When the Currents Held Their Breath

3:17AM read my waterproof watch as I stepped onto the marshy bank. The brackish smell of low tide clung to my waders, that peculiar mix of decaying seaweed and promise. My fluorocarbon line hissed through the guides - three casts already wasted on snagging oyster beds. 'Should've stayed in bed,' I muttered, watching a blue crab scuttle over my boot.

For forty-seven minutes, the only action came from diving terns. Then the water blinked. Not a swirl, but a sudden flattening where the creek mouth kissed the bay - that telltale glassy patch where redfish herd baitfish. My hands shook threading a new jighead. The lure plopped two feet ahead of the disturbance.

One twitch. Two. The line jumped alive, peeling sideways like a credit card through a gas station reader. The drag's scream startled a heron into flight. 'Don't you dare,' I growled as the fish surged toward a submerged piling. Salt spray stung my lips when it tail-walked at dawn's first blush, revealing copper scales brighter than a newly minted penny.