Consider the fact that you’re either an angler or you’re not.

Even if you have only a foggy memory of a day long ago when someone took you to a pond and handed you a fishing rod, you are a fisher.

So, the way I see it, everybody started somewhere or they simply never took the bait.

Many are fortunate to have had the opportunity to lob a bait from the bank of a pond and stare down a red-and-white bobber with hope that a bluegill would make that bobber dance.

It’s a very safe bet that the majority of people who are anglers today were introduced to fishing on a sunny day at a pond or creek where swarms of bluegills competed for any morsel that might drift into their range.

For many of us, that morsel was a garden worm or a cricket threaded on a hook by an adult who knew a thing or two about the thrill of catching a fish. You do that once and it’s a rush. You do it twice and it becomes an addiction. The fuse is lit on the inner angler locked into human DNA.

So it goes with the relationship of anglers with the ubiquitous bluegill or similar sunfish. They are the gateway fish for people addicted to fishing. If you are an angler today, your introduction to the sport began one day when you became mesmerized by a bobber riding ripples. You were coached to be patient until the bobber dunked under the surface and were rewarded by a wiggling sunfish at the end of your line.

That picture is painted thousands of times every spring and summer, including here in Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties. My own introduction was long ago at a strip mine pond in Springfield Township and was fortified at a beaver dam pond in Canfield, then bloomed into an all-out addiction in the glowing light of a lantern hanging over the side of an aluminum boat anchored under the railroad trestle over Berlin Reservoir.

Spring is a great time to share your fishing addiction with a new generation. Opportunities abound. Farm ponds and highway borrow pits dot the landscape across our rural areas. Several urban and suburban parks also have fishable ponds.

Introducing bluegill fishing to a would-be angler is not complicated. The simplest rod and reel is the basic set-up. The bait is equally basic: worms dug from your yard or purchased at a bait shop.

Coaching is simple, too. Long-distance casting is not necessary. A simple lob 10 feet from the bank will get the worm in bluegills’ range. Set the bobber so the bait dangles a foot or 18 inches below the float and instruct your student to pay attention to the dancing bobber. When it darts down, start reeling.

That’s how it started for me. I’m told I was hooked on my very first outing.

But perhaps you have never taken the bait.

At the start of this discussion, we stated some might have only foggy memories of childhood fishing trips. If you are among them, know it’s not too late. You still can get your fix. Find a pond, rig up an earthworm, cast it out and see whether a bluegill might oblige.

Jack Wollitz has been fishing waters across the Mahoning Valley since the age of 5. Contact him at jackbbaass@gmail.com.