When the Fog Lifted

The predawn chill bit through my flannel shirt as I launched the canoe into liquid darkness. Lake Winnipesaukee's surface breathed wisps of mist that clung to my fluorocarbon line like ghostly fingers. Three casts with my favorite spinnerbait yielded nothing but the hollow plop of unanswered prayers.

'Should've brought the damn nightcrawlers,' I muttered, watching concentric circles swallow my lure. The eastern horizon blushed pink when a sudden swirl disrupted the mirror surface twenty feet off starboard. My hands froze mid-cast - that V-shaped ripple was too perfect to be random.

Switching to a Carolina rig, I sent the tungsten weight slicing through the mist. The line twitched once... twice... then screamed off the reel like a banshee. Rod tip plunging toward the water, I braced against the gunwale as the canoe began drifting sideways. 'Steady now,' I coached myself through clenched teeth, 'this ain't no dink.'

Eight heartbeats later, golden scales broke the surface in a shower of diamond droplets - a smallmouth brute thrashing its disapproval. My trembling fingers measured the bronze warrior at 21 inches before releasing it back to the depths. As the first sunbeam pierced the vanishing fog, the lake's secret whisper carried clear: sometimes clarity comes only after the veil lifts.