When the Fog Hid Tomorrow

Three cups of coffee couldn't burn through the marsh fog clinging to my eyelids as I launched the jon boat. The St. Johns River breathed mist that morning, swallowing my headlamp's beam whole. My fingers found the familiar notches on the spinning reel - the same Shimano that survived last summer's tarpon disaster.

'Should've brought the thermos,' I muttered, watching breath crystallize on the rod tip. First casts plopped like stones in liquid mercury. By sunrise, my wacky rig's neon pink worm looked absurd against the primordial swamp. A gator's cough echoed from the mist.

Then it came - the liquid thunder. Something massive rolled in the lily pads twenty feet west. My Senko hit the ripples just as the fog lifted, revealing armored backs breaking the surface. Gar. A whole battalion.

The strike nearly yanked the rod from my hands. Forty-pound braid sang as it sliced through duckweed. When the longnose finally surfaced, its needle teeth glittered like cracked porcelain. We stared at each other, ancient predator and temporary captor, before I snipped the leader.

Drifting home, I realized gar don't fight - they simply refuse to acknowledge the hook. The river's secrets dissolve like morning mist, leaving only tomorrow's fog to hold new promises.