When the Fog Lifted at Lost Lake

My thermos slipped from numb fingers, clanging against the aluminum boat floor. Dawn's first light struggled through pea-soup fog that erased the shoreline I'd memorized last season. I chuckled, imagining my fishing partner Dave snoring in his warm bed – he'd called me crazy for chasing smallmouth in this November chill.

The jigging spoon felt alien in my stiff hands as I began the rhythm: three hops, pause, repeat. My grandfather's tarnished Zippo lighter burned a hole in my pocket – never used, but always carried for luck. By the tenth cast, eyelashes had collected frost crystals and the silence felt heavy enough to drown in.

Something changed at 7:23AM. The fog thinned just enough to reveal concentric rings near the submerged cedar skeleton. My next cast landed with surgical precision. The line twitched once... twice... then screamed sideways like a scalded cat.

Eight pounds of bronze fury cartwheeled through the icy air, braided line singing a high-pitched aria against the morning quiet. When the net finally closed around the smallmouth, I noticed three parallel scars across its flank – battle marks from some forgotten pike attack. It stared up with the same incredulous expression I'd worn when proposing to my wife.

The fog returned as suddenly as it left, swallowing my triumphant shout. But the Zippo burned warm against my thigh all the way home.