When the Tide Whispered Secrets

The pier's weathered planks still held the day's heat as I baited my hook with a jighead. Sunset painted the Chesapeake Bay in molten gold, the kind of light that makes even seagulls look poetic. My lucky baseball cap – the one with the salt-crusted brim – clung stubbornly to my head as the first cast sliced through the stillness.

Two hours. Three dozen casts. My braided line remained stubbornly slack. The rhythmic squeak of my reel became a metronome of frustration. 'Should've stayed home,' I muttered, watching a crab scuttle sideways beneath the dock. That's when the water blinked.

A silver flash rippled forty feet out. Then another. My thumb brushed the line's abrasions as I sent a fresh lure sailing. The strike came mid-retrieve – not the tentative nibbles of earlier, but a pull that nearly yanked the rod from my hands. For seven breathless minutes, the world shrank to singing line and throbbing rod. When the 24-inch striped bass finally surfaced, its gills flared like crimson sails in the twilight.

Walking back to my truck, I tasted salt on my lips – whether from sweat or sea spray, I couldn't tell. The parking lot's lone streetlight hummed agreement with my discovery: fish don't wear watches, and tides laugh at human schedules.