When the Marsh Whispered Secrets

Three cups of coffee couldn't wash away the swamp's midnight chorus as my airboat sliced through pea-green water. The September chill bit through my flannel shirt, carrying the tang of decaying cypress knees. I patted the worn spinnerbait in my vest pocket - the same one that failed me last season at Lake Kissimmee.

'You're chasing ghosts,' my buddy Jake had laughed when I mentioned the legendary snook sightings here. But now, watching mullet erupt like silver fireworks ahead, my polarized glasses revealed dark shapes swirling beneath duckweed. My first cast with the fluorocarbon line sent dragonflies scattering. Nothing.

By noon, the sun turned the boat deck into a griddle. I'd switched lures seven times when a gator's tail slap sprayed water across my rigging box. That's when I noticed the V-shaped ripples moving countercurrent. Heart pounding, I sent the spinnerbait sailing...

The strike nearly yanked the rod from my hands. Twenty yards of line screamed off the reel as the snook breached, sunlight glinting off its lateral line like liquid mercury. 'Not today,' I growled through clenched teeth, thumb burning against the spool. When I finally lipped the 34-inch beauty, its gills flared in protest.

As I released her, a mosquito found the sweet spot behind my ear. The marsh didn't care about trophies - just the ancient dance between predator and prey. Driving home, I realized my lucky lure wasn't in the tackle box. Must've fallen out during the fight. Maybe some other stubborn angler will need it more.