MEREDITH, N.H. - Nearly every winter weekend, June Sidney rises before dawn streaks this picture-postcard town on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. She fills five thermoses with coffee, assembles lunch supplies, dons her long underwear, snow pants and parka, and grabs her fishing pole. Down the road, her sister-in-law, Suzanne Taggett, is doing much the same.

It's five minutes by snowmobile or four-wheeler through the woods and onto their favorite cove, frozen now in a winter still life. There, from the middle of the pine-framed lake, the women drop their lines and wait for a bite. So what if it's a little cold? If the fish are there, so are the women. They have a couple of shacks, or bobhouses, right there on the ice, complete with propane heater for shelter and warmth.

"But we're really not inside much," says Sidney, 41. read more