For all the fun and joy we anglers gain from sport fishing, we sometimes forget it is rooted as a sustenance activity.

Catch-and-release movements have accelerated, and perhaps even elevated, fishing to its place today as a pastime popular among people from all walks of life. Rich or poor, we can go fishing for the sole purpose of recharging our batteries, reconnecting with nature or simply because we love it.

But it wasn’t always that way. For millennia, people have gone to the water to feed their families and neighbors. Fishing was work, every bit as laborious and essential as clearing land, planting seeds and sewing garments from animal skins.

Many still go to work on the water today.

Like the sea’s tides, the water has a primordial pull on me. If a river, lake or ocean is nearby, I want to see it, smell it and feel it.

Barb and I traveled last week to Cape Cod, Massachusetts to visit friends, play golf and enjoy the sights. The Atlantic Ocean and Cape Cod Bay were never more than a few miles from the places we visited, so it was only natural we would find ourselves at a dock on the bay in Chatham.

The hubbub at the end of the pier caught our eye so we strolled out to investigate. A trawler was tied up and crew members were transferring tubs of spiny dogfish and skates to the conveyor that took the fish into the processing plant to be cleaned, packed and frozen for distribution to markets in the U.S. and around the world.

Seals, terns and gulls staked out positions around the boat and its workers, waiting for the opportunity to snatch a fish that slipped into the water during the off-load.

All that action reminded me that for many, fishing is work. While many of us drive to favorite lakes and rivers for a leisurely few hours of casting from a deck or watching a float from a perch on the bank, others toil to bring catches to market and to earn income for their families.

It occurred to me, as I watched the fish crew, that their jobs are not so much different from those of us who work the waters of Erie, Mosquito, Pymatuning, West Branch or Milton.

We gain success through our instincts, knowledge, experience and talents. Our equipment must perform reliably, and breakdowns are costly.

Some people fish for walleyes. Others fish for bass, crappies, muskies or catfish, and then we have the commercial fishers who bring us cod, lobsters, yellowfin and bluefin tuna, salmon, spiny dogfish, Lake Erie perch, squid and whatever else the human palate has learned to crave.

Of course, many sport fishers eat what they catch. A good thing about fishing is we can do it the way we want to do it, as long as we abide by the rules and regulations.

For the hobbyist or the professional, the stakes are different, but the rewards are the same. When the fishing is good, the job seems easy. When success eludes, it’s time to shift gears.

Such are the thoughts that come to mind during a stroll to the end of a dock 650 miles from home.

Jack Wollitz’s book, “The Common Angler,” is a collection of stories that explain why anglers are passionate about fishing. Send a note to jackbbaass@gmail.com.