Midnight Whispers on the Columbia

Moonlight silvered the river's bend where my waders kissed the current. I'd been lured here by rumors of chrome-bright steelhead, though my fluorocarbon line remained taut with anticipation rather than triumph. Three hours without a nibble, coffee in my thermos gone cold as the December air.

'Should've brought the glow sticks,' I muttered, thumb tracing the chip in my favorite casting rod. That's when the water coughed - not a splash, but that peculiar gulp-thump hybrid sound every angler memorizes. My glow-in-the-dark jig hit the black water just upstream from the ripple.

The strike nearly yanked the rod from my frozen hands. Line screamed through guides like a tea kettle left too long, my backing showing for one heart-stopping moment. 'Easy now,' I crooned, though whether to the fish or my trembling knees, I couldn't say. Twenty yards downstream, the steelhead breached - a quicksilver arc dripping moonlight.

When I finally cradled its cold majesty, river fog had swallowed the shoreline. The gills flared once, twice, before it vanished like mercury through fingers. My empty net swayed in the current, heavier than any catch.