These resolutions I think I can keep

I have never been one who makes New Year’s resolutions, because I know that 99 percent of them are doomed from the start. I figure losing 30 pounds that one year was the only resolution I’ll ever fulfill, so why try to cover any new ground?

On the other hand, there are plenty of things worth thinking about changing, especially in the realm of hunting and fishing. I’m sure I’m not alone — so here goes.

My freshwater tackle box needs a tremendous overhaul. My saltwater box isn’t nearly as sick, but some of the same symptoms are showing up in both. First, all of those soft plastics. I’ve got bags and boxes of all kinds of plastic baits, but when it comes down to it, I have a handful of favorites. When I go to the coast to fish for speckled trout or reds, I typically use grubs in two or three colors, and shrimp in two or three colors: electric chicken, pink/white and white. When I go bass fishing, I use lizards, worms and creature baits of three colors; green pumpkin, red shad and junebug. The space I could save by getting rid of all those plastics I have never used and probably never will would be amazing. What a garage sale: soft-plastics and boxes.

Next would be the old, wooden box where I keep all my gun-cleaning stuff. The cleaning rods and pieces of rods scattered through the box are for mixed calibers and gauges. I’d be stunned if I could but one complete rod together, despite having enough pieces, laid end-to-end, to go around the equator.

How about those partial spools of fishing line? I counted a dozen the other day, none empty, but none with enough line left to spool a single reel. One day, I’m going to break down and buy three or four of those big, bulk spools in the sizes and styles I most often use. Of course, it will take me months to save enough to buy one of those big, bulk spools of braided line. Maybe that will be a good way to spend my tax refund. Right.

I have a half-dozen paper rifle targets behind the seat in my truck. I have a half-dozen paper rifle targets on my work bench. I have a half-dozen paper rifle targets on my computer desk. One day, I will gather them and put them in the same place. Or not.

There is a fanny pack somewhere that has an extra clip for my rifle, a couple of cans of deer scent, rubber gloves, a grunt call and a sandwich bag of toilet paper. Sometime around my daughter’s graduation from college last year, the books and associated school supplies returned to the house, invaded the garage, and that fanny pack disappeared under the avalanche. I need to find it. Sounds like an excuse to clean the garage. Not.

There’s a tripod deer stand under the back deck with one broken leg — a tree blew down on it in a storm and toppled it, breaking one of the supports at a joint. I’ve been meaning to take it to a welder and get it fixed, then put a new seat in it. I figure, I’ve got eight months before the season starts; that one might get taken care of. Sure.