When Moonlight Tasted Like Catfish

3:17AM. The dashboard clock's neon glow illuminated my thermos of bitter coffee as I coasted down the levee road, tires crunching over oyster shells. Mississippi humidity clung to my skin like wet velvet, carrying the musk of decaying cypress stumps. My grandfather's lucky spinnerbait rattled in the tackle box - its red paint chipped from thirty years of nighttime battles.

The oxbow lake lay still as black mercury. Wading in waist-deep, the cool water shocked my system awake. 'Should've worn waders,' I muttered, feeling a crawdad scuttle over my submerged boot. First cast sailed beneath Orion's belt, the glow-in-the-dark jig plopping with barely a ripple.

Two hours. Four missed strikes. My neon line glowed faintly against the obsidian water. 'Last cast,' I promised, shoulders burning - then felt the electric tug of something primordial. The rod doubled as the beast surged toward submerged roots. Braided line sang through guides, my fingertips raw from the dance.

When moonlight finally revealed the whiskered warrior, we both paused - me breathless, it defiant. The release felt like returning a fallen star to the sky. Dawn's first blush found me grinning, river mud crusted in my hair, still tasting midnight's victory.