When Moonlight Bites Back

Three cricket chirps past midnight found me knee-deep in swampgrass, spinnerbaits clinking like drunken windchimes on my tackle belt. The air smelled of fermented cypress needles and something primal – that metallic tang when predators start clocking in. Hank's voice rasped from the shadows: 'You sure Bandy ain't followed us?' Our flashlight beams danced over gator slides, revealing what every Southern night fisherman knows – darkness here breathes.

My lucky silver dollar (worn smooth from 217 trips) burned against my thigh as I whipped a chatterbait toward lily pad constellations. The retrieve began as textbook – rod tip twitching like a nervous dowser's stick. Then...nothing. Five casts. Ten. My line hissed through guides gone gritty with dried shad scales. 'Toss that relic,' Hank snorted, waving his glow-in-dark Senko. The water answered with a slurping kiss.

Sudden weight nearly snapped my fluorocarbon line. The rod bowed like Excalibur's scabbard as something primal surged toward submerged logs. 'Musky!' Hank whooped, but the headshakes felt wrong – too rhythmic. Moonlight revealed Bandy the raccoon wrapped in my braid, stolen grub tail dangling from his smirk. We stared at nature's perfect thief until dawn painted the sky bruised peach, our laughter scaring up herons like living punctuation marks.

No fish. No regrets. Just another chapter where the lake teaches what tackle boxes never hold: sometimes the best strikes come when you're rigged for disappointment.