When the Swamp Came Alive

3:17AM showed on my battered Casio watch. The smell of damp cypress bark mixed with yesterday's coffee thermos residue as I poled the skiff through tea-colored water. My left thumb absently rubbed the fluorocarbon line spooled on the baitcaster - 15lb test that felt smoother than a blues guitarist's vibrato tonight.

'Should've brought the bug spray,' I muttered when a mosquito battalion discovered my ear canal. The third cast landed perfectly between two lily pad clusters. Nothing. Seventh cast. Twelfth. My topwater frog's rubber legs quivered mockingly in the moonlight.

Dawn's first blush turned the sky grapefruit pink when it happened. A wake rippled behind my lure that no gator ever made. Heartbeats thundered in my ears as I waited...waited...then exploded the rod tip upward. The water erupted like someone had tossed in a stick of dynamite.

Twenty yards of screaming drag later, I lip-landed the meanest 8lb bass ever to haunt this backwater. Its gills pulsed against my palm, smelling of swamp grass and dinosaur-era defiance. The release sent concentric rings spreading toward the rising sun - nature's perfect 'Until next time'.