One of the requirements on renewing your redneck card is that you have to go fishing at least 4 times a year. I go more frequently than that because many of my friends own small boats and there are quite a few waterways in the area that I live. I will admit that I definitely prefer the days that we go waterskiing but there are only certain places that this is allowed. Most of the time me and the boys will load up a couple of coolers with mostly beer and some sandwiches and then we go around a lake or river and cast of for hours on end.
I have absolutely zero idea what I am doing and rely entirely on the expertise of my friends.
Most of the time I don't catch anything even with the help of my friends. Honestly, I don't really care if I do catch anything and there are some days that none of us catch anything. We don't collect the fish anyway, we always put them back so it doesn't really matter. It's not like we were ever going to eat the fish anyway and there is probably a law somewhere that says we aren't allowed to keep them anyway. I don't know for sure, we never bothered to check and this is yet another thing that I like about my little part of North Carolina. There are laws on the books about things like this but as long as you don't abuse whatever it is that you are doing, the enforcers just kind of leave you to it. If you aren't hurting anyone or damaging anyone's property, you kind of get to do whatever you want.
Technically, we aren't supposed to be operating a boat while drinking beer either but once again, as long as you aren't hurting anyone else, the officials - which you rarely ever even see where we go - just leave you alone. This doesn't mean that we go crazy and drive home with one eye open to avoid crashing but the driver of the truck does drink, he just doesn't go nuts and we alternate who that person is each time we go out.
I have no desire to get better at fishing because I don't really care about it. The act of fishing is not why I go on these outings. I go for the same reason that my friends do: it is a chance for us to escape our lives and just hang with the boys for 4 hours or so. At the end of it we always have some great stories that we exchanged and it keeps our relationship fresh. Hell, I probably wouldn't know anything about my buddies' families if it weren't for these outings since we rarely hang out with one another aside from accidentally running into one another at the Elks Lodge.
One of the guys is seriously into fishing and he owns all the gear and get really excited about a new lure the he just bought and when I find out how much some of these gizmos cost I kind of shake my head in disbelief. Then we all get a good laugh when he fails to catch anything with his new $150 lure and another time he cast and hadn't tied the lure on well enough and we all watched as it flew off the line and disappeared into the depths below. This was after he had spent 30 minutes in the car explaining how this new lure was the latest and greatest. We were all in tears laughing at him because it was the very first cast with it. He was in stitches as well so it was not like we were being cruel.
For me, fishing is an act of bonding with pals and not really a sport. I love getting out into nature with good friends and just enjoying the camaraderie and quiet. The fact that it is expected of me as a member of the redneck community is just an added bonus.