When the Fog Lifted

The thermometer read 42°F when my waders sank into the Muskegon River's predawn chill. My breath hung in ghostly clouds as I rigged up with 深潜型摇摆饵, the metallic finish catching moonlight between my numb fingers. Steelhead don't care about sleep schedules.

First casts sliced through tea-colored water with surgical precision. Nothing. By sunrise, even the mergansers stopped laughing at my efforts. I was rechecking my 编织线 knot for the tenth time when the fog bank rolled in like spoiled milk, reducing the world to a 20-foot radius.

'Should've brought the compass,' I muttered, feeling the river tug at my knees. That's when the line hissed - not the tentative nibble of rock bass, but the sustained pull that turns reel drags into opera singers. The rod arched toward Canada as 15 pounds of chrome insanity breached in the fog, its tail walk echoing off invisible banks.

When the steelhead finally rolled into my net, dawn broke through the mist simultaneously. The fish's gills pulsed against my palm like a metronome counting down to release. As it vanished into amber currents, sunlight illuminated three other anglers waist-deep 10 yards downstream - had they been there the whole time?