When the River Whispers

My thermos slipped from trembling fingers as the first hint of peach-colored light seeped through the cypress trees. The Mississippi backwater smelled of wet moss and forgotten fishing line, that peculiar aroma that clings to dawn like a promise. I patted the left breast pocket of my vest out of habit - three peppermints, my grandfather's lucky compass, and a Ziploc bag of nightcrawlers bought from a gas station that still had rotary phones.

The johnboat rocked as I cast toward a submerged log, the hollow 'plink' of my topwater frog breaking the liquid silence. By the third hour, even the dragonflies had grown bored with my performance. 'Should've brought the ultralight,' I muttered, watching a gar roll its prehistoric eyes at my spinnerbait. The river had swallowed twelve lures since sunrise, each disappearance marked only by a mocking swirl.

It was the absence of sound that made me freeze mid-cast. The cicadas had stopped. The water skaters vanished. My line cut through still air as the popping bug landed beside a lily pad that quivered without wind. The strike didn't so much pull as erase slack from existence. The rod arched like a cathedral doorway, drag singing that ancient song of panic and triumph.

Twenty-three pounds of scaled lightning later, I stood knee-deep in the cove, cradling a chain pickerel whose golden eyes held entire Civil War battleships. Its gills flared once against my palm before disappearing in a swirl of amber water. The cicadas resumed their chant as I waded back to shore, shirt stained with fish slime and victory, suddenly understanding why the old-timers call this stretch 'The Whispering Banks'.