You know, one of the best things about fishing is that anybody — even me — can have a great day catching fish. If you do it enough, you’ll have a day where no matter what you throw into the water, the fish will bite.

Well, friends (and those of you who are still reading this column must be considered friends), I can happily report that I, the perpetually unlucky angler, finally have caught some fish. If you subscribe to this space, you’ve no doubt read my previous excuse-laden whining about not being able to catch any fish ever since last fall. That extended into an ill-advised trip through the Ocracoke Inlet punch bowl the day before Easter in hopes of snagging some Spanish mackerel that resulted in nothing but a few too-small bluefish.

My luck changed the next day, however, when on a glorious Easter afternoon fishing in a private pond in Edgecombe County, I landed a nice crappie, then another and then a little bass. Nothing to write home about but it felt like the time I wobbled a dying-quail single that barely made it past the Fleming Stadium infield dirt to end a long oh-fer skid at the plate.

Most people who fish regularly, or semi-regularly like me, probably don’t know what it feels like to not only not catch a fish for, like, five straight months, but not really even get a bite. OK, maybe some of you do. All I know is that catching fish is a whole lot more fun than not catching them.

Our first family camping trip of the year took us to the mountains east and south of Asheville last weekend with our fly rods and a spinning rod packed. I didn’t fare very well the first day, but my son, Bennett, caught a couple of wild trout in a Delayed Harvest creek that hadn’t been stocked for a few weeks.

We decided to try our luck last Saturday on the Rocky Broad River, the boulder-filled stream along the road that connects Bat Cave to Chimney Rock and Lake Lure. Bennett landed a couple more trout and I still didn’t get a bite — even though it had just been stocked the day before and a guy leaving when we arrived had a string of nice trout he’d just taken from the Hatchery Supported water. Just a reminder, this time of year you can fish with anything and keep up to seven trout from a Hatchery Supported designation but Delayed Harvest has bait restrictions and is catch and release until June.

After seeing more tourists than fish at the Rocky Broad, we opted to head west to the Mills River, another DH piece of water that hadn’t been stocked for a few weeks. It didn’t disappoint.

Bennett found the spot first, a submerged tree that created a little pool about 4 feet by 12 feet, that led to the greatest hour of fishing we had experienced together. He caught three before I got there and had a nice rainbow on the line that I failed to net, which he graciously assured me there would be more fish to catch. My son wasn’t wrong.

My trout-less streak ended in glorious fashion when I landed a nice brown trout on my spinner rod. He jumped at least 3 feet out of the water before I got him in the net. We ended up catching 11 trout that day and 14 more the next day.

For the entire trip, Bennett ended up catching 24 trout and I caught five. I pulled off my first career “Smokies Slam” on Sunday with a brown, a brook and a rainbow trout from the Davidson River near Brevard. The best part about Sunday’s catch was we could keep them, so we took home five and cooked them on the campfire. I don’t need to tell you they were awesome.

Too often in life, things don’t go the way you hope they will. It rains or stuff breaks or the fish just won’t bite. Most of the time, there’s nothing you can do except to expect adversity and be ready to be disappointed.

But when things do break your way and the sun is out and the fish are biting and you’re surrounded by ones you love, don’t hesitate to take a second and be thankful for it. For that matter, be thankful when things aren’t going your way either.

Things will change. They always do.

With that in mind, expect more whiny columns from me when the fish stop biting again. And they will. They always do.