I spent the better part of a half hour with a group of men fishing off the end of the Imperial Beach pier. My goal was to express the essence of the sport itself by capturing the responses of the more fortunate among them. Most of these men faced away from me, looking towards the sea. However this man didn’t. As he skillfully reeled in a fish, he turned towards me, delighted that I was photographing his triumph as it happened. He is ecstatic. I’m not sure if his evident pleasure stems from catching the fish itself, or from the fact that I am standing next to him, photographing his successful effort. In any event, this image expresses the whole point of recreational fishing. These are not commercial fishermen. They may indeed catch enough fish for a meal or two, but essentially they fish for pleasure. And this image expresses just that.