BOB KORNEGAY: Lord love the bluegill bream

He is the first fish I ever caught. He was, as my grandfather earthily put it, just two eyes and a bunghole. So what? A 200-pound tarpon couldn’t make its captor one bit happier than that three-fingers-size fish made me nearly 60 years ago.

He appeared on my plate at dinner that evening, the flesh lovingly picked from his brittle bones by my mother. I was instantly transformed. I had become a four-year-old outdoorsman, putting meat on the family table.

We became fast friends, this fish and I. We often shared school-time Saturdays and summer afternoons at the little creek behind my house. He lived there. I was allowed to visit, provided I always told Mom where I was going. Back then mothers seldom feared for their offsprings’ lives when they were out of sight. The creek and the fish were safe and wholesome company.

I was winding down my fourth-grade school year when the fish first landed me in trouble, the first of many times he has gotten me chided or otherwise punished.

“Any last-week tests tomorrow?” my grandfather asked.

“Why?” I queried.

“I’m drivin’ down to River Styx in the mornin’,” he said. “Thought you might like to come along.”

“No sir! No tests!” I was quick to reply.

Next day we floated River Styx and caught the fish. He was bigger now, as was I. The creek could no longer hold us.

Back home that night the phone call came. Why, asked teacher, was Bobby not in school for his final arithmetic test?

“Yes, why?’ wondered Mom and Dad.

Before you ask, reader, yes it was. Most certainly worth it. You can make up tests and get over spankings. Not so grandfather/grandson fishing trips. I went to sleep smiling, dreaming of sinking cork bobbers and frenzied tugs on my line.

The fish has gotten me through some tough times, most notably periods of loss, everything from fickle childhood girlfriends to the permanent void left by departed loved ones. Somehow the fish helped me cope. Even today grief is somehow easier to handle with a fishing pole in one’s hands. The fish, and where he lives, never fails to put me nearer to God and comfort, even when I’m not fishing.

The fish has helped me forge great friendships. He was there when Tom and I were the best of grade-school buddies. He figured mightily in the good times Curt and I once had sitting on the bank of the Chattahoochee, drowning hapless crickets and swapping lies. He fried up golden brown over open campfires as Eddie, Virgil, and I planned great things, back when the world, and we ourselves, were young.

Today the fish is a welcome change now and then, a pleasant respite from chasing big largemouth bass and big stories on big water in big boats. My, oh my. How wonderful to briefly leave the camera and recorder behind in favor of a cage full of crickets, a hank of line, and a pocketful of #10 hooks.

When that happens it all comes back. My grandfather, my four-year-old grin, a missed exam, good friends, and wonderful memories.

And, of course, happiness. Sublime otherwise unattainable happiness. All because of one fish. THE fish. The bluegill.

Lord love him!