When the Fog Betrayed My Lures

3:17AM. The digital clock's glow illuminated the half-packed tackle box as my coffee steamed up the truck windows. Lake Champlain's eastern shore was whispering promises of smallmouth bass, though the fluorocarbon line coiled in my pocket felt unusually heavy with doubt.

Dawn arrived as thick as pea soup. My boots crunched on frost-heaved docks while loon cries sliced through the mist. I chuckled at the orange popper tied on my line - my grandfather's 'foolproof' lure that hadn't caught anything since the Reagan administration.

First cast: silence. Tenth cast: a half-hearted nibble. By noon, even the seagulls had stopped circling my boat. I was re-tying a Carolina rig when the fog suddenly lifted, revealing dancing mayflies two coves west. The water there rippled with ominous swirls.

'You seeing this?' I muttered to empty air, already hearing my brother's voice: 'Never abandon a spot before the thirteenth cast.' The eleventh cast hooked nothing. The twelfth snagged. The thirteenth...

Something primal yanked my rod tip downward. The drag screamed like a banshee as 50 yards of braided line vaporized. For three glorious minutes, time dissolved into palm burns and brackish spray. The smallmouth that finally surfaced could've eaten my coffee thermos.

As I released her, a mayfly landed on my trembling thumb. We both watched the fog creep back in, wiser than before.