“There’s nothing prettier than a little white perch coming out of the water.”

That’s a sentence that my brothers and sister and I heard many times as we were growing up, fishing with my dad on Sabattus Pond. He had grown up fishing there with his dad and knew it to be an ideal place to teach kids to fish. The white perch went after night crawlers so fiercely that a father spent most of his time taking fish off his kids’ lines. There were white perch, yellow perch, sunfish, horned pout and bass to surprise and delight the young anglers. And, usually, very little time passed between “bites.”

Those were also times to talk, or choose not to, and enjoy a warm, bonding relationship. The entire experience was capped off by a meal of pan-fried perch, boiled potatoes and tossed salad. What great summer days.

In keeping with that tradition, I taught my own six children – and nephews and nieces – to fish there.

Sadly, I won’t have the pleasure of doing the same with my grandchildren because it’s now “Peak time for pike” at Sabattus Pond.

In his recent article, Tom Roth (Jan. 8) glorified – at least by implication – the selfish, unethical, criminal “sportsmen” who changed an ecology and ruined an environment, just so that they could call themselves “big game fishermen.” In the process, they also deprived the rest of us of some of the most precious moments we could experience.

What a shame, and what a loss.

Roland M. Roy, Lewiston