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[Noahs Arc]

The thing about cold weather is not just the hands but that my fingers get cold and numb so that I can barely even tie knots properly. I assume that would still be an issue with fingerless gloves. Any possible sugestions?

Like I said in my post, instead of your hand just holding the rod like a meat hook, squeeze the cork every once and a while or while retrieving your line. Blood flow does wonders. There is no weather (aside from blow outs) that will keep me away from steelhead fishing.

[Ambassador]

I have 2 zippo handwarmers. I use them from time to time but overall not that impresses with them. Why? They are warm when you first remove from your pocket, and give a nice quick blast of heat. But then they cool off right away and need to go back in your pocket. They constantly permeate the stink of lighter fluid. If the little inner "cap" falls off it will go out!! I have extra heat tape on both of mine to keep that little dodad in place.

Overall i find the zippo handwarmers to be more hassle than good. For fishing in the rain id rather have my hands moderately warm all day wearing quality wool fingerless gloves, than freezing cold without them ans having the occasional blast of short lived heat from the zippo.

But to each their own. Im not big on the zippo and am gling to try something new.

Fair enough - I'm a bit of a warm-blooded guy and usually don't require constant heat - but there are those days...

I've had better luck with my Zippo staying hot. I find Ronsonol stinks but the Zippo brand is much cleaner. Damn straight about that inner cap - I was a bit surprised there was no little notch in there to keep it seated. I bent mine and it stays on ok now, but heat tape seems a good idea.

When I do need gloves - I've got a nice old pair of Burton Pipe gloves that make an appearance once or twice a year. If you can find a pair without too much of that sticky shite on the palms they are really good - and provide decent freedom of movement. Can even tie knots with them (albeit a fair bit more tricky) and fairly smoothly spool out line on my level-wind.

[Spawn Sack]

Like I said in my post, instead of your hand just holding the rod like a meat hook, squeeze the cork every once and a while or while retrieving your line. Blood flow does wonders. There is no weather (aside from blow outs) that will keep me away from steelhead fishing.

I prefer some soft music, wine, and dim lighting before I squeeze my cork. But what the heck I'll try it on the river next time out on a cold day.

Fair enough - I'm a bit of a warm-blooded guy and usually don't require constant heat - but there are those days...

I've had better luck with my Zippo staying hot. I find Ronsonol stinks but the Zippo brand is much cleaner. Damn straight about that inner cap - I was a bit surprised there was no little notch in there to keep it seated. I bent mine and it stays on ok now, but heat tape seems a good idea.

When I do need gloves - I've got a nice old pair of Burton Pipe gloves that make an appearance once or twice a year. If you can find a pair without too much of that sticky shite on the palms they are really good - and provide decent freedom of movement. Can even tie knots with them (albeit a fair bit more tricky) and fairly smoothly spool out line on my level-wind.

I typically don't wear gloves either, but on a cold wet day I'm gloving up!

I'll try zippo brand lighter. I have a little bottle but I typically just burn that in my zippo lighter. I've been using the big bottle of Ronsonol in the hand warmer. Yeah it does stink a bit!

As far as my heat tape idea I just cut 2 thin strips about 1cm each and stuck them to either side of that inner cap thing. 1/2ish of the tape is on the cap and the other 1/2 is on the body of the hand warmer. You have to peel 1 side of the tape off to flip the cap back to get the lighter fluid in, but the tape seems to handle getting peeled and re-stuck over and over with no issues. Also good idea on putting a little bend in the cap for a better friction fit. Bottom line is the stock design is garbage! Several times I had cold hands, went to take out my hand warmer and that inner cap had popped off an the hand warmer was stone cold!

I ordered the buffalo wool fingerless gloves, buffalo/yack socks, and buffalo/merino socks online today. Excited to try them out on a cold crappy day on the river!

[Spawn Sack]

Pre tie leaders onto snap swivels?

To each their own, but for me I do not like this idea. For one there are too many possible points of failure. By this I mean you have your barrel swivel on your mainline before the leader, now you are adding a snap swivel to that, and then there is a barrel swivel connected to that too! Too busy, too much going on, too many moving parts that could fail IMO. A better alternative I think is to have a duo-lock swivel pre-tied onto a leader(s) and just snap that onto your mainline barrel swivel.

I tried this for a bit of a steelhead season and got away from it. I didn't like having the leader length preset. Depending on the water I'm fishing I many want a 12" leader, or I may want an 18" leader. Or somewhere in between. I didn't like, say I decide to fish a jig, but I pre-ied the leader at A length, but now I want it at B length. I found I was dicking around with my gear just as much as with not using the duo-locks.

I've gone back to tying my leaders directly to the mainline swivel and I prefer it this way. Simple, looks good, less moving parts to potentially fail with an epic steelhead on the hook.

[Spawn Sack]

Glove update/review: I've had the fingerless buffalo wool gloves out in the rain + cold 3 times now. Most recently yesterday. WOW! Are they ever nice and warm! Even in the cold wet my exposed fingers were not much of an issue as the gloves were trapping so much heat. Also rain seemed to just bead and sit on top of the wool. A quick flick of the hand and most of the water just flung off. When I took them off after a few hours of rain fishing they were only a bit damp. Pretty awesome stuff. I didn't have a regular wool glove to wear on one hand and the buffalo on the other, so I can't really do a fair head-to-head comparison. But I'm pretty sure they beat out sheep's wool for warmth and water shedding. HUGE diff between the buffalo wool and the Simms windstopper gloves with the fold over mitts. They just become wet diapers after an hour or so in the wet.

The buffalo is expensive, but IMO worth the $.