Each year, I make New Year's resolutions and try to stick to them, so I started making a list for 2016. But as I started listing the things I want to learn to do, I found myself thinking instead about one thing I had learned to do that I miss doing - fly fishing.

When I lived in Saint Clair, I used to fish at Locust Lake and Tuscarora state parks very frequently. Now I don't think I've fished at either since buying a home near both. That's because the home I bought was the neighborhood eyesore. Actually, that description is too kind; working on the house seems to command all my free time.And I will always remember the day I began to love fly fishing.SURPLUS POND, Maine, May 1995. It was a teasing sunrise, with elements of the departing winter and previews of the summer to come. Long, dark clouds, backlit and outlined by the rising sun, drifted across the sky like scraps of charred paper risen from a campfire.As I walked northbound on the Appalachian Trail in Maine that May, I kept seeing vestiges of winter and signs of spring. Winter reared its ugly head when I came to the ford of Burroughs Brook, where I fell in. Soaked, cold and discouraged, I sat down at a little grouping of rocks overlooking Surplus Pond.A boater appeared on the pond, rowing noiselessly. I remember thinking, right there is Mr. Maine. He wore a green plaid, wool shirt with orange suspenders and a plain, tan baseball cap. Reaching some pre-selected location he stopped, pulling in the oars.He bent over some task in the boat, and when he stood up, he was holding a fly rod. He began fishing, large movements with his arms and hand translated down the line into deft little touchdowns with the fly. I could not take my eyes away - the scene had turned into a work of art.Again and again, he gently placed the fly on the surface of the water. Then, the loops of line and twitching fly rod were tightened into a sudden arc and the tip of the rod drew quick circles and dashes in the air. Soon the man made a scooping motion with a net and sat down, reaching into the net for the fish. He held the fish in the water, gently moving it back and forth, and then released it.I couldn't help what I did next. I got up on one of the rocks and clapped as loudly as I could. He spotted me, and stood up, pleased, and gave an acknowledging wave. I kept clapping. Then, elaborately, one hand in front and one in back, in a posture both shy and proud, he made a little bow. Suddenly I was glad I had fallen into the brook.Witnessing Mr. Maine's slice of life led me to wonderful hobbies, fly fishing and fly tying. When I later moved to Maine, I had a house on a river that held native brook and brown trout. I fished the majority of days.Okay, I have a property that still needs a ton of work. But has it been right to forego a beloved hobby because I "should" be doing things such as ripping out plaster or sanding floors? Why do we let ourselves feel guilty when we're doing something we love? I find I miss fly fishing as if it were a treasured friend.I return to my list, New Year's Resolutions 2016. For number one I write, FISH.