Women in Fishing

The drive to attract more women into fishing seems to be gathering pace and about time too! The piece in last weeks "culture show" tells me we are turning a corner. My wife became interested in the sport three years ago through my passion for fly fishing and with encouragement from me thoroughly enjoyed many aspects of the sport. Although she does not fish regularly, she comes along on several sight fishing trips each year.

You may notice I mention "sight fishing" specifically and this is deliberate. You see I have querried family, friends, clients and audiences at the occassional talk I make, with some interesting results. This has been by no means a scientific study and not all participants are anglers. The one thing that captured the interest of nearly everyone was being able to see the fish (trout or otherwise) then try and catch it.

The whole experience of spotting a trout, studying its behaviour, casting to it and hopefully catching it, is one that really seems to get people's adrenalin pumping as the anticipation of the take builds. This is something I can understand completely as my own fishing preference is to spot then stalk individual fish and is something we have offered to clients at Midlands Flyfishing during the last two years. Everyone who has tried it tells me that their fly fishing has changed completely. No longer are they happy to fish blind, hoping a trout comes along. They want to be active, they want to go find the trout, they want to learn more and then they want to put everything together to catch the fish small or large.

Put like this fishing sounds exciting and interesting, a million miles from the dull public picture of a bloke sat on a box under a green umbrella doing nothing. In fact it sounds like something everyone and anyone can enjoy in the great outdoors, man, woman or child.

Let me know your thoughts.

Tight lines until next time!