The Hill-Vue Cafe in Lewiston, New York, was the author's last taste of warmth before chasing steelhead on the Niagara River in 8-below wind chills.

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If Captain Ernie Calandrelli was thinking it was too cold to fish, he never said it out loud. He just kept toying with the throttle on his boat at the ramp, waiting for something to happen.

"We don't have any gears right now," he said. "I think it needs to warm up some more."

Less than an hour earlier, Calandrelli, my uncle Bud Wooley and I had been enjoying hot pancakes, even hotter coffee and the warmth of the Hill-Vue Cafe. Now Wooley and I gripped the dock lines of Calandrelli's Lund that were frozen solid as crowbars. The idea of motoring into the ice-laden Niagara River in a boat that may lose it's forward and reverse at any time was slightly unsettling.

"One thing's for sure," Calandrelli said. "If we can get out, we will catch steelhead."