When the Fog Held Its Breath

3:47AM. My thermos clicks shut as the first mourning dove begins its lament. The truck bed shivers with every tungsten weight I rearrange, each metallic clink echoing across the sleeping neighborhood. By the time I reach the old timber dock, dawn's blush has stained the horizon bloody.

The lake wore a corset of mist so thick I could taste its dampness. My first cast with a swimbait vanished into the pearl-gray void. For ninety minutes, the fog played puppeteer - making lily pads dance like bass shadows, turning floating sticks into dorsal fins. 'Should've brought the damn depth finder,' I muttered, spitting sunflower seed shells into the void.

When the sun finally tore through, the water blinked awake. A vee-shaped ripple appeared near submerged timber. My wrist flicked automatically, the frog lure plopping precisely...then nothing. Three casts. Five. On the eighth, the explosion shattered the morning. Line screamed through my fingers as a bronze-backed leviathan breached, showering me in liquid diamonds.

In the trembling silence afterward, I noticed my pliers had fallen overboard. The fish took my best lure too. Didn't matter. Some debts are worth paying.