When the Reel Sings at Dawn

The alarm clock glowed 4:27 AM as my fingers already tingled with anticipation. Through the cabin’s moth-eaten curtains, moonlight silvered the restless surface of Lake Michigan. I tightened the drag on my spinning reel, its familiar whir momentarily drowned by a loon’s mournful cry.

“Should’ve brought the heavier line,” I muttered, eyeing the swaying bulrushes that swallowed the shoreline. My waders squeaked as I trudged through dew-soaked grass, the smell of algae and damp earth sharp in the crisp air. First cast sent concentric rings racing toward a half-submerged log. Nothing. The fifth? A baby perch that slipped free before reaching my net.

By 6:15 AM, coffee sloshed bitter in my thermos. The spinning reel’s protests grew louder with each fruitless retrieve. “One last drift,” I promised the skeptical bluegill circling my boots. The crawfish-colored crankbait landed with a plop that startled a heron into flight.

Then - resistance. Not the tentative nibbles of panfish, but a sustained pull that bowed my rod into a trembling crescent. The reel’s scream echoed off limestone bluffs as 17-pound test line sliced through duckweed. When the smallmouth finally broached, sunrise gilded its bronze flanks like liquid amber.

Kneeling in shallows, I cradled the gasping warrior. Gills flared once, twice, before it vanished in a swirl of silt and golden light. Somewhere beyond the lily pads, another reel began to sing.