When the Fog Hid Tomorrow

The predawn chill seeped through my flannel shirt as I launched the kayak into glassy water. Somewhere beyond the curtain of pea soup fog, smallmouth bass were chasing spinnerbait near the rocky drop-off - or so yesterday's fish finder promised. My thermos of coffee left bitter warmth on my tongue, a familiar anchor in the shifting mist.

First casts sliced through water the color of liquid mercury. The fluorocarbon line hissed through my fingers, colder than the August morning warranted. By the sixth retrieve, muscle memory faltered. 'Maybe the smallies moved deeper?' My whisper hung suspended in the dense air.

Noon found me picking seaweed from my lure for the twelfth time when the fog lifted like theater curtains. Sunlight revealed concentric rings exploding behind my kayak - not from my casts, but from something surfacing. Heart hammering, I sent the spinnerbait arcing toward the commotion.

The strike bent my rod into a question mark. Twenty yards of line disappeared in seconds, drag screaming like a teakettle. When I finally gripped the bronze-flanked warrior, its gills pulsed against my palm in time with my racing pulse. The release left glittering scales stuck to my lucky baseball cap - the one with the permanent fishhook scar through the brim.

Paddling shoreward through re-forming fog, I realized the lake never reveals its next act until you've already turned the page.