There are famous bass fishermen, famous tarpon fishermen, and famous trout fishermen. As far as I know, there are no famous bluegill fishermen. If you want fame, trophies, or riches, the bluegill is not the way to go.
I keep reading about sportsmen who come into a clubhouse and savor the memories of a wonderful day on the water or afield, along with strong drink. They toast the memories of big bass, bobwhite quail, Canada geese, or sailfish. Apparently bluegill fishermen do not drink much, or they do not have clubhouses. Anyway, it is not very stylish to go misty-eyed over an escaping bluegill, and if taxidermists counted on bluegill business, they'd starve.
I have given considerable thought to the reasons why bluegill fishermen are not held in high repute, and I think one of the main factors is clothing. What does a bluegill fisherman dress like? See? You have no mental picture of a bluegill fisherman.
A trout fisherman worth his salt wears waders and a fishing vest. Up until lately the bass fishermen were a little nondescript, but now that the jumpsuit has come into its own, along with all those colorful patches advertising bass clubs, outboard motors, plastic worms, and rods, the bass fisherman is a real individual. A deepwater ocean angler has all sorts of sporty togs.
I once thought I would add a little class to bluegill fishing, so I went and caught some bluegills while wearing a fly fisherman's vest and a canvas hat with a wood-duck feather in the band, but it didn't catch on.
There is a thing the grouse hunters have up in New England--a lot of them wear neckties while hunting, I am told. It might be that a necktie would help the bluegill fisherman's image, but I have not tried it.
It is a lot of fun to catch bluegills on a very light bamboo fly rod, and I have done quite a bit of that, although some people say it is a waste of a hundred-dollar stick to catch bluegills on it. Since I am pretty well south of where it could get me into trouble, I might say that an eight-ounce bluegill feels much the same as an eight-ounce trout on a hundred-dollar rod.
I'll take my bluegill fishing deep in the South along in May, and the river should be slow and dark. Small clumps of water hyacinths should drift on the main current in eerie quiet and big banks of them should clog the backwaters and coves where the lily pads are--but down South you call the pads "bonnets." I like the oaks to be high and carrying Spanish moss that swings smoothly in the evening breeze and sometimes one of the bigger pendants jerks convulsively where a gray squirrel has gotten in a hurry about his squirrel business.
There should be cypress knees here and there along the shore and there would be a couple of places where big trees have fallen landward and their root systems have pulled loose from the bottom and left deep pockets against the edge. There should be a few clumps of dead limbs along the bank, each having collected a wad of hyacinths, and there should be turtles and possibly a moccasin on a half-sunken log, its upper surface partly covered with resurrection fern, bright-green from the afternoon thundershower.
I'll choose a fairly small boat, maybe a johnboat that moves easily under the oars, and we'll use a little outboard motor to get to the place we know the bluegills are. Then we'll tip the motor up and we'll put a couple of drops of oil on the rowlocks to keep them quiet, and by this time the river will begin to feel like bluegills. There'll be pink tips on the thunderheads and a row of white ibis (down there you call them curlews) will come up the river heading to roost, and when they see us just as they round the bend they'll flare up and break formation a little, then get back in line after they've passed us.
By now the breeze will pretty well have died out and a pileated woodpecker will sound as if he's using a mallet back in the river swamp. The limpkin will be hard to see standing there in the shadows with a big snail in his beak, but a great blue heron will fly off with a sepulchral squawk that seems to be a complaint and a promise of doomsday at the same time. We'll hope to see a pair of wood ducks and possibly hear them squeal as they fly through open spaces in what looks like solid timber, and at about bluegill time we'll hear a pair of barred owls sounding like a dozen birds in the timber. By then the fish crows will be going home but looking for some last bit of evening deviltry.
The little bug will have white rubber legs, and if I row you can peel off some freshly dressed fly line and feel it just a little greasy in your fingers. Your reel click will sound loud and I'll try to slide you along the shore as quietly as possible so that you can drop the little bug against the edge of the hyacinths, close to the tree roots, right on top of the bonnets, and back under some swooping branches that almost hide a rotting stump.
If the panfish are going to stir we'll probably hear them first in tiny plops back under the hyacinth rafts and very small fish will make sucking sounds in the floating hyacinth roots where they can find all sorts of things. There will be little circles of wake where something is busy under a clump of bonnets and we might change to a bigger bug if we hear a bass strike, but we won't be fooled by the double plop of a rolling gar or the splash downstream where an anhinga has decided to dive off his perch instead of flying away as a bird is supposed to.
Don't hurry the little rubber-legged bug. When it strikes the water with the slightest plop you can leave it while the rubber legs wave a little before you twitch it. Watch for a bulge in the water as a bluegill (they call them bream down there) come out to examine it. If it's a small bulge he might tug at the rubber legs, but if it's a big plate-sized fish, blue-black from living in that stained water, he might take it with a bang that reminds you of a bass and you can lift the tip promptly and feel him dart toward the shore and then swing out under pressure to go around and around under the dipping rod tip as you haul in line to scoop him up.
Your heart won't be in your throat and your wrist probably won't ache, but we'll take our bluegill fishing down in Florida along in May and the little rod will feel much as it does when it bows to brown trout or grayling.
This story originally appeared in The Part I Remember by Charles F. Waterman. Copyright (c) 1974 Charles F. Waterman. All rights reserved.
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