My 10-year-old self stands, hovering over the dam at the Mill Pond, about a three minute drive from my house in Merton, Wisconsin. As I inspect the water, I’m wondering if my dad and I will get at least one northern pike. I go to grab the tackle box from the trunk of our navy blue van, following his orders and I find another box. It’s a dozen donuts and two slushies he must have sneaked in as a surprise for me. I gaze over the glorious glazed donuts along with the blue raspberry slushies, hoping this will become a tradition for our future fishing trips. I drag our things over to the bench we’re sitting at and dad reminds me how to bait the hook. I’m still learning how to cast my line, so I use the fishing pole with the release button on it. I toss my line in the green marsh where the cattails are bunched up. 

Dad repeatedly talks about the best time to go fishing. “Around 6 p.m. when the sun starts to set because that’s dinner time for the fish,” he explains. I look over the water, the sun glistening off of it making the reflection look like it has little sparkles on the surface. Under its surface, I see all different fish swimming and swerving through the plants and rocks, hungry and hoping dinner is on its way. Dad reminds me that even if it starts to sprinkle outside, we should still stick around. “The fish think the raindrops are insects on the surface of the water; that’s when they come out to feast!” I toss my fishing line out as far as I can and wait while keeping a close eye on my red and white bobber. My chest warms as I get nervous. I feel a tug on the bait. I turn the handle 360 degrees as fast as I can to reel the fish in, hoping I just caught our dinner for tonight. 

“Nice catch, G!” I hear as I yank the 8” freshwater sunfish out of the pond. It wasn’t anything too special, or big enough to be dinner, but I could still see my dad smiling with pride. The little sunfish was a beautiful dark blue and golden yellow colors with striped scales. I wrap my hand around the slimy, scaly fish and slide it down from its mouth to its abdomen so I don’t get poked by the spikes. Holding the fish with one hand, I use the other to gently unhook his jaw and toss him back into the water just how I was taught. “I told you today would be a perfect day to fish!” I let out a giggle and a sarcastic eye roll as if I hadn’t heard him say that already and we carry on to see what our next big catch will be, knowing we still have a lot of worms left to use.