Anastasia, age 27, uses a surgical tool to carefully remove the hook from the fish she catches. Then she thanks them before letting them go.

The thing about New York is that it's hectic and it's dirty and it's stinking and it's loud. You don't ever have a chance to just calm down, and that's what this is: it's me, outside, where I belong, doing what I love to do. And then I can get back on the train and go back to my apartment and get some work done. It's a sanity technique!

Here in Prospect Park, I get mostly largemouth bass; the park has the largest population of largemouth bass in the state of New York. I want to say Prospect Park has the best fishing, but that could be my bias. It's a bigger, quieter park, there's less people, and there's more water. Central Park has a lot of fish, and people catch really big stuff there. And then there's the parks out in Queens, and they're like a whole 'nother story: they have some seriously large fish out there!

When the weather's good, I'm out here twice a week; it's what suits me best. The reason I'm here is because this is what my soul is supposed to be doing: I'm supposed to be outside, I'm supposed to be interacting with these amazing animals, I'm supposed to be open to whatever is going to happen. I mean, there are days when I come out here and I don't catch a thing, and I'm fine with that.