When Catfish Don't Care About Schedules

3AM coffee tastes like diesel fumes and regret. My boots squelched in the Mississippi mud as Alex and I launched the jon boat, our headlamps cutting through fog so thick it could bottle moonlight. The braided line felt unnervingly slick between my fingers - I'd forgotten my lucky fishing gloves again.

'Think they'll bite before the storm?' Alex nodded toward distant lightning. Our usual spot smelled of wet oak and decomposing hopes. For two hours, our stink bait sat untouched while bullfrogs croaked insults from the bank.

Then my rod tip twitched. Not the tentative nibble of channel cats, but something primal. The drag screamed as 40-pound fury dove for a submerged tree. 'Snagged?' Alex grabbed the net. 'Snagged don't fight back,' I grunted, forearm muscles burning.

When the beast surfaced, its whiskers glistened like barbed wire. We measured it against the boat's bench - longer than my leg. As I released the old warrior, thunder finally cracked. Raindrops tattooed the water where he vanished. Alex grinned, holding up two empty bait buckets. 'Worth missing the game for?'