When the River Sang in Silver

Three cups of bitter coffee trembled in my gut as the truck tires crunched over frost-heaved gravel. October's first light was still two hours away, but the Savannah River doesn't care about human clocks. My waders squeaked with every step toward the familiar bend where jig heads usually found willing takers among the striped bass.

Fog clung to the water like phantom cotton. On my third cast, the line hesitated mid-drift - not the sharp tug of a striper, but the suspicious tremble of something... deliberate. 'Crappie?' I muttered, reeling in empty hooks. 'At dawn?' The river answered with concentric rings blooming where my lure had been.

By sunrise, my tackle box lay gutted across the rocks. Crankbaits, spoons, even the trusted spinnerbaits - all rejected. That's when the shad began dancing. A silver explosion upstream sent my heart racing. I rigged a white grub on the lightest jig, hands shaking not from cold but recognition. The strike came as the lure fluttered down, the rod arching toward water turned suddenly alive.

What followed wasn't a fight but a negotiation. Six pounds of muscle painted in mercury hues, tail slaps spraying diamonds in the peach-colored light. When the net finally closed around my prize, I noticed the scar - a pale crescent behind its gill plate. We'd met before, this fish and I, three seasons past. Her gills flared once in what I chose to believe was remembrance before she vanished into the tea-stained depths.

Driving home, I licked cracked lips tasting of river and regret. The best ghosts, I realized, are those that let themselves be caught twice.