Tag: empowering

Survival of the Fittest - Or Most Prepared

This is the current view from my office window…in Tennessee.  I moved here from Chicago four years ago because I wanted to be somewhere warm, without that white stuff, and without the single-digit temperatures. To say I feel like I was sold a bill of goods this morning when I woke up to 3 degree temperatures is an understatement. I currently heat my house with a wood burning stove, and while I live in the middle of a forest and am surrounded by "fuel" for said stove, currently that "fuel" resemb

2/16/2021•Jen Ripple

Women and Fly Fishing Through the Ages: A More Complete Picture Emerges

Much has been written about the role of women in fly fishing over the ages, and much more has been forgotten over time. Women have always fished and have made many notable contributions to advancing the art and practice of the sport around the world. The record of many early pioneering women fly fishers of the early days would be lost without the photos, prints, and postcards rescued by collectors from the stream of time. What can we learn from the women and the memories captured in these images

12/31/2020•Moirajeanne Fitzgerald And Steve Woit

Naked and Afish

Mayflies crawled, tickling, over my arms, legs, and face—something only a fly angler would be excited about. I couldn't get my rod together fast enough. This was my second lake of the day. I’d hiked five miles to the first lake, along a dusty trail, later through a stretch of my beloved ponderosas, and finally up to exposed rocky lookouts. While incredibly scenic, it was dotted with backpackers and way too windy to cast. I usually fish rivers or unnamed alpine lakes, but on this solo trip, I dec

7/15/2020•Lindsy Glick

Reeling

Three days before I walked into my first 12-step meeting, I had a fly rod in hand. Little did I know that day that I was about to embark on a lifelong journey of recovery and discovery. Fly fishing (and the help of my program) would soon guide me through some of my most trying times, all the while teaching me to enjoy calmer waters. I will never forget that hot week in August of 2016. It was a week of what many in 12-step recovery programs call a "dry drunk." My life had been on a cycle. I went

12/5/2019•A Greatfull Recovering Alcoholic

Confluence

I avoid the temptation to predict where I will end up on a journey in life. It seems the path forward is very much dependent on what I discover and learn along the way and, most importantly, who I meet. There is force and momentum more powerful than my own plans for the future that are brought forth when the desires of hearts flow together on a common path. Waypoints Every good journey in life begins with taking a risk. I’ve written about that (“Taking the Leap”, Dun Magazine, Summer 2018) but,

12/2/2018•Robin Schmidt Katlin Boyer

Straight Outta Coeur d'alene

Many of us know and follow the awesome fly fishing women we see on social media, admiring their huge catches and the pristine scenery around them. However, there are many women in fly fishing today that have helped to shape the entire industry, we just don’t know about them because they are not prevalent on social media. Earning them the title of “original fly fishing gangsters,” they were on the river long before it was cool. I am speaking of women like Kaitlin Barnhart. These women are behind

11/5/2018•Jess Westbrook

The Lesson

I preach the value of learning for a living, but I am not always comfortable as a novice. The first time I fished the Owyhee River with my friend Kaitlin about four years ago, I was skunked. I was a typical beginner—I’d fly fished a few times before, but never really learned the craft. I was practicing a basic cast with a hand-me-down rod and eight-year-old fly line, somehow drawn to this pointless activity of catch-and-release fly fishing. I couldn’t, like Kaitlin, shoot the line a straight 25

7/20/2018•Meagan Newberry

Taking the Leap

The whispers still come, “Have you completely lost your mind, to give up your career to go fly fishing?” My heart answers back, “No, I have found it!” No longer encumbered by killers of my inspiration, I am taking a leap. I’m jumping off my 35-year career as a software engineer into the world and industry of fly fishing. I’m taking my favorite route on this journey, the one that is unknown even to myself. I can only recognize that I am headed in the right direction as I travel from guidepost to

7/20/2018•Robin Schmidt

Finding Inspiration

Darrian White Stepping away from the everyday and taking control The thing that inspires my fly fishing lifestyle is the simplicity of just being out on the water.  The diversity of flies, casts, rods, and locations takes my mind away from the reality of stressors and insecurities of my everyday life. The thing that really attracted me to fly fishing was the capability to be in complete control of the situation; the fly, and the cast.  Being 23, I’ve been through a multitude of situations some

7/20/2018•Dun Magazine

One Life One River

Water ... It’s all around us. It makes up 70% of our bodies, flows through our homes and businesses every day, and sustains us. But for me, my local river is much more than a drinking water source, it’s my life. Over the past nine years, the Chattahoochee River has provided me a reprieve from the hustle and bustle of a hectic city life and the strength to get through two cancer diagnoses. It is also why I get up and go to work every day as a senior staff member of the nonprofit Chattahoochee R

7/20/2018•Becca Klein

Gradual Untangling

Fly Tying? You want me to tie a fly? No way. I can’t even darn socks. I knew I had enrolled in a fly fishing school, but I never thought about the fly tying aspect that would accompany my studies. School started and there I was, my instructor persuading me to give it a try. Reluctantly I went to the tying area. With a heavy heart, I tried my hand at tying my first fly, and managed to make a large and splendid bug. That disheveled fly went on to startle many fish, but one showed interest; all was

7/20/2018•Mari Kitagawa

Baby Steps

One of the best things about fly fishing is that you always learn something new. You can fish new water, head to unknown places, try different styles, and catch new species. But what happens when all of a sudden you have a baby in your backpack?  Do you give up your time on the water, or change your fishing habits? I would say that fly fishing with a baby is more than a decision, it is an attitude, a lifestyle choice all its own. A choice that will require many compromises: more planning, flexib

3/21/2018•Veera Viitanen