In previous entries, I’ve discussed the inherent misery of winter fishing. Snow. Sleet.  There is ice on the water, and ice in your guides. The air is cold enough to freeze beer; even the pines seem to shiver in the wind. This is especially true if you’re fishing “out there,” in the snow belt, just a few short miles from Lake Ontario.  As a knuckle-headed, February flyflinger, one’s only real consolation when knee deep in New York’s Salmon River is that the fish are cold too. I imagine they must be so cold – in fact – that they’re precisely one step removed from the box of fish sticks you fed the kids at lunch.

Regardless, intrepid bugchuckers will gird up their loins and make the two, four or six hour drive to the river, all in the hopes of hooking – maybe even catching – a mirror bright steelhead.