When the Fog Lifted

3:47AM showed on my wristwatch when the thermos slipped from my numb fingers, clanging against the aluminum boat floor. November air bit through my flannel as I rigged a soft plastic craw, its coffee scent mixing with the marsh's briny tang. Somewhere in the darkness, redfish tails were slapping the flooded spartina grass - or so the old-timers at the bait shop had promised.

By dawn's first gray light, my waders were crusted with frost and my casting arm felt like overcooked spaghetti. 'Should've brought the heavier rod,' I muttered, watching another cast fall short of the current seam. The incoming tide brought more than water - it carried my father's voice from a childhood memory: 'Redfish don't read tide charts, son.'

When the fog bank rolled in at 7:15, visibility dropped to three rod lengths. That's when it happened - a guttural pop from the left, followed by furious line stripping. I set the hook into what felt like a freight train wearing sandpaper. My spinning reel screeched in protest as the unseen brute plowed through oyster beds.

Twenty minutes later, waist-deep in the chill shallows, I cradled a copper-sided giant whose black spot glowed like a bullseye. Its tail slap left saltwater stinging my sunburned cheeks as it vanished into the mist. The fog chose that moment to lift, revealing sunlight glinting on a dozen more tails flickering in the tidal flow.