When the Fog Lifted

3:17 AM showed on my waterproof watch when the first mosquito found my ear. The St. Johns River breathed mist that clung to my beard like wet spiderwebs. I thumbed the fluorocarbon line instinctively, its familiar roughness anchoring me in the milky darkness.

'Should've brought the damn thermos,' I muttered, watching my popper lure disappear into the soup-like fog. Three hours in, my cooler held nothing but melted ice and regret. Then the surface rippled – not the lazy circles of feeding bream, but the sharp 'V' of something predatory.

The strike came as the sun burned through the haze. My baitcasting reel screeched like a startled heron. For seven breathless minutes, the redfish painted orange arcs across the mirror-flat water, its tail slaps echoing like gunshots. When I finally lipped it, dawn's first light gilded its copper scales.

Sometimes I think we don't find fish – they choose to find us. Right when we stop watching the clock.