people who will dispute the power of positive thinking. But I’d be willing to bet they don’t sign their names to hunting, fishing, or trapping licenses. The point being that, from the time of Cro-Magnon men stalking tyrannosaurs and pterodactyls until now, sportsmen have personified positive thinking. Let’s face it, without that mind set there wouldn’t be much sense in toting rods, guns, and traps into the hinterlands.

Back along, I got to musing about that while purchasing my 2004 combination hunting-fishing license. In signing the license I realized I was thinking positive about the hunting and fishing activities that would be my privilege, pleasure, and heritage for another year. The good Lord willing, of course.

However, the more I thought about the importance of positive thinking in pursuing fish and game, the more I realized it could also be a curse. By that I mean there isn’t a hunter, fisherman, or trapper in this state, or anywhere else for that matter, who, owing to the power of positive thinking, hasn’t got himself into predicaments that would make excellent material for the television series, “Survivor.”

You know how it goes: In spite of small craft warnings, positive thinking compels the sea-duck hunter to load his boat with gunning gear and set course for a mussel-bound ledge a mile or so offshore. Trouble is, a lone sea-duck hunter doesn’t have enough hands to rig decoys and handle a boat when the wind is blustering and the tide is running hard. Even though he positively thinks he does.

Consequently, the outboard’s prop shears its pin by striking a submerged rock. But being a positive thinker, the veteran gunner allows that replacing the pin is a minor adjustment. That is, until he discovers, alarmingly and vociferously, that the spare pins are in his tackle box. So, looking like one of those characters who set out to row solo across the Atlantic, away he goes down the wind-raked, white-capped bay, barely able to keep her “hove to.” Luckily, the offshore saga ends with him being towed back to the landing by a lobsterman.

Obviously, the power of positive thinking can be dangerous if it isn’t coupled to common sense. Therein lies the reason why so many go-for-it types today are learning the meaning of the word “stuck” by miring their off-road, run-with-the-pack 4-by-4 pickups on mud-time woods roads way back in the williwags. Lacking a winch or a come-along or a woodsman with a skipjack, you can bet the walk out was a lot longer than the ride in.

And so it goes. In spite of preventive maintenance and the power of positive thinking, snowmobiles break down, boat trailer wheel bearings burn out, starter cords pull out of outboards and ice augers, sheets of shell ice coming down on the tide take your decoys downriver, and the trail your fishing partner said was the way to a beaver flowage boiling with trout – he was positive of it – ended in an abandoned gravel pit halfway to hell and gone.

Considering the soft-adventure alternatives, though, I’ll stick to thinking positive about hunting and fishing. Actually, aside from drawing a picture of a salmon or a duck, there really isn’t much else I can do half-right.

Allowing that each season of the year starts me thinking positive about the sport at hand, I have to say springtime is the most inspiring. So it was that the arrival of April inspired me to replace the grooved tip-top guide on my togue stick and wind 200 yards of new lead-core line onto the Sal-Trout reel. Likewise, I spliced 90 feet of new No. 10 weight-forward floating fly line to the backing on my Bogdan salmon reel, registered the boats and trailer, put new plugs in the outboards, and changed the oil in the lower units. Now all I have to do is make a few more bait needles from fine piano wire and, of course, tie a few dozen more flies that I don’t need.

In the interim, though, there are so many positive signs of spring to see and hear and smell and taste. Trouble is, they all happen at once. On a recent April evening, for instance, I stood in an alder swale crowding a soggy field and watched and listened to an amorous male woodcock singing and flying and tumbling and twittering in efforts to find a mate. I don’t know if the long-billed Lothario attracted a female that night, but I left the singing ground feeling positive that he wouldn’t be lonely for long. Trudging back to the truck in darkness gauzy with ground fog, I breathed the earthy musk of the thawed field and paused to listen to the festive trilling of toads. Inspired by such unmistakable signs of spring, I drove home positive that it was time to go smelting.

To me, there’s something magical about dipping smelts on steamy April nights. I’ve felt that from the first time my grandfather took me smelting as a boy. There’s something strangely exciting about dipping a net into the swift, darkened flow … and sweeping it smoothly … and lifting it quickly … and holding it against the moon to see the mesh quivering with silvery smelts fresh from the sea. There’s something wondrous about that. Something wonderfully and satisfyingly wild regardless of the roads, homes, and industries only a stone’s throw away. The way I see it, the seasonal migrations of fish and fowl are awe-inspiring examples of Mother Nature’s determination to keep her house in order in spite of it being continuously disrupted and degraded by man. For those reasons I look forward to the April arrival of shags (cormorants) in the river, a sure sign that smelts are running.

So it was that a couple of weeks ago my son, Jeff, and I stood on a ledge that hadn’t moved an inch since I was in grammar school. While stars rose like sparks from the dying embers of day, my oldest offspring began dipping and dredging, unproductively. After a while he grumbled, “Slim pickings.”

“Tide’s not down enough,” I answered. “Not enough current yet. Smelts are weak swimmers. When the current picks up they’ll come in close to take advantage of the eddies along these ledges. Last night I didn’t get any until that rock just under the surface – see it just below you? – began showing. Take a break and think positive.” Sure enough, not long after the rock stuck its face out, Jeff made a dip and said, “There!” as he lifted the wiggling net and swung it toward me. Directly, I dumped two smelts into the bucket. I’d like to say so many smelts hit the net on the next dip that it nearly took Jeff off the ledge. But that wasn’t the case. Actually, it was a one-here, two-there night, with a lot of dips between dumps. However, by staying the course, as George Dubya Bush puts it, and thinking positive, we managed to take home a mess. Allowing that we had enough for a few meals we figured the seasonal soiree was worth the price of admission.

Simply put, if not for positive thinking there would be few tracks on the trails that sportsmen travel. No matter if you’re picking a Labrador retriever pup out of a litter or planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to a storied Atlantic salmon river, you’re thinking positive.

Speaking of Atlantic salmon, I’ll venture to say that salmon anglers are the absolute exemplars of positive thinking. The reason being that, in making a reservation – a year or so ahead, mind you – at a fully staffed salmon camp where he’ll fish private water, the salmon angler puts his money down and doesn’t look back. Not a day passes, though, without him looking ahead. Hoping and praying and thinking positive that when he arrives the river will be stiff with salmon and, more important, fishing conditions will be favorable, if not perfect.

However, if you know the difference between a Blue Charm and a Green Highlander, it’s a sure bet that you can tell about salmon-fishing trips when, every day, the wind blew so hard that you couldn’t cast until it paused to take a breath. Or the torrential rain that raised the river and turned it to the color of creamed coffee the day before you got there. Or the drought that left it sickeningly low and running a fever. There you have the reasons why salmon fishermen make promises to God in return for being spared the too high, too low; too warm, too cold; too swift, too slow earaches that are part and parcel to the sport. And God forbid the “guide lines” that begin with, “You should’ve been here last week.” Likewise, the letter beginning with, “Right after you left …,” which arrives from the camp manager a week or so after you’re home.

Of course, the same scenarios are common to anglers who, thinking positive, hie off to the Bahamas or the Florida Keys to cast flies to spooky bonefish and behemoth tarpon. What worries them most, however, is being “beached” by wind that makes it impossible to see fish, let alone standing and casting from the pitching-and-rolling bows of small skiffs. Take it from one who has been there, done that. So, what is it that sets Atlantic salmon anglers apart as positive thinkers? The fact that, even if they avoid all the aforementioned curses, they are committed to casting flies to fish they know are not feeding. ‘Nuff said?

Now that many of Maine’s salmonid strongholds have shed their winter coats, sportsmen are thinking positive about trolling streamers and sewn-on smelts. For sure, spring fishing is serious stuff. The excitement of the season at hand, however, shouldn’t distract sportsmen from another very serious matter that will require all of the positive thinking they can muster. The reference is to defeating the forthcoming referendum to prohibit bear trapping and using baits and hounds to hunt bears.

In reading the tracks – position statements on hunting – left by the national anti-hunting organizations supporting the referendum, there is no doubt in my mind that the initiative is aimed at banning all hunting and trapping. Period. Here I’ll say that anglers who think their sport is exempt from the radical agendas of anti-hunting and animal-rights organizations are sadly mistaken. Such groups describe fishing as “hunting in water.” Think about it. Then, if you haven’t done so, think about making a contribution to Maine’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Council, the bear-campaign coalition formed by the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to oppose the referendum.

At this stage of the game, the coalition has received $650,000 in contributions from 5,500 individual sportsmen and sportsmen’s clubs. Not surprisingly, 65 percent of the contributions have come from within Maine. More than surprising, however, is that the remaining 35 percent has come from across the country. And because contributions are arriving daily, it can be said this is one case in which the cliche, “The check’s in the mail,” can be taken to the bank.

That outpouring of support is proof positive of the concerns that sportsmen have for their hunting heritage, nationwide. To see it firsthand, however, and feel the spirit and determination of Maine sportsmen closing ranks to fight and defeat the anti-hunting, anti-trapping referendum, consider this: On May 22, take the trail marked Route 9 and follow it to the Airline Snack Bar in Beddington. Plan to arrive handy to 6 p.m. That’s when the restaurant’s new owners, Arthur Tenan and Dan Curtis, will sound the dinner bell, signaling all present to dig into a buffet dinner to benefit SAM’s bear-campaign coalition. Tickets are $25 per person, $15 of which will end up on the coalition’s plate. Tickets can be reserved via a phone call: 638-2301, ordered on line: airlinesnackbar@yahoo.com, or purchased at the door.

Understand that this is no eat-and-run event. Door prizes, raffles, and speakers including wildlife biologists and a representative of International Paper Co. are scheduled. Additionally, in the stories cast across the dinner table, you may land a tip as to where the landlocks are taking and the fiddleheads are flourishing. There’s no need for further directions to the Airline Snack Bar. It’s as much a Route 9 landmark as Lead Mountain, which means you can’t miss it.

Here’s a thought: If you’re fishing Alligator or Mopang or Pleasant River lakes on the 22nd, plan to attend the benefit dinner aimed at defeating the bear referendum. Be mindful that the organizations behind the ballot initiative have their sights set on depriving you of your hunting heritage. Of that I’m positive.

Tom Hennessey’s columns and artwork can be accessed on the BDN Internet page at www.bangornews.com. Tom’s e-mail address is: thennessey@bangordailynews.net. Web site address: www.tomhennessy.com.