Felix Castillo has fished with all six of his children, but last week at Greenbelt Lake in Buddy Attick Park he was fishing with his youngest three.
In the warm weather months, the shores of Greenbelt Lake are dotted with people fishing to relax, enjoy nature and spend time with friends and family. The first time Castillo, 52, fished at the Lake, he thought it was so beautiful that he told himself someday he would have a house nearby.
“When I came to the United States, I started fishing,” said Castillo. “But I am no good at fishing. I just do it for fun.” He has been fishing for about 25 years and remembers fishing on the pier by the old Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, which was replaced in the early 2000s, and at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Now Castillo lives in Greenbelt with his family and brings his kids to the Lake to de-stress after school. From one of the stone platforms along the north side of the Lake, his daughter Veronica pointed out turtles.
“We have to be patient and enjoy and relax because when you come to fish you can see the water, the trees,” he said. “It’s really nice.”
David Daniel, 43, of Laurel, who fished in Greenbelt Lake for the first time during Memorial Day weekend, said he hoped he wouldn’t catch many fish. He doesn’t like taking them off the hook.
Daniel, whose mother lives near the Lake, said that since he and his son, Maxwell Daniel, 12, started fishing last year, they had only used lures, which entice carnivorous fish to bite with their flashy or fish-like appearances. Sunday was the Daniels’ first time using live worms as bait.
They hadn’t caught anything yet, but Daniel wasn’t concerned about it.
“We did all right at Centennial [Lake] in Columbia, but this time we just came to go fishing with Mom,” Daniel said.
Dermacus Cousins III, 14, of Takoma Park, caught his first fish in Greenbelt Lake on Memorial Day. “It was cool when he got on the line and I had to pull him in,” said Cousins.
Matteo Palmer, 13, also of Takoma Park, invited Cousins to come fishing. Palmer said he has fished his whole life with family, like in Minnesota with his dad, but not in Greenbelt Lake until a couple of weeks ago. “It’s pretty,” Palmer said. “It has fish,” he noted, including bass, trout and crappie.
Zhenhua Zou, 34, of Greenbelt, only fishes in Greenbelt Lake because he’s had more luck catching fish there than elsewhere. Usually, he throws the crappies he catches back in. Last Tuesday evening he pulled a small fish, silver and glimmering, from the water, unhooked it and tossed it back in, too.
“If they’re huge, I can keep them, but normally they’re not huge,” Zou said.
The size of the catch aside, Zou listed reasons to keep coming back to Greenbelt Lake. “For fun,” he said. “And it’s pretty beautiful here, the scenery.”
