Bass flash as they hit in the night, nearly airborne when the hook's set. Squatting by lantern light I perform an ancient task: the bluegills stream liquid as the knife bites and they meet death, the sack of innards like silken fat, an occasional mutant liver, red as blood. I look into fish gut but can divine no future here, only a native past. In the blackness off the dock bluegills hit in a frenzy at the scattered offal of bluegills.
Illegal fish glittering like a mad necklace on the stringer.