OUT THERE

IT’S 5 A.M. AND FEBRUARY in northern Vermont. Virtually all of New England is asleep and cozy in their houses, wisps of wood smoke slipping from their chimneys.

But not us. Norm and Marcel and I are in a dimly lit basement, in line with a bunch of other groggy and disheveled men, all of us clutching bait buckets. A guy in a T-shirt is standing behind a table with a minnow dipper in his hand and a