I never get skunked when I go fishing. No bites after 10-15 minutes? Make a change. Present your bait deeper or more shallow. Switch baits. Toss a spoon. Crankbait. Relocate.
I really enjoyed fishing as a kid. Not only the activity, but the gear, reading about it, etc. Actually, as a city kid, I didn’t do all that much actual fishing, and when I did, I wasn’t terribly successful.
As a dad, I often took my kids to a local pond in - appropriately named - Panfish Park. You could bait your hook with hotdog or bread, and reel in bluegill after bluegill. My kids loved it.
The kids grew out of it and personally I grew disenchanted with it, when I came to think of it as basically torturing animals. I would have had less concern if I were eating what I caught, but I had no interest in cleaning these tiny 'gills. Then you’ll hook one in the eye, or another swallows the hook - trying to dig out poorly placed hooks is not my idea of fun.
I still sense the appeal of sitting in the shade or in a boat, casting and retrieving - if only the darned fish promise not to bother me! 
Last year, I started keeping a fly fishing journal and made it out fifty times. My wife is my fishing buddy, we’re both fly fishers. This year I haven’t been out as much as I’d like, weather and circumstances have conspired against me, but I’m getting out Saturday for some small stream fly fishing in the Shenadoah National Park.
I fish to eat them. Some people, mostly bass and fly fishers, are big into catch and release. That’s cool too, though I have strong opinions about some of that, trout aren’t really hardy enough to survive a hooking, in general, so some of the fishermen are kind of fooling themselves. As long as it’s not some moral high road that’s okay.
You can improve the odds by not using dry hands to strip the slime and making sure that the trout has some life in it by holding it right on release. I’ve fished some places with strict slot limits so there is not always take.
Some bass fisherman swear by pouring Coke down their gullets, which apparently acts as an anticoagulant.
The state of Montana estimates about 20% mortality for released fish. That percentage can be reduced quite a bit if anglers practice good fish handling techniques. The fact that an angler practices C&R means that s/he is motivated to try and reduce fish mortality and with some education, C&R is part of maintaining sustainable fisheries. Here’s a good resource for responsible C&R techniques: https://www.keepemwet.org/
Yeah - I got no problem with eating flesh. Tho w/ factory farming, I’d prefer that the animals not be essentially tortured…
My tastes for fish is not unlimited and tends towards salmon, cod, catfish… And I’m not a big fan of cleaning fish.
Many people claim fish feel less pain, etc., but I still don’t imagine getting impaled on a hook and yanked out of the water IMPROVES the quality of their daily existence! 
I really see the enjoyment out of the ACTIVITY and ENVIRONMENT of fishing. But I don’t need to cause animals pain for my enjoyment.
OK, fishing story time.
A few years back, I went on an offshore fishing trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Among us was my friend Bill, who was a Warrant Officer in the Navy. (This information will be relevant later in the story.) We left from a place called Oregon Inlet, not far from Kitty Hawk. My friends and I rented a motel room there, and that night we did what’s typical in these situations: drink. (I no longer drink alcohol; but at that time, I did.) Soon we had a little party going on the balcony of our second-floor motel hallway, and were joined by some single, middle-aged good-time gals from the adjoining room. The beer flowed. Then the rum flowed. Yeah.
I was shitfaced drunk when I passed out at around 2 am, and I was still shitfaced drunk when I WOKE up at 5 am, which is when we had to leave for the dock to catch our charter boat. Midway through the drive, I flung open the door of my friend’s truck and hurled out onto the side of the road. But that didn’t purge the evil spirits from me completely.
It’s now about 6 am and I’m riding in the back of a huge, very powerful, very fast, very loud, very vibrating boat. Still feeling like shit, I managed to pull it together enough to snap this beautiful photo of the scenery (I had brought my DSLR). You’d better believe that the beauty of the scenery did not in any way mitigate my physical condition at the time, and I rode in misery as the boat rocked and listed from port to starboard and back again, again and again and again at however fast the thing was going, and I felt every wave…the ones in the sea and the ones inside my stomach.
After resting for a bit in the cabin, I feel like I’ve rallied and I stroll out to the deck. The sun is now shining and it’s a beautiful day for fishing and I maybe only feel 60% like shit instead of 100%. Bill has procured a cooler of sandwiches and drinks.
It’s at this point that I have to explain some Navy lore. Namely, the fact that guys in the Navy use the word “horsecock” a lot. This guy, because he was a Warrant Officer and came up through the enlisted ranks, threw that word around like nobody’s business. Any time there was any random item that he was referring to, it was a horsecock. If someone was annoying him, he was being a horsecock. If there was food available, and the food contained some kind of meat, it was a horsecock.
I’m leaning against the railing of the boat, trying to decide if I needed to puke again. Bill comes out with the cooler.
“Hey guys! Who wants to eat?! I’ve got some horsecock sandwiches here!”
That was about the last phrase on earth that I wanted to hear at that moment. And I made that text the color of puke, because if I was trying to decide earlier whether I needed to puke, well, Bill went ahead and made that decision for me with his gustatory proclamation.
A few hours later and a few dozen more miles out into the ocean and I felt alright, and wound up catching two very nice mahi-mahi/dolphin/dorado (why the fuck does that fish have to have three names?) But this story, like most fishing stories, isn’t really about the fishing.
Come on, I wrote out that whole megillah and then the thread died!! Bump, bump!
You killed it.
If you’re taking kids and fishing with bait, save everybody the trauma of a swallowed hook or gill-hooked fish by using circle hooks:
They won’t (90% of the time) grab until they hit bony tissue. Even swallowed, when you go to set it it’ll actually come up out of the throat and hook in the corner of the mouth.
For an added harm-negating bonus, flatten the barb.
All I ever use now, might lose an extra fish or two now and then but it’s totally worth it.
Circle hooks are good for that yeah. Barbless even better (and popular with catch and release fly fisherman.) I also like treble hook spinners. Never gut hooked anything one one.