The first fish was a fat palomino. They’re bright anyway. Too bright. Unnaturally bright. Genetically modified bright, in fact. This one came out from underneath a tangled mess of roots against the bank to nail a small white streamer. Palominos get picked on. This fish had apparently had enough and it took it out on my fly. The muted orange and yellow from the tannic water hid the brilliance of the hatchery monster. I’d caught palominos before, but never in the middle of a dark winter day. The fish shone like the sun.

But I’ve got too much pride as a fly fisher to go on too much about palominos.

The next few fish weren’t caught on the little white streamer. They fell prey to a #28 cream midge. Certain times of the year I have to fish dry flies. It is a period that begins in January and extends right up until after Christmas. And the smaller, the better. I figure there is some kind of advantage to tying on something most other anglers are too smart to mess with in frigid temperatures. Get noticed by standing out in the crowd. Which, in this instance, means blending in with all the real bugs. It is a bit of a contradiction. But fish aren’t smart enough to pronounce “oxymoron” – let alone grasp the concept.

Faint  flurries overlaying moving water is about the perfect visual cue for hypnosis. Add in tracing a minute floating bit of hackle and you’re basically forcing your eyes to do what is required when decoding a Magic Eye picture. Focus, but not too much. Look somewhere between the horizontally falling snow and the laterally flowing water. Don’t fall over, because the water is also very very cold.

Catching fish (even palominos) is the key to keeping warm on cold days. All the talk about layers and clothing and fancy fabrics is for people who can’t catch fish. Nothing warms the body like trout after trout. A wet hand untangling a snag is miserable. A wet hand unhooking a flopping brown trout is sublime.

Another way to keep warm is to not catch fish. This is best accomplished by moving around a lot. Walking heats you up quite a bit. So does drinking coffee in a restaurant. Your chances of hooking up with anything while walking or sitting in a coffee shop are equally slim. Wisdom would say to go the whole way and just take  a break. This is what I did after a half hour or so of silence from the fish.

Recharged, I drove back to the stream. I walked through the snow. I lamented my rubber-soled boots. They worked very well. They weren’t as fun as felt. A platform-shoe formed out of snow allows one to live out their glam-rock fantasies. Unless you have remarkably understanding friends and family, alone in the woods is the best way to do such things.

The last fish of the waning light was a big rainbow. It came up from the bottom to swallow my little white streamer. It was in the first pool I waded into; and it struck after only a few casts. In fly fishing, it is often hard to ascertain when  you’re skilled and when you’re lucky. When the weather is hovering around freezing, it is easiest to just split things down the middle and call it good. It is also nice to catch that last fish of the day before hypothermia sets in.