I have this good friend who's a good fisherman, but he's not a fishing buddy.
We know each other through the Olympics: me covering them and him making sure I have the information and athlete access I need.
We spend hours standing around in the cold, trading fishing stories as athletes on luge sleds and bobsleds whiz by at 70 mph. It makes the time go faster.
Every so often, we trade pictures. We jokingly call it fish porn. It helps us get through the winter.
Jon Lundin, who lives in Lake Placid, home of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics, sent this one today. It will help me in the dark days of January and February. Next year, I hope we become fishing buddies, too.
Jon writes:
I went fishing a couple of weeks ago in Pulaski (on the Salmon River near Lake Ontario). I did well. This is the only one that I kept. I hooked onto 15 fish, landed 10, using a 4-pound tippet. This one weighed 28 pounds, so it took a while to land. I landed eight salmon and two steelhead and one of the steelhead broke my fly rod, so it was a pretty expensive trip. I'm trying to replace it now.
I'm telling you, you have to go on one of these trips and write about it... It's awesome and no one will believe that you can catch fish this big in such small rivers.
-- Jon L.