When the Fog Hid More Than the Shoreline

The thermometer read 48°F when I backed my truck into the Misty River boat ramp. Dawn hadn't cracked, but the smell of damp pine needles and gasoline already clung to my flannel. My lucky spinnerbait clinked in the tackle box - the one with the chipped paint that out-fished every shiny new lure last season.

By 6:15 AM, fog swallowed the river bends whole. My line kept snagging on phantom branches. 'Should've brought the braid,' I muttered, watching another monofilament leader snap. That's when the water erupted 20 feet off starboard. Not the polite *bloop* of a feeding trout, but the cannonball splash of something that wanted trouble.

Three casts with a Carolina rig got ignored. On the fourth, the rod doubled over like it'd been hooked to a freight train. 'You want to run? Let's run,' I hissed, thumbing the spinning reel's drag. For eight breathless minutes, the fish danced me through curtains of mist until we both emerged gasping - me with bleeding knuckles, it with rainbow scales glittering like spilled mercury.

The fog burned off by noon. I never did see the far shore.