Here's how the month of November is summed up: No sun, no moon, no stars, No-vember.

Or, more poetically:

That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold;
Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
Sonnet 73

That Willie Shakespeare! He had a way wit' woids, yeah?

Some of my favorite times in the Maine woods were November days, none of them having anything to do with fishing. They were days when I would rise before dawn, layer myself in long-johns, sweaters, red wool hat and coat, and tramp through The Bog in search of whitetail deer. In those days I was both a hunter and a smoker, and loved the aroma of tobacco smoke in the cold air. Parts of The Bog had once been farmed, and ancient apple trees of lost variety, now part of the regrown forest, still bore small tart fruit which gave extra tang to the purity of the air and the chill of the day.

I gave up smoking and hunting at the same time, so now when November comes around my thoughts usually center on fishing, on the season just ended and the one in the distant future, seen through eyes watering in a frigid northwest wind. Warm at my desk I think, "This year I'll go flyfishing in November, and maybe even in December." There are waters that remain open, waters with fine populations of trout, but I have yet to venture forth from my heated sanctuary into the icy waters of winter angling. But I am determined to do it. I mean, if there are legal waters to fish, why don't I go fishing? What's stopping me?

Pain, mostly. I know my toes will go numb, my fingers will freeze, my rod guides will ice up, and I will wonder what sort of insanity I have come down with that brought me to a river in November.

But there will be days, I know, when the wind is benign and the sun is shining and the thermometer rises to September heights, and this year when that day comes I will go fishing. Just yesterday a fellow angler reminded me of the big broodfish, 18-to-20-inch brown trout, that are stocked into local waters after their happy days at the hatchery are over, and how they are tough to catch but will surely go for a tiny midge drifted just so. Yes, this is the year for November fishing. For sure.

I think.