When the River Whispered at First Light

Three cups of bitter coffee still couldn't shake the chill from my bones as I waded into the Yellowstone's icy embrace. The fly rod trembled in my numb fingers, its neon yellow line glowing like liquid sunshine against the slate-gray dawn.

'Should've brought the neoprenes,' I muttered, watching breath fog dissolve into river mist. A merganser duck torpedoed past, its wake rippling through pools where cutthroat trout should've been rising. My fourth cast snagged on a submerged log – or so I thought until the 'log' suddenly surged upstream.

For twenty heartbeats, the world narrowed to singing line and bending rod. Then nothing. The river reclaimed its ghost, leaving me clutching a straightened hook and existential doubt. 'Maybe try deeper,' the voice of reason suggested – the same voice I'd ignored three soggy hours ago.

Switching to a weighted nymph lure, I aimed for the current seam behind a boulder. The strike came as relief turned to numbness in my wading boots. This time the trout danced across the surface, gills flaring scarlet against obsidian scales. My victory whoop startled a blue heron into flight, its wings painting broad strokes across the watercolor dawn.

The fish slid back into the current as morning sun breached the pines. Sometimes the river doesn't give answers – just moments so vivid they become their own truth.