Women on the Fly Streamside clinic
Minnesota’s beautiful North Shore: The shores give way to an
expanse of water that is Lake Superior into which our favorite tributaries
flow. The river mouths serving as the
staging ground for the trout gathering in anticipation of Mother Nature’s cues
to embark on their annual upstream journey.
Surrounded by vast forests are the picturesque waterfalls where our
treasured steelhead venture in early spring in pursuit of the perfect spawning
ground and a suitable mate. As the
season warms and the spawning cycle reaches completion, the bright silver
flashes of a hen digging redds and the trail of males usually found trailing
close behind her begin to fade indicating they have begun their retreat toward
their primary residence in Lake Superior.
For many anglers the end of the spawn marks the end of their
annual steelhead fishing. While the
visible activity may not be as apparent, a patient and knowledgeable angler can
continue finding plenty of activity beneath the water this time of year. Fishing for backdrops is greatly satisfying
and offers up a golden opportunity to lean on your knowledge of the water and
understanding of the fish. This was the
basis of our 2016 Women on the Fly Streamside Clinic that was held on the
Baptism River this past Saturday, May 21st.
Five of our eight registered participants were able to
attend the clinic, two North Shore residents and three made the trek from the
twin cities area. Three ladies brought spinning setups and two used fly
rods. Each woman was given a binder
containing an outline of the day’s discussion topics, several articles related
to what they’d be learning on the water and other information pertaining to the
fishery, species identification, techniques, etc. so they have something to
reference after the clinic. Anyone who’s
been new to fly fishing and steelheading knows there is a great deal of
information to process. Rods, reels,
lines, leaders… Pockets, seams, tail outs, riffles… Steelhead, Kamloops, Brook
Trout, Browns… Having the information organized and accessible for the women
after the clinic is just as vital as going over it during the event. Our goal is not only to get them out and
comfortable on the water but to provide resources to help keep them on the
water.
It was my privilege to coordinate and lead the inaugural
Minnesota Steelheader’s Women on the Fly Clinic. To help instruct and assist in the discussion
were my fiancé Jared and Neil, Minnesota Steelheader’s VP. The weather was perfect as we gathered at the
picnic tables near the Tettegouche lot for introductions and to cover the
basics: Steelhead/Kamloop identification, habitat, history and life spawning
cycles, a summary of typical species caught during the spring steelhead run,
overview of techniques and when to apply each from shore casting to fly
fishing, review of gear, reading water, river crossing and safety tips. When the class portion had concluded, the
women had an opportunity to look more closely at the gear we talked about as
the contents of my own hip bag were displayed on the picnic table. They asked great questions about the
different flies and yarn colors and were able to take anything they needed;
hooks, sinkers, yarn, swivels, flies and so on.
We were now ready to go streamside!
The hike down to the water was beautiful. We paused on the bridge overlooking the river
to review how to identify seams, pocket water, eddies, etc. Arriving at our streamside location we broke
down into groups: Jared with Deb, Kady with Neil and I had Natalie and
Samantha. Our teenage angler who was
familiar with the stretch we were fishing and had some previous experience
steelheading with her dad, floated between us.
Our young angler’s wit and enthusiasm for the outdoors was contagious
and we were fortunate to have her with us!
We provided lessons on snelling yarn, guidance on the areas
to target and why and instruction in technique.
It wasn’t very long after we had everyone in the water and fishing that
one of our participants had a fish on.
More specifically, Natalie had an approximately 24-inch bright hen on
the end of her line that was jumping through the air and giving her a true,
wild steelhead battle. It took a couple
of attempts but we were able to land the fish.
Handing Natalie her first river steelie was an awesome moment to put it mildly! Just as soon as we had stopped trembling from
the excitement of Nat’s catch, I received word that Deb had caught a juvenile
steelhead! I then ran upstream to check
in with Deb who was up around the corner from us and when I returned to Natalie
and Samantha I learned that Sam had caught a brook trout! We don’t go into these clinics with the
expectation of catching fish because our primary objective is helping
participants get comfortable on the water, become familiar with the equipment
and work on developing good technique.
We consider any fish caught to be a bonus so with 3 of our 5 ladies
getting fish, we definitely hit the lotto!
We started the clinic at 9:45am and before I knew it, we had
bypassed our end time of 12:45pm. Time
absolutely flew by. My original intention was to work with all of the women
one-on-one throughout our time on the water however I had only briefly been
upstream with Deb and hadn’t work with Kady at all. Despite it not going exactly how I
envisioned, the event exceeded my expectations.
Kady was in great hands with Neil and she picked up the technique
beautifully as did Deb under Jared’s instruction. Both Samantha and Natalie were quick to learn
and asked a lot of great questions. The
enthusiasm of our 15-yr old participant for the outdoors and for steelheading
is admirable. She is incredibly driven
and just an overall great young lady.
Working with this group of women was an honor, they all did an amazing
job and should be very proud of themselves.
Every one of them earned their place on the North Shore as Women on the
Fly!
The weather was perfect, the low water made it easy to
identify the different types of water, Neil and Jared did an exceptional job
with the ladies under their instruction and with adding to our discussion, we
caught fish in the locations we were teaching the women to target for back drop
fish and I had the best group of women I could possibly have had for our first
event. At the end of the day everyone
had a positive experience and were asking about future clinics. Our first clinic was a great success!
When we created Women on the Fly, we really had no idea what
kind of response we would receive. We
are the first to offer a North Shore steelheading/fly fishing women’s program
so much of what we are doing and events we’ll be offering are essentially new,
unexplored territories and concepts. To
see the number of women wanting to learn and seeking the resources they need to
become successful anglers is exciting.
The North Shore’s female anglers are massively unrepresented but as we
continue to develop and build Women on the Fly, there is no doubt that’ll
change. More and more people are
recognizing the value in the program and are offering their support. More and more women are realizing that it’s
really not an intimidating sport if you have the right resources and
knowhow. We have a great thing going
with Women on the Fly and I am excited to see what the future holds for the
program.
Thank you to Jared, Neil and all of our participants for
making our first Women on the Fly Streamside Clinic a huge success!
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