Well, in my neck of California, local streams are closed the last couple
months of the year to help the few remaining salmon survive. January One
reopens them and, "in a good year" the first month or so is the best of the
year locally, imho.

THIS year, my truck developed an on-again-off-again-hard-to-diagnose
alternator problem that kept me from fishing the first few days. As of
now, after some big storms, the local river is very high and muddy and
likely to remain that way for some time. Oh well.

I see posts on some other forums from guys in Colorado out fishing in the
snow ... the pictures of nice fish caught in beautiful surroundings look
like fun ( when viewed from the direct path of the warm air coming from the
furnace ;-)