I believe in a beautiful spring day where the temperature is just right, and the rain has just passed, leaving a healing feeling at the lake while fog lifts, and the fish begin to jump.

This kind of day creates a picture-perfect landscape that brings peace to any mind it touches. I believe in waking up before the sun to race to the best spot on the lake to start my morning – but never alone – always with the one person who could never pass up a day to fish, and that was my grandpa.

I wasn’t always obsessed with fishing; it ran in my blood and I knew that, but at the age of nine, I truly realized I loved fishing. I had fished since I was young.

My dad would take me on our boat to our favorite lake as frequently as we could never miss a chance, and I loved it but didn’t understand it. I didn’t get why he loved to hold a pole and cast it out in the water just to reel it back up over and over again, not catching anything.  I never knew why he loved to be quiet and just sit there and relax rather than at home in front of the TV on his way-too-expensive La-Z-Boy.

It took a year for it to finally hit me. When I was 10, my parents got divorced, and it left me lost between whose house I was at and quite frankly who I wanted to be with.

It left me stuck spending a lot of my time with my grandpa. Now, don’t get me wrong – I spend a lot of time with my grandma, too, but that meant baking and cooking and with those as her hobbies and me as the tester, I would have been too fat to fish. So, I made the smartest decision a 10-year-old could make and ended up eating lots of cookies and cake with my grandma.

That was until my grandpa woke me up one morning, almost too good to be true – after a night of heavy rainfall –  and 10 minutes later we were out the door. It was hard with how tired and how early it was to even ask where we were going, but I knew it was fishing​.

I’ve always liked fishing but it felt different this time. I was older and smarter and conversations with my grandpa felt like he was talking to me like a man. I felt grown up for the first time – like I wasn’t just a child trying to be just like my dad, but my own person​.

Ever since then, days with my grandpa were more fun.

He made me feel like an adult. He took me to all these remarkable places. These are the places and moments where he taught me that just the pure beauty of fishing can beat the feeling of catching any fish.

In other words, no matter the result, just showing up is far better than remaining at home, stagnant; that even the worst fishing days could create the most breathtaking memories. Showing me that fishing isn’t about the sport; it’s about the feeling you get from it, and the ability to feel something while on the water creates the idea that nothing else matters: nothing but fishing.

And, damn – I believe in fishing.