This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead. It appears that this third apparition takes place several days or even weeks after the resurrection. The dust which had been raised by the events preceding the resurrection seems to have been finally settling. Normalcy was slowly being restored. The people seem to have put everything behind them and were moving on with their lives. Even Peter and company had come out of “hiding” and had receded back to their home in Galilee (Peter, his brother Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee must have been Galileans-they were called by Jesus while fishing in the Lake of Galilee). Maybe for lack of ideas on how to kick-start their movement, and perhaps to kill boredom and put some food on the table, Peter suggested to the others that they go fishing. Unfortunately, their labor all night long yielded nothing. We can excuse the group and attribute their unsuccessful endeavor to them having “abandoned” their profession for a couple of years now. Or maybe, just as had happened in some of the earlier apparitions, their failure to catch any fish was divinely orchestrated. 
I don’t think Peter and company had abandoned the “way.” Jesus’ hand must have been over all the decisions that this group was making, including the decision to go back fishing. It is no mere coincidence that this third appearance takes place on the very lake where Jesus had met and invited the pair of brothers to partner with him in ministry (cf. Luke 1-11). It is no coincidence that on both occasions, the pair of brothers end up making no catch despite laboring the entire night. Jesus was making a statement, and it is a statement that Peter and company read only too well. It was a second calling of these disciples. Unlike in the other appearances, we are not told if Jesus “expounded” on the Scriptures in an attempt to open the eyes of their minds. However, he did something that was meant to put a spark in the memory of the group: he broke bread with them! Without saying a word, Jesus was reminding them that he had already given them assignment (do this in memory of me). He was once again calling them to be fishers of men and women.