When the Reeds Whispered Secrets

Dawn broke like an egg yolk smearing across the sky as I waded into the shallows. The water grass area hummed with mosquito symphony, their wings catching orange slivers of sunrise. My waders sucked at the mud with every step - that peculiar shlurp every marsh fisherman knows by heart.

'Should've brought the damn bug spray,' I muttered, swatting at my neck. Three casts in, my spinning reel jammed with aquatic confetti. Duckweed. Always the damn duckweed.

Then I saw it - a nervous V-shape rippling through the coffee-colored water. My hands forgot their mosquito bites. The Texas-rigged worm landed with a plop that sounded criminal in the morning hush. Two twitches. Then the line came alive like a struck power cable.

Twenty yards into my backing, the bass erupted in a silver cartwheel. Its gills flared crimson against the green reeds. For one suspended moment, man and fish regarded each other - mutual thieves of the morning's peace.