When the Fog Lifted

The predawn chill bit through my flannel shirt as I stepped onto the dock, my boots echoing like gunshots in the still morning. Lake Martin's surface wore a quilt of mist so thick it swallowed my headlamp's beam. I tightened the drag on my spinning reel out of habit, the fluorocarbon line whispering through the guides with familiar promise.

'Should've brought the thermal socks,' I muttered, watching my breath swirl with the fog. The first casts with my jerkbait produced only phantom strikes - maybe minnows, maybe wishful thinking. By sunrise, the caffeine wore off and my optimism sank like a bad rig.

Then the fog bank rippled. Not from wind, but something beneath. My hands remembered before my brain did, automatically clipping on a swim jig in ghost shad. The lure vanished mid-retrieve, the rod doubling over so fast it nearly kissed the water. For three glorious minutes, the world shrank to singing line and throbbing rod grip.

When the smallmouth finally surfaced, sunlight pierced the fog in golden shafts. Its bronze flanks glowed like molten metal as I slipped the hook free. The fish's tail slap sent concentric rings through the lingering mist as it vanished - my watch alarm beeping lunch hour across the empty lake.