When the Fog Lifted

First light found me ankle-deep in Lake Champlain's tea-stained shallows, the chill seeping through worn waders. A soft plastic worm dangled from my trembling fingers, its coffee scent mingling with the dank marsh air. Somewhere beyond the cotton-thick fog, smallmouth bass were staging their fall feast.

'Should've brought the thermometer,' I muttered, watching my breath curl into the mist. The third cast landed with a plop that echoed across the silent cove. Line twitched - not a strike, just the current teasing. By the seventh retrieve, my shoulders started remembering yesterday's lost lunker.

Sun clawed through the haze as I switched to a spinnerbait. The blade's flash cut pearly fog into swirling patterns. 'One more drift,' I promised myself, knee-deep now in liquid gold light. That's when the shadow materialized - a dark wedge cutting surface tension twenty feet offshore.

Heart hammering, I sent the lure sailing. The retrieve felt wrong, too fast, but then water exploded in a bronze fury. Rod doubled over, drag screaming like a banshee. For three glorious minutes, the smallmouth danced on its tail, gills flaring crimson in the newborn sun.

When the released fish vanished in a swirl of bubbles, I noticed my thermos still steaming on the bank. The lake had warmed two degrees since dawn.