When the Reeds Whispered

The alarm clock blinked 3:47 AM in toxic green numerals. My fingers lingered on the cold spinning reel case - the one piece of gear I always packed last. Somewhere beyond the truck's fogged windows, Lake Kissimmee's bass were staging their morning rebellion against logic and fishing forecasts.

Dew-soaked spiderwebs clung to my waders as I waded into the familiar cove. The water smelled like wet limestone and disappointment, a scent I'd become intimately familiar with this season. Three casts in, something silver breached near the lily pads. 'Not today, old friend,' I muttered to the lake that had humbled me all summer.

By sunrise I'd cycled through every lure in my tackle box. The soft plastic worm now dangling from my rod felt like surrender. That's when the reeds started talking - not the normal cricket chorus, but a wet, slapping rhythm that made my sunburned neck prickle.

The strike came as my lure kissed a submerged cypress knee. Line screamed off the reel with the urgency of a fire alarm. For seven breathless minutes, the world narrowed to aching forearms and the metallic tang of drag washers overheating. When I finally lipped the eight-pound brute, its gills flared crimson in the newborn light.

Now the empty cooler in my truck mocks me. But the photo on my phone - of bubbles rising where that lunker disappeared - tells a different story. Sometimes the fish we release hook us deepest.