As far as I can recall, I’ve only really pressed my luck once when it has come to fly fishing in blizzards.

To be fair, I was fishing the Lake Erie tributaries. Not only are the lake effect weather patterns erratic, but combat fishing for steelhead* puts you in an unstable state of mind. After two days with moderate success with the trout, we woke to a report saying that the entire Northeast and Mid-Atlantic was going to be covered in snow. Immediately.

Bearing an implicit assumption that the media sensationalizes things, we thought we could get a morning of fishing in. By the time we waded into the river the visibility had dropped to a long double haul’s length. So we thought we could still get half a morning of fishing in.

Crawling down the interstate a few hours later, flanked by giant PennDOT salt trucks, we began to second guess our decision.

I survived, in case you were wondering.

The problem with making the call to fish or not fish when the threat of winter weather is lingering overhead is that it really is a risky proposition. On one hand, you could be in mortal peril because of fishing. On the other hand, the fishing could be really, really good.

When I lived on a trout stream, I leapt at the chance to see how the fish responded to weather. Hailstorm? Sounds like streamer weather. Tornado watch? I bet a bunch of terrestrials are going to get blown onto the water. Earthquake? Mice. Definitely fishing mice.

Fish respond in some crazy ways. The barometer does stuff to their appetite and tiny brains that we can’t exactly comprehend. I know a guy who swears by fishing poppers for trout right after a thunderstorm. No lie. Plus, the angling pressure drops significantly when the meteorologists get wrapped in a tizzy. The fish aren’t going to see as many flies. And, if you’re like most anglers, you ought to have a lot more confidence in your own fishing if you’ve got the river to yourself. So there is precedent in glancing towards what might be on the edge of threatening.

But I was never stupid enough to actually fish in a dangerous situation. Perhaps I flirted with jeopardy by watching the seconds tick by before I could cast after a lighting strike. Maybe I found a gauge that said the river was just below flood stage. If anyone questioned my behavior from an empirical standpoint, I would pass with flying colors by citing the letter of the law.

So when the weatherman puts up those big scary colorful map bands and recommends you stay inside for this latest Snowmageddon/Snowpocalypse/etc., at least  entertain that voice in your head that says “a few hours couldn’t hurt.” Just make sure you know what you’re doing. And that you have plenty of flies, warm clothes, a charged cell phone, emergency blanket, some road flares, a map to your whereabouts, an up-to-date will, clean underwear, and the resolve to disembowel and climb into a tauntaun if need be. Because the fishing could be really, really good.