Prairieschooner, I grew up in New England and I can still remember counting down the days until fishing season opened. My birthday is in the first week of April, so I always asked for fishing stuff for my birthday and I would spend hours sharpening hooks etc. making sure that I was ready for opening day which was near the end of April. Now, living in the South, it's fishing all year and actually catching most days you go out unless we get one of our rare snow storms where it actually snows and gets in the low teens. We're still having what I consider to be a January thaw, but I'm quite sure our time will come with temps in the teens at least a couple of more times before winter gives up, usually in mid-late March.

Jim Smith