Having set up camp for the night and made their initial casts, Tim and Rachel Schwipps and Jessica and Ben Schwipps relax by a sandbar campfire while waiting for the fish to bite.

In the Deam Wilderness Area of the Hoosier National Forest, a bunch of guys from central Indiana gather every year to hike down to Lake Monroe and fix a fine meal in the woods, sleep in tents, then hike out exhausted the next morning.

I've been with them as they argue about GPS units and how far away from the trail qualifies as "lost;" and they tell tales about new babies, new wives and new cars. Other times, I've come across lone hikers looking for a place to put up a three-season tent, reveling in the weather that makes a sweat-soaked shirt soon turn to frigid madness.