When the Fog Held Secrets

3:17AM according to my battered Casio. The cold seeped through my waders as I waded into the pea-soup fog of Lake Champlain. Somewhere beyond the halo of my headlamp, smallmouth bass were tearing through alewife schools – I could hear their predatory slaps echoing like gunshots in the stillness.

'Should've brought the spinnerbait,' I muttered, thumbing the worn plastic frog in my pocket. My fishing partner Rick's laughter cut through the mist: 'That's your fourth bait change. The bass are taking notes!'

Dawn came as a gray smudge. My line jumped – not with a strike, but a waterlogged branch. I was reeling it in when the fog lifted just enough to reveal concentric rings near a submerged timber. Three casts with the frog got nothing. On the fourth, the water exploded in a shower of golden scales.

The bass fought like it had personal grudges. My braided line sang against the rocks as it tried to wrap itself around the timber. When I finally lipped the 21-inch smallmouth, its gills flared crimson against the fog – a living ember in the gloom.

By noon the lake was crystalline, the magic dissolved. But somewhere in my tackle box, that chewed-up frog still smells of victory and fog.