38% of FFers are women...

[Canoetripper]

I have noticed on the outdoor channels on cable TV that there are some very attractive women, wearing ear rings bow hunting. I think that this is all staged as well.

I think that women are more likely to C&R fish than they are to kill a deer, but I have been wrong many times in the past with my relations with women.

 

[Swattie87]

About 50% of my YouTube feed is girls in bikinis fishing. Why does YouTube assume I like this? :-o

Most of them are using spin equipment though...I can tell from the still title image, so I don’t watch them. ;-)

 

[lestrout]

The current world fly casting champ is female - based at the fabulous Golden Gate Casting Club in SanFran. Not sure I would describe her as a woman yet - she's barely in her teens.

 

[CathyG]

I think the number is too high but it probably varies by region of the country. Actually when I fish stocked streams or ponds & lakes I rarely see another fly fisher, male or female.

We're not as popular as we think we are.

 

[brookie222]

I was introduced to fly fishing about 7 years ago by a wonderful organization called Casting for Recovery, which sponsors fly fishing retreats across the nation for breast cancer survivors. I enjoyed it so much that I continued to fly fish, and introduced my husband to the sport. (He is most definitely not athletically inclined, however he has become absolutely addicted to the sport.) We fish together at least once or twice a week, and he sometimes fishes every day.

We have fished in many places, mostly in PA, NY, NJ, CT, and NH. Part of the fun is scouting new streams and rivers wherever we travel. The best fishing I ever had was in the San Juan River in New Mexico near Navajo Dam.

There is another club in the region, based in northern New Jersey, Joan Wulff Fly Fishers, dedicated to promoting women's knowledge and experience in the sport of fly fishing through educational programs, fishing trips, and fly fishing and fly casting clinics. The club has been active for over 20 years, and both men and women are welcome to join.

www.jwffclub.org

I now see some women on the rivers, while years ago it was extremely rare to see another woman. There may also be regional differences in participation, with the east lagging behind the west, where the NBC segment was filmed. And as redietz pointed out, women may not fly fish as frequently.

 

[afishinado]

brookie222 wrote:
I was introduced to fly fishing about 7 years ago by a wonderful organization called Casting for Recovery, which sponsors fly fishing retreats across the nation for breast cancer survivors. I enjoyed it so much that I continued to fly fish, and introduced my husband to the sport. (He is most definitely not athletically inclined, however he has become absolutely addicted to the sport.) We fish together at least once or twice a week, and he sometimes fishes every day.

We have fished in many places, mostly in PA, NY, NJ, CT, and NH. Part of the fun is scouting new streams and rivers wherever we travel. The best fishing I ever had was in the San Juan River in New Mexico near Navajo Dam.

There is another club in the region, based in northern New Jersey, Joan Wulff Fly Fishers, dedicated to promoting women's knowledge and experience in the sport of fly fishing through educational programs, fishing trips, and fly fishing and fly casting clinics. The club has been active for over 20 years, and both men and women are welcome to join.

www.jwffclub.org

I now see some women on the rivers, while years ago it was extremely rare to see another woman. There may also be regional differences in participation, with the east lagging behind the west, where the NBC segment was filmed. And as redietz pointed out, women may not fly fish as frequently.

^ Thanks for your post Brookie.

It's great to see more people take an interest and share in our great sport. It bodes well for the future of our streams, rivers, lakes and oceans to have more people out there that care about them.

I'll share yet another site for women interested in getting involved in our sport: https://dvwffa.org/

 

[bigslackwater]

I too rarely see women fly fishing.... IN PA! I really think our state and the east in general is different than the rest of the country and we are not the norm. When I travel out of state and hit the water, I often see women fly fishing. There is no reason this should be primarily a guys sport.

 

[Bamboozle]

Two of the 5 guides listed on the Sporting Gentleman website are women.

 

[troutbert]

The percentage of women flyfishers is far below 31%.

Source: Observable reality.

 

[JohnPowers]

No way. Maybe 10%. Beautiful teeth. But, ITS MORE ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE THAN THE FISH? Phooey. Seen beautiful sunrises, sunsets, seen an eagle grab a muskrat, a mink grab a baby duck, lost my trailer and Chevy to hurricane Ivan traded licks and sang with a real musician. Big whoop. If I don’t catch fish I could spit and kick an old dog. I’m 70, ain’t gonna mellow out.

 

[Canoetripper]

I did go on a guided bass fishing trip on Lake Fork in east Texas, and had a great time. This was really the first time I ever fished with bait casting reels and spinner baits, buzz baits, or plastic worms. Everything worked and the guide was better than good.

My father and I were generous tippers since this was our first time fishing with bait casting reels and we "bird nested" many casts. This kind of fishing isn't as easy as Roland Martin or Bill Dance make it look if you have no experience with bait casting rods/reels.

Our guide, who I thought did a great job with bait casting beginners, said that the most popular and sought after guide was a woman who was very attractive and fished wearing a bikini.

I never saw her but she obviously knew who her customers were.

 

[Mwheaps32]

I'll take it a step further I rarely see another fly fisherman male or female. I had a few teenage boys early this spring watching me fish for smallmouth and they started asking me questions on "how to do it" this is the opportunity to get them involved. The one kid had a fly rod so a couple pointers here and of course gave him a few flies to try and hopefully I'll see him there next year with a fly rod in hand.

 

[hunter1]

Were I mostly FF, I have not seen a woman FF'er yet. I'm not there probably when one shows up.

 

[mattwolf]

When I walk in to Victoria Secret they ask me if I'm looking for something for my wife.

 

[JasonC]

I have never seen a woman fishing in all my years. This could be locale specific though as I know there are many women in the Southern and Western states that enjoy fishing.

 

[Prospector]

The percentage is definitely inflated. I’ve fished 43 days this year so I went back through my records of where I fished and I saw only 3 women this year. I went to Fisherman’s Paradise twice and saw one woman fishing there each day. I also saw a woman fishing Yellow Breeches and she was all by herself. This was the first woman I’ve seen without her husband or boyfriend. I give her a lot of credit being out there on a very tough day and she was very into it. She asked me some questions and I gave her a few flies. She told me her dad introduced her to the sport and she fishes with her husband fairly often.

She was asking me about locations in other states since she is trying to organize a trip with several of her girlfriends and was looking for ideas. So that sounded 4-8 of her friends descending on a stream this summer.

My wife hasn’t trout fished for about 8-10 years but still talks about coning back someday. However she doesn’t FF.