Hi friends, it's a pleasure to participate in this first #weekend-engagement edition of the year organised by 
If I have to choose one of the activities I do on the weekends that makes me happy, it is actually going fishing in the sea.
The origins
I have my father to thank for the origins of this hobby. I remember as a child coming home from school running to my house and asking my mother where my father was and she would answer me almost every day that he was on the beach fishing, even on some days when it made the most sense to stay at home because of the rain and the cold. But he was passionate about recreational fishing, both fishing with a rod from the beach and equipped with a rod baited with crabs to catch octopus.
The photograph I show you below is of an octopus I caught with him, but in this case in 2012.
A hobby passed down from father to son
When I became a teenager, I started to go fishing with him on weekends and summer holidays. Especially on Saturday and Sunday mornings, when there was a big tide to catch octopus. I remember the day I caught an octopus weighing 6 kg, but unfortunately in the 90s there were no mobile phones to take a camera with me and the family camera at that time did not work, so all that remains is the memory.
Years later, during my time at university, as I was studying away from my family, I gradually abandoned this love of fishing, but a spark of that illusion of going fishing with my father always remained inside me.
As a result of this spark of enthusiasm for fishing, once I finished my university studies, I started working and I had my own vehicle that allowed me to come to my parents' house at weekends, which allowed me to re-engage in the world of fishing and at the same time strengthen a special bond with my father. I remember that at this time, as my father was undergoing hip surgery, the type of fishing we did was mainly angling from Castello beach, which is one kilometre away from the family home and which I am showing you a photograph taken this morning from the viewpoint and others from the beach.
I remember with special affection the day we caught an excellent maragota weighing 2 kg and that day I already had a smartphone with which to take the obligatory photo. This catch was made with a fishing rod, but due to the strength of the fish, I needed my father's wise advice and his help holding the nylon to get the wonderful specimen out of the water.
Obviously, that day we caught another maragota of a smaller size and the next day my mother prepared the fish in the oven.
A spiritual connection with my father today
After my father passed away in 2015 from a treacherous lung cancer, I was for a couple of years that I didn't want to go fishing. Mainly because at the time I felt a great lack in my heart. However, when I overcame the internal mourning, I started again to go fishing on weekends to some of the places where I fished with my father, so that this hobby of fishing makes me feel very happy to get to be spiritually connected to my father, either on days when there are no catches and an even more special connection when there are catches like the ones I show you below.
A final thought
Fishing is not only the weekend activity that makes me happiest, but the one that allows me to connect with my beloved and always remembered father.
Best wishes to all the community, have a good weekend. I hope to have a good rest tonight and go fishing tomorrow.
Own pictures taken with my iPhone 3 and iPhone SE.
