Backroads and Bobtails
EVOLUTION
by Bob Kornegay

It starts with a yearning, a great big want-to. The kid sees his grandfather return home from North Florida's Lake Talquin with mammoth stringers of bluegills and shellcrackers. He listens to tales of "exotic" fishing destinations, some almost 100 miles away.

A year or so later, Granddad takes the kid fishing, not to some north Florida big-bream Mecca, but only a tiny state park pond a few miles from home. There, with a cut pole and a hastily prepared terminal tackle rig, the first fish is brought to hand, a 3-finger bluegill incessantly talked about for weeks afterward.

Time passes. The kid, now "the boy," stands on the bank of a creek at the "Turnip Wash," a dark pool frequented by producecleaning truck farmers, water snakes, and redfin pickerel. With a "real" fishing pole, he hauls a toothy little pike from the depths and excitedly punctuates his first all-by-myself fishing trip with a bold-face exclamation point. The kid, the boy, is at last a fisherman.

The clock ticks. The years pass. The boy now is allowed to make those daylong angling excursions with his grandfather. The two arise early and journey south in the old fishing car. Breakfast is eaten somewhere along the route at an all-night café; greasy eggs and sausages. The boy is allowed a cup of coffee, a few drops, actually, with a lot of cream and sugar. The fishing is great sometimes, and sometimes not. Regardless, it's fishing with Daddy Buck, always a positive.

Come the teenage years; acne, hormones, and high school. All-night catfishing on the river with his buddies Eddie and Virgil. First carp: a big one. First striped bass: a small one. First brand new reel: a Zebco 808. First drink of whiskey: cheap, illegal, head-splitting. All wonderful.

College, during which time the boy swears he will change the world. More times than not, the vow is made in serious contemplation while holding the butt end of a fishing rod. The largemouth bass, the bluegills, and the crappies remain a part of his being, right there alongside thoughts of world chaos, pollution, civil rights, and Viet Nam.

The boy, now "the man," graduates and goes to work. He does not change the world. He teaches school, he writes, he fathers a son.

And still he fishes. He chases largemouths on Lake Eufaula. He seeks smallmouths on the Tellico River in Tennessee. He pursues shark and tarpon on the inshore waters of the southern Atlantic. The trout of north Georgia claim his heart and soul like some powerful addictive drug.

The man watches his own boy grow from infancy to childhood. He remembers Daddy Buck, reflecting upon the love, the gentleness, the patience, the importance of including a youngster in those good things one has come to love. Hence, the man and his son fish together. They do it often, for when they do all seems right with the world.

The man ages, and the boy grows, reaching young adulthood with that same world-changing desire. The man does not explain how difficult and unlikely such an occurrence will be. Instead, he steals an occasional undetected glance at his son and says to himself, "By golly, you just might at that." The boy studies the 4-pound bass he's just landed, winks at his father, and says, "Beats anything you've caught today, old man."

The man and boy relax in a motel room in Blairsville, Ga. They arrived not long ago, and both are quite tired from the 6-hour drive that brought them here. They are but minutes away from prime trout waters and a lifetime removed from the troubles they left behind. They'll fishthe next day.

"Where'll we go in the morning?" the boy, now a man himself, asks.

"Not sure," his father answers. "What do you think?"

"Don't know," comes the reply. "Does it matter?"

They both grin at that.

"Good night, Daddy. I love you," says the son.

"Love you, too, buddy," the father replies.

The two fishermen drift off to sleep, content; each supremely happy that, no, it doesn't matter. Not in the least.

(Email Bob Kornegay at cletus@windstream.net)