Photo by Suzanne Keating

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The transformation began in a matter of hours.

It started beside a rack of low-priced rods and a display of lures in a sporting-goods store. The selection was skimpy. But to my sons, Jack, 6, and Mick, 4, this was a portal to a secret world. For two years they had been stuck in a city. Now their fishing lives were about to begin. They wanted to know everything.

What is this? A swimming plug. And this? A jig. What do you catch on jigs?

We were on an unexpected summer vacation on the Finnish coast, not far below the Arctic Circle in a region bathed in light. I was trying to put together a simple kit for what I hoped would become a season of fishing school. Everything I touched yielded questions: What are bobbers? Why do we need a net? How does a handline work? What will that huge lure catch?

Pike.

I looked at that plug-a wooden jerkbait, light gray with black spots-and thought of heaving it out over submerged boulder piles populated by striped bass. Jack was looking at it, too. He was old enough to sense it: Only a big fish would smack a lure like that.

"What's a pike?" he said.

We left 30 minutes later with three rod-and-reel combos, a landing net, a small tackle box, and an assortment of sinkers, hooks, bobbers, and lures. Pike would come later. First we would go slow. Down the block was a marine-goods store. We walked in and bought kid-size life preservers and a few yards of rope. Farther down was a shack selling beach toys, where we picked up a wire fish basket and a canister of worms.

On our back porch the boys watched as I spooled reels, assembled the rods, and tied on small, freshly sharpened hooks. My hands moved by habit. I snipped the line with my teeth. My wife, Suzanne, had packed food: sliced apples, ginger cookies, water, and two containers of juice. I shouldered the backpack, picked up the rods, and walked off. The boys followed, firing questions on the way.

"What will we catch, Dad?" Jack asked.

"I don't know," I said. "We'll see."

I knew I should manage expectations before reaching the docks. I had been here two days, and busy most of that time. I knew nothing about fishing this place, except that we were far enough into the archipelago that the water might be less brackish than sweet. "Sometimes you don't catch anything," I said.

"We'll catch something," Jack said.

"Yeah," Mick added. "Look at the water. There's millions."

The harbor, a basin dredged in flats, was a series of wooden docks with slips for pleasure craft. The channel leading to the sea was a few hundred yards away. No one was fishing. Villagers strolled by as we set up. You three are cute, their quizzical glances said. But odd.

The boys crowded tight as I baited the hooks and flipped them out. "Watch the bobbers," I said. "If they move, you have a fish."

One of the bobbers plunged. Jack pounced on the rod and pulled back. Out of the water flew a yellow perch. It flipped on the dock until I lifted it in my hand-a green-and-yellow gem with orange pectoral fins and bright eyes. Its smell rose around me, grassy and fresh.

"What is it?" Jack asked.

"It's a perch," I said. He saw my smile and grinned back.

I had expected flounder as much as this. Mick grabbed the fish to study. My mind whirred. Yellow perch? These boys are about to learn.