I've been thinking a lot, or a least a lot more than I used to, about one of the more personal elements of a fly fisherman's existence. Maybe it's all the traveling I do, from Yellowstone up to the Canadian border, then to the east side of Montana, then back to Yellowstone country, then to New York to see my family, or to Atlanta, or Denver, or San Francisco, or any of the dozens of places that my profession seems to send me to on a regular basis. I've become, in my middle age, the wandering fisherman. Still, all this movement has helped me focus in on something that most people take for granted - the idea of home water.

A few years ago it was all the rage, especially in some of the fly fishing publications, for writers to talk about the concept of fishing as religion. It sounded good, with the constant references to personal enlightenment, ecstasy, higher planes and all that sort of stuff, but to be honest I never bought into it. Fishing, no matter how good it is, is just fishing. It's not orgasmic or mystical or cosmic. And when you think about it, the idea of achieving enlightenment through fooling some poor creature into eating something it shouldn't is just plain silly. If that's all it took, the people who own McDonald's and Burger King would be Dali Lamas.

What is true, though, is that if we're lucky enough, we can fish in awe inspiring places. I believe it was John Muir who said, "If I'm going to worship God, let it be in a temple he built with his own hands." Some of the finest temples I've ever seen have been rivers or lakes or streams, and while they were occasionally so far back in the woods that nobody fished them regularly, in most cases they were somebody's home water.

Despite the fact that the internet is lousy with grip-and-grin shots with snowy shores lurking behind the angler, I'm often shocked to hear how many fly fishermen consider wintertime 'tying season'. In other words, the waders, boots, rods and reels get stowed for the season, and the vice gets a workout. It is as if these anglers imagine that trout spend their winters in hibernation, rousing in the spring when the hatches start to go off. Of course this is not the case, trout feed throughout the winter, albeit at a slower pace than they do in warmer seasons.

So, rest assured, there are trout to be caught all year long. Whether the temperature is 40 degrees or 14 degrees, trout will be feeding. Air temperature will almost certainly play a larger role in whether you decide to leave warm, dry confines of your home than whether or not the trout are feeding. However, despite the fact that fish will feed and take flies throughout the winter, there are definitely changes in a fish's behavior as winter and its cooler temperatures takes hold, and the angler should adjust his or her approach accordingly.