When the Fog Clung to My Spool

4:17AM. My thermos hissed as I tightened the cap, its steam mingling with the ghostly mist rising from Lake Champlain. The spinning reel felt colder than usual against my palm - a tactile reminder that spring mornings here bite harder than smallmouth bass.

By sunrise I'd already missed three strikes. 'Maybe the chartreuse trailer was wrong,' I muttered, watching a loon dive where my jerkbait had just failed. My lucky walleye charm, a worn 1982 quarter, felt heavy in my breast pocket. The fog thickened until my depth finder's blips became constellations in green static.

Then it happened - that electric thrum through braided line that every angler dreams of. The rod arched like a cathedral door handle. 'Not another snag,' I prayed, but the headshakes told the truth. For eight breathless minutes, the smallmouth used current and cunning, twice nearly wrapping my fluorocarbon leader around submerged timber.

When I finally lipped her, dawn broke through in shafts. The quarter fell from my pocket as I knelt to release the fish. It landed heads up, glinting beside ripples that could've been laughter.