I started thinking back on my life. I had been fishing probably a dozen times, and every single time I went with somebody who knew much more about it than I did.

It was rarely the same person, but the duties never changed. The other guy was always the one who showed me how to cast, how to bait a hook and how to untangle a line.

I never had a knack for it. I once managed to hook the back of my own head while casting.

“C’mon, Dad,” Salem said, looking at me with hypnotic eyes. “This is the one thing I really want to do.”

“OK,” I said. “But just realize we probably won’t catch anything.”

We found a wonderful pier at Hunting Island (S.C.) State Park where the nature center will loan you a rod and reel for the day for free.

With that problem solved, we went to a local bait shop and bought some frozen squid. Then the three of us then walked uncertainly out onto the pier – my 5-year-old son London had decided to come, too, after he saw how cool a dead squid looked.

Before we did anything, we imposed upon the first veteran fisherman we saw on the pier for instruction.

He was very nice about it. So after some advice, I clumsily baited our two hooks and we got our lines in the water.

Within five minutes, we had a bite.

Salem and I took turns reeling in a small, handsome fish with six vertical black stripes. It looked like an angel fish. The veteran fisherman told us it was an Atlantic spadefish.

“We caught a Spain-fish!” the boys said.

The veteran told us that spadefish are very tasty.

“We’re not set up for that,” I said, imagining the emergency-room visit sure to result if we tried to clean a fish. “We’re strictly catch-and-release.”

“OK, then,” the veteran asked. “How about if you release him to me?”

So we did.

We fished for a while longer before getting driven to the car by the 90-degree heat. But we went back out to try another pier on Fripp Island later that afternoon.

This time, it was just Salem and me.

I found myself lulled by the water and the soft rhythm of casting. We talked about school, the beach and Kobe Bryant.

And without even trying too hard, we caught two small black-tipped sharks.

These we both unhooked and released back into the ocean after touching the sharks’ sandpaper skin and marveling at their strength. Holding even a small shark felt like trying to handle a full-grown snake.

After awhile longer, my son thought it might be time to go.

“Wait,” I said. “What’s the hurry?”

And then I finally understood. That’s the basic lure of fishing – finding a piece of “what’s-the-hurry?” in a hurry-up world.

We caught nothing else. But it was a keeper of a day.

So my advice is this: Take a kid fishing this summer. Even if you’re a terrible fisherman like I am, it’s hard to have a terrible time.