ON THE BRULE RIVER, Wis. -- A lot of Brule River steelheaders rose before dawn Saturday wondering if they'd find trees encased in ice and skating rinks for streets. But the freezing rain held off just enough to allow hundreds of anglers to make their annual migration to the Brule's early steelhead opener on Saturday.

They found the forest intact, winter's snow but a memory and the river in good shape. And some of them found steelhead, too.

Pickups choked angler parking lots along the river, which opened to trout and salmon fishing from U.S. Highway 2 north to Lake Superior on Saturday. Jarrod Novotny of Duluth, Minn., had made the pilgrimage. He hadn't caught a fish by midmorning, but he was happy and hip-deep in the Brule below Wisconsin County Highway FF. The river was a little high and was carrying some color, and Novotny liked it.

"Beautiful. Perfect. Conditions are optimum," Novotny said during a break from his fly fishing. "I think it's right on the money, and fish are starting to come."

One of his partners, Mike Whitman, had taken a small brown trout. Another partner, Joel Lobbestael, had caught a small steelhead and a small brown. Zach Sundberg had taken steelhead of 20 and 24 inches.

On the Brule, a steelhead - or migratory Lake Superior rainbow trout - must be 26 inches to keep, and an angler may keep only one of them. But most anglers who caught legal steelhead Saturday put them back anyway.

Brad Biser, a conservation warden with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources at Brule, was checking anglers up and down the river Saturday.

"There's a lot of people," Biser said. "With the weather conditions, I'm not surprised. The water is fishable. The ice is out at the mouth, so the fish should be coming up."

More than 7,000 steelhead came up the Brule last fall and wintered over, according to the DNR. They're recorded on videotape when they pass the Brule River Lamprey Barrier. Dave Mueller of Chippewa Falls, Wis., had intercepted a few of those migrants early Saturday morning.

"I got more fish this morning in an hour than I got all last year," Mueller said. "I caught three steelhead over 20 inches and three about this size."

He held his hands about a foot apart. Mueller had been drifting a spawn bag under a bobber in a stretch of slow water below Highway FF.

Whitman, fishing below Highway FF, was making his first trip to the Brule as a fly angler.

"I've always been a spincast fisherman," he said, "Then I took a fly-tying class at the Great Lakes Fly Co. this winter, just for something to do, and (owner) John (Fehnel) got me excited about this."

At midday, Bill Ronchi of Lake Nebagamon, Wis., was headed for his pickup with a leaky wader. Fishing had been good enough that it was hard for him to leave. He had hooked four steelhead and landed two. His son Grant, 22, had hooked three steelhead and landed two. One of them was over 25 inches.

Action was somewhat slower at Pine Tree Landing, off the Dead End road.

John Maher had hooked four fish, but hadn't landed one.

"I haven't seen many fish at all," he said.

Jason Graber had scouted that stretch of river on Friday, the day before the opener, and had gone home optimistic.

"There were fish laying in here all over," he said. "One spot, you could see eight fish."

Graber had hooked one small brown trout and one small steelhead, he said. He was using yarn flies.

Below Mays Ledges, Bill Fleischman was back for another Brule opener, too. He hadn't touched a fish by late morning, but he was glad to be thigh-deep in the river.