When Moonlight Bites Back

3:17AM. The thermometer on my old Coleman cooler read 54°F, but my breath still fogged in the moonlight. I was wading through the Mississippi backwater where catfish stack up like cordwood in late October. My braided line hummed with the current's secrets as I cast toward a submerged logjam.

'Should've brought the heavier rod,' I muttered, feeling the 20-pound test slip through my calloused fingers. For two hours, the only action came from bullfrogs cannonballing off lily pads. Then - that telltale tap-tap-tap. Not the frantic pecks of panfish, but the methodical probing of something ancient.

When the rod doubled over, my headlamp died. In the sudden darkness, the river came alive - the stink of wet mud, the shriek of drag, the terrifying moment when 40 pounds of channel cat tried to wrap me around a cypress knee. At daybreak, I stood knee-deep in coffee-colored water holding a fish with teeth like railroad spikes. Its thrashing tail slapped my hip waders, leaving a mud tattoo that took three showers to remove.

The digital clock read 6:09AM when I finally stepped ashore. Three hours? Could've sworn I'd lived three lifetimes.