The Lure of Twilight

Mosquitoes hummed their twilight symphony when I waded into the Susquehanna's shallows. My spinnerbait clinked against the tin of Altoids in my vest pocket – a quirk from twenty years of fishing these waters. The river smelled of wet limestone and dying mayflies.

'Should've brought the 8-weight,' I muttered, watching my line snag on submerged branches for the third time. Smallmouth bass rolled near the riffles, their shadows taunting my mediocre casting. My lucky copper flask warmed against my chest as dusk deepened.

Thunder rumbled just as the strike came. The rod bent double, drag screaming like a banshee. 'Hell's teeth, it's stripping backing!' Raindrops blurred my polarized lenses when the smallmouth breached – a bronze torpedo shaking its head. My knuckles whitened against the cork grip.

The fish surrendered at moonrise. I knelt in the shallows, admiring its gills pulsing crimson in my headlamp's glow. 'Go grow bigger,' I whispered, releasing it into the dark current. Somewhere downstream, lightning flashed like camera bulbs over the Appalachians.