We all have our own ways of judging just how tough we are as anglers. Some shoot raging rapids in a rigid drift boat just to fish seldom touched water, others will travel 14 hours on a plane to fish a remote piece of the Amazon River for rare species of bass, and still others will do battle with 30 other fishermen just for a shot at a silver salmon on the Russian River in Alaska. Here in the Hooked Up Films neck of the woods we test our metal by standing in frigid water in December in rain, that is only 1 degree shy of snow swinging flies in a monotonous rhythm again and again. We call it Steelheading.

Around here we gauge the level of psychosis commitment that an angler has by the number of these bone chilling days they log during the often rough Northwest Winters. This short film tries to capture this act of near insanity and, more importantly, explain why we do it. December 2011 was possibly the most mild December on recent record, but as luck would have it, we just happened to pick the 2 days of the month that were the most miserable. As as we all know, “Misery Loves Company”.