Renewing New Year’s resolutions

The way I see it, making New Year’s resolutions is like fishing with frayed leader; in either case, they’re soon broken. Nevertheless, in spite of myself, I cobbled together this column of New Year’s resolutions. Actually, they could make my addiction to the outdoors more bearable and less costly, both financially and physically. If, that is, I could adhere to George W’s dictum and stay the course.

I’ll begin, then, by resolving never to guarantee good shooting and fast fishing when I’m wearing the guide’s hat. To do so baits fate, invites embarrassment, and invokes Murphy’s Law. For example, swear a Sport to secrecy when taking him to a woodcock cover that’s “always good for half a dozen or so” and you’ll find only chalkings and drillings. Likewise, the tide rip that boiled with stripers in the morning was barren of the fish when you took a friend there in the evening.

Admittedly, my resolution not to pick up my tackle box, or anyone else’s, without first looking to see if the cover is latched comes from firsthand experience. So trust me, it matters not that you’ve been signing fishing licenses for 50 years or more, nothing will make you look like more of a novice than picking up an unlatched tackle box and spilling the contents in a boat or on a dock or, God forbid, overboard.

If you’ve been there, done that, you know why my list of resolutions includes checking to make sure the drain plug is in place before launching my boat and my hip boots are pulled up before wading in to shove the boat off the trailer. Though neither of those oversights are as humiliating as the tackle-box trick, they invariably result in loud cheering, gales of laughter, and barbed comments such as “senior moment,” “figure of fun,” and “crowd pleaser.” Just bide your time, Sport, remembering that he who laughs last laughs loudest.

Keeping in mind that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and New Year’s resolutions, I’m resolving to put new backing on my salmon reels and to tie enough Ospreys and Green Hornets, sizes 6 and 8, to replace the ones Lamar Underwood “borrows” and loses. And I’ll try not to make condescending remarks about Stan Bogdan’s fishing hat. Owing to the hundreds of flies that have been stuck into and plucked out of that felt fedora, it appears to have been centered by a pattern of No. 4 shot fired at close range.

Allowing that my memory isn’t what it used to be, mental overload is the polite term, I’ll be resolute in recording things like putting new plugs in my outboards come springtime and changing the oil in the lower units. The same goes for adding oil to the outboards’ gas cans as soon as they’re filled or topped off and greasing the hubs of my boat trailer. If I don’t write them down on completion, I’ll forget them for sure. It seems, though, that I performed all of that preventive maintenance last fall, before duck season.

Taking resolution a step further, I’m vowing to be more judicious regarding weather and sea duck hunting. No more shuddering out the back door with shotgun and pack basket when the mercury in the thermometer has dropped all the way to the welcome mat. No more churning across wind-blasted bays and reaches in a boat burdened with freezing spray, or climbing onto ice-glazed ledges that would intimidate a mountain goat. No more wind chills boring holes in my bones while my nostrils stick together like Velcro. No more of that self-imposed punishment for me. No siree. I’ll wait for friendlier days, like the one Al Mitchell and Jeff and I enjoyed recently. When the bay wasn’t foggy with sea smoke – old Adam’s pot aboiling, the coastal fishermen call it – the breeze was comfortably cool and the eiders provided entertainment that was well worth the price of admission.

Other than that, most of my New Year’s resolutions are renewals, which doesn’t speak well for my perseverance. Well, what the heck, nobody’s perfect and, besides, there is consolation in knowing I’m not alone. For that reason you may think my resolution to take my guns apart at the end of hunting season and clean them thoroughly instead of just wiping them with a silicone cloth and stuffing a patch through the barrels is aimed at you.

Furthermore, I intend to clean my reels immediately after using them in salt water, keeping in mind that only a drop of oil is necessary for lubrication. Applying too much oil is counterproductive in that collects dust and dirt. For sure I’ll put new leathers and stops on my oars. There isn’t enough left of the old ones to tack them down again. And I’ll definitely slap a fresh coat of olive drab paint on my canoe paddles. The last time they were painted was the first time, and that was a long time ago. Small wonder they look like they were used on the Lewis and Clark expedition.

If any of this sounds familiar, read on: With angler optimism I’m resolving to set a course for Cathance Lake this spring. It’s no secret that salmon anglers investing in the stocks brokered by Ron Brokaw and his Fisheries Region C crew are netting hefty profits. Simply stated, Cathance is a quality landlocked salmon fishery. So is Long Lake in Aroostook County’s Fish River Chain. Hence, my resolution to provide the leviathan landlocks dwelling therein opportunities to test my tackle soon after ice-out.

As for togue fishing, even if it means reeling in 10 colors of line and a Murray spoon, I’ll faithfully check my bait each time I feel a tap or a tug or a touch, however slight. You know as well as I do, if a sewn-on smelt or shiner snags a weed or bumps a rock that damages the bait, the most you’ll get is a boat ride.

Staying hooked to fishing, when casting flies for Atlantic salmon, I’ll be resolute in removing wind knots from leaders. Having a knot cut itself when the leader is stretched by a weighty salmon fresh from the sea will not make your day – especially if you’ve fished three days without raising a fish. If by chance you don’t already know, the kink left in a leader by undoing a wind knot can be smoothed by holding the kinked section tightly between your hands and rubbing it briskly, back and forth, on your hip boots or waders.

Here I’ll say, unabashedly, that concern for my health and well being is a primary factor in my resolution to scrub the smelt eggs from the kitchen sink after cleaning a mess of the flavorful fish. Moreover, to keep the sink and surrounding countertops from becoming sequined with fish scales, and to save what’s left of my hearing, I’ll fillet stripers, perch, croppies, and bass outside.

My resolution to wear a life jacket, particularly when duck hunting, was made a long time ago and it hasn’t been broken. The reason being that I was scared into making it: In the snowy darkness of a December dawn, my chocolate Lab, Coke, and I were bound for a duck blind located in the eastern channel of the Penobscot River, below Bucksport. With the 3-horse outboard slung on a side bracket, we skimmed along smoothly. Until, that is, I felt a jolt. Simultaneously, the boat slid onto a large slab of ice floating flush with the surface. The outboard kicked up, the boat tipped onto its side and everything – two duffel bags full of decoys, pack basket, shotgun, Coke – tumbled in that direction. Instinctively I leaned the other way as the ice, seemingly in slow motion, tilted and the boat slid off and settled on an even keel.

Oh, to be young again: Unperturbed, and thankful that my gun didn’t go overboard, I continued on my merry way. To this day I don’t know what kept that boat from capsizing. But I know that if it had happened, I wouldn’t be writing this column. I wasn’t wearing a life jacket. Didn’t even have one aboard. The law didn’t require it back then. You can bet, however, that I didn’t wait until New Year’s Day to make a resolution to get a life jacket. And to wear it when I go rummaging around in boats.

Mention of Coke reminds me to resolve, again, to carry a camera in my pack basket. On another winter day when the river was cluttered with ice, I shot a black duck that fell onto a large slab. Coke swam to it, climbed aboard, picked up the duck and stood there looking at me as if to say, “Take a good look, chummy, because you’ll probably never see this again.” And he was right. I would have paid dearly for a camera right then, and many times since.

Thankfully, there’s no need for me to make resolutions with regard to dieting, smoking, and drinking, and I consider myself lucky that I don’t require any medications. Better yet, my doctor tells me I’m in good shape. With that endorsement I’ll continue to do my exercising in the outdoors rather than in a gymnasium. I admit to lifting weights, though: canoes, outboard motors, tongues of boat trailers, bogged-down snowmobiles, corners of ice shacks that need raising because of rains, and pack baskets filled with the risks of hernias. Yet In spite of feeling fit, there are no guarantees against my going belly-up unexpectedly, like many of my friends have recently. My pal Jimmy Rikhoff, who’s only a few years older than I am, puts it this way: “I’m at the age where I’ve given up buying green bananas.”

Like everyone else, sportsmen will go on making and breaking and renewing their self-serving New Year’s resolutions. Of course many of them really aren’t important. If they were, they wouldn’t be broken. In taking trails leading into 2006, however, it’s important that hunters, fishermen, and trappers make and keep resolutions to respect landowner’s rights and properties. Otherwise, the outdoor traditions, cultures, and heritage symbolic of this state will slip away as swiftly and silently as the years.

In wishing you a Happy New Year, I’m hoping your fish tales will be true and your hunting stories believable.

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: www.tomhennessey.com.