When the River Whispered at Midnight

Moonlight silvered the mist rising from the Deschutes River as I waded into the cold current. My football jig box rattled like a ghost's maracas when I knelt to retie – third time tonight. 'Should've stayed home,' I grumbled, watching a barn owl skim the water where the steelhead supposedly lurked.

By 1 AM, even the coyotes had stopped laughing at me. Then it happened: a faint tap-tap through the line that froze my coffee-numbed fingers. The rod arched violently when I set the hook, braided line singing as the unseen beast torpedoed downstream. For twenty breathless minutes, we danced – me scrambling over slick rocks, it peeling drag like Christmas ribbon.

When moonlight finally revealed the 32-inch hen steelhead in my net, her gills pulsed like a metronome keeping time with my pounding heart. The river's chuckle followed me home, whispering that sometimes the best conversations happen when everyone else is asleep.