The weather's usually nasty – cold with a raw wind that seems to blow from every direction, regardless of which way you're facing. The fast-flowing water is often the color of polished steel with a hint of greenish hue. Fingers that were so nimble when tying knots on tiny hooks the night before now struggle just to grasp the zipper and pull it higher on your winter parka. It must be the opening day of trout season in "upstate" New York.

Many of us older anglers recognized the irony when the DEC changed the statewide trout opener from the traditional second Saturday in April, to April First ... or April Fool's Day. It wasn't so much the earliness, since anytime during the first two weeks in April can bring snotty weather, but the unintentional humor of the move. Seeing a diehard angler fishing a trout stream in a snowstorm was funny enough, but now he had a name. Saner individuals passing by in the warmth of their vehicles could now point, laugh and say, "There's another 'April Fool.'"