Flathead by Donald Lamon

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The lure sailed out into the obscurity of the mist and disappeared while his reel whined out that beautiful sound that makes any fisherman's pulse quicken. After a few seconds, he heard his bait his the water, and then he watched yard after yard of line roll off of his reel as his lure sank down to the depths. When his line stopped moving, he clicked the bell over with his thumb, and leaned back in his chair to wait.

The mist began to slowly rise and Columbus was able to see more and more of the river as the morning trudged slowly onward. He followed his line out about six feet from the water's hungry edge. It lay unmoving, but Columbus was not discouraged. He had sat for hours before getting even the smallest bite. He looked up at the river's expanse. He could see out about fifty feet before the retreating mist swallowed it up. In another hour he would be able to see the other side. His eyes detected a faint movement out in the river. He leaned forward in his chair. He saw it again. It was pinkish and fleshy and floated up to the surface for a moment, and then sank back down beneath the depths. It was about four feet long. Columbus picked up a rock that lay at his feet and flung it out toward the thing. It was a Channel Catfish, they like to come up to the surface and turn belly up. Their bellies are a stark contrast to their blackish backs. You can't catch anything while they're around. They are big, meaty fish, but not many people will eat them, because they are like great vultures of the river, eating anything that fall into their great, vacuous mouths. Columbus had just seen a small one. You can go into any country store and see pictures of grown men holding Channel Cats up at their shoulders, while their tails drag the ground. Columbus remembered one time when he was a child, he overheard his father talking with an employee of TVA. The man had been a diver, and it had been his duty to swim down and inspect the valves at the bottom of the dam which amputated the French Broad from Douglas Lake. This man said that he would never go down there again. When Columbus' father asked him why, he told him a very unnerving story. He had went down, as he had many times before. The water was cloudier than usual, and visibility was only about four feet. He made his way down to the valves when he noticed a dark shape beneath him. It was thick and unmoving. He thought at first that it was a car. He wondered how he had never noticed it before. If it had just been placed there, he would have to notify the police. He swam toward the shape, and then the thing moved. It lurched through the water like a great crawling mass of black flesh. He screamed into his facemask, and the thing turned upward toward him. It's great mouth open and its tentacle-like whiskers flailing behind it. The orifice was big enough to swallow him whole. He kicked backward at the thing as he struggled upward to the surface. The thing's black eyes gleamed through the murky water and he swore the thing winked at him. He managed to avert it until he was about ten feet from the surface, and then the thing suddenly turned back toward its abysmal home.