When the River Decided to Dance

3:17AM blinked on my watch as the truck tires crunched over gravel. The familiar tang of dew-soaked pine needles filled my nostrils when I stepped out at Rockfish Creek. My trusty swimbait rattled in its tackle box like a promise waiting to be kept.

Moonlight silvered the water where smallmouth bass should've been chasing shad. But the flow felt different tonight - slower, almost drowsy. Three casts produced nothing but algae clinging to my line. 'Should've brought the spinnerbaits,' I muttered, wiping fog from my polarized lenses.

Dawn arrived as a pink smear behind the ridges when it happened. The current hiccupped. Riffles downstream suddenly went glassy smooth while upstream developed nervous dimples. My fluorocarbon line started singing sideways before I felt the strike.

Rod bent double, drag screaming like a banshee. 'She's using the eddies!' I shouted to no one, boots sliding on mossy rocks. The smallmouth breached in a shower of liquid diamonds, its bronze flank glinting as it shook its head. When I finally lipped the 21-inch warrior, my knees left imprints in the riverbank clay.

Driving home, I kept glancing at the rearview mirror. The creek now chattered happily behind me, its secret rhythms still pulsing in my sunburned wrists.