REEL WOMEN
They tell why they love fly-fishing
By KATHY SMITH
Photography KIT WILLIAMS
Coloradans are blessed with spectacular mountains, rivers and streams that meander through the state. A growing trend, both nationally and in Colorado, is the increasing number of women fly-fishing for the serenity of the sport and the thrill of catch and release.
But in a male-dominated industry, many women struggle with equipment designed for men. Bret Gardner, a fly-fishing specialist, says, "The fly-fishing industry is realizing that it has to design equipment that works for females and acknowledge that women are not just little men."
Many women dabble in fly-fishing as a hobby, but the high-profile women described here take their fly-fishing seriously. Not only have these women captured the spirit of the sport, but they are passing on the love to other females in a variety of ways. Meet four exceptionally talented women who fly-fish with a passion.
To say Char Bloom is enthusiastic about fly-fishing is to understate the case. When she speaks about fly-fishing, it is from her heart. Fly-fishing has changed her world, she says, adding, "I've always had a love for nature and am an outdoor enthusiast, but fly-fishing has opened so many opportunities for me."
Ten years ago, when she learned to fly-fish, she put on her waders, fishing boots, vest and hat and looked in the mirror. "I looked like a man and was very uncomfortable with the male fit in all of the gear," she remarks. In a sport that is male-dominated, it was difficult to find fly-fishing gear for women, but that didn't dissuade her from pursuing the sport.
Bloom was dating a fly-fisherman when she became intrigued with the sport. Never one to tackle a new sport half heartedly, she enlisted the help of world-renowned fly-fisher Joan Wulff. "I didn't just sign up for a casting class, I went to New York to an instructor's class on teaching casting," Bloom says. "And Joan tried to discourage me from taking the class, but I was persuasive enough to land a spot," she explains.
Bloom says she was the worst caster in the class filled with guides, but they were all so helpful that she became quite skilled at casting.
Following a week at Reel-Women's Guide School in Idaho, Bloom learned to row a drift boat and was personally swayed and inspired by the women she met who devoted their lives to fishing the rivers. "This was really my first opportunity to see the spirit in fly-fishing," Bloom recalls.
Her spirit was dampened slightly when she donned the official gear in a shop and looked at the price tag for the manly outfit. It was Bloom's enterprising spirit that took over at that point. She began designing and marketing fly-fishing clothing for females. "I knew if I didn't want to look like the guy fishing next to me, there were many other women who felt the same way," she says.
Char Bloom LLC, was created to sell fly-fishing items to women who want to be outfitted and look like a woman. The vests and hats come in a variety of floral colors such as raspberry, pink and lilac. The eponymous company was an obvious fit for its image. "A char is a small-scaled trout, and bloom is a flower and a state of beauty, and that is what I offer people who shop with me," Bloom says. Today, her product line includes children's wear.
Starting a clothing company wasn't the only new fly-fishing venture for Bloom. She was fishing the Arkansas River one summer day when she noticed a woman casting directly across from her. The woman was struggling with casting and not catching a fish, while Bloom reeled in a few. "I walked over to her and offered to help her with her casting. She told me she'd been fishing for six months with her boyfriend and hadn't caught a fish," Bloom recalls. Thus began her teaching career.
Bloom held clinics and casting classes at her house. "I take my students to a place where they can catch a fish, so they know what it feels like to reel it in and how to safely net and release the fish," Bloom says.
She began guiding float trips a few years ago, and last year she became a member of Hyde Boats Pro Staff as one of only four women members in the world.
But Bloom's greatest pleasures in life are her three children — Molly, Jordan and Jeremy. "They are amazing children, and I am so proud of them," she reflects.
Being a true humanitarian, Bloom asks all of her clinic attendees to donate to the Denver Rescue Mission's Champa House, one of the charities she's been donating to for most of her adult life. "I teach skiing and snowboarding, and I match dollar for dollar the money I receive for private lessons," she says.
With her children, teaching and guiding occupying her time, she resorts to fly-fishing for relaxation and pleasure. "Fly-fishing is a magical experience. It is a soothing and relaxing time for me when I am with my dogs and one with nature," she continues. "I am doing everything in life and serving others — I feel blessed."
Many women harried from work demands retreat to fly-fishing for the peaceful experience. All of that is true for Virginia Morrison Love except the harried part. Love is an even-keeled, calm woman who works in a very hectic political world.
She is a lobbyist who represents businesses, while working with Chambers of Commerce to help improve the business climate and thus the economy. "I love my work because ultimately I am helping families, especially children, by getting jobs for their parents, and all of this is the root of a good society," she explains.
With her ambition to improve the business climate, one would imagine Love's heritage was steeped heavily in the corporate world. But Love grew up on a ranch where she developed an intense passion for riding horses. It was while attending classes at Texas A&M that she became interested in business, specifically the political side of business.
Following a friend to Denver, she landed a job as a staffer with Bill Owens and subsequently accepted her first lobbying job.
When friends pushed her to meet Colorado native Andy Love, she was introduced to her first experience with fly-fishing. "I spent most of the days on the shore reading a book while watching Andy fish," she says. She didn't have an interest in fishing until one day 17 years ago at the Wigwam Club. "Andy had a fish on and yelled to me to come down and reel it in, and that's the way he hooked me into fly-fishing," Love says.
It was such a momentous experience that she remembers exactly what she was wearing that day. "I'll never forget the experience because it was so exciting, and because of that I remember every detail about it, like the jeans and Keds I had on," she says. From that moment on, Love fished the Colorado waters with her now husband whenever she had the chance. "I was just dating Andy at the time, and I think it was a test," she says with a wink.
Like Bloom, Love wasn't too keen on the gear. She couldn't find women's proportioned waders that didn't have the heel of the wader riding halfway up her calf. "When I first put on all the gear, I felt like the Michelin man in the river," she laughs.
They still fish often at the Wigwam Club, and she loves the serenity more than anything else. "I really enjoy fly-fishing because I'm away from work — no cell phone and no one to holler at you," she says.
Love basically taught herself how to fish from a book, no less. "I picked up a couple of books and just read them thoroughly and learned the stance and practiced casting based on pictures and descriptions," she says.
One gloomy, windy day, as she was fishing in murky waters, a fly-fisherman nearby had a memorable impact on her fishing technique. While she was having a tough day fishing a high river, one of the elderly Wigwam Club members came over to her. "He said, ‘Virginia, come with me, I'll show you how to catch fish on days like this,’" she recalls. "He put on a wooly bugger and told me exactly where to cast, and we caught lots of fish. I'll never forget it or the advice," she says.
"The first thing I fell in love with in fly-fishing was the casting. It's so graceful that it is hypnotic," Love says. She recalls a time when it wasn't such a graceful experience as she stumbled on rocks in the river and fell over, her waders filling with water — a situation that happens to most fly-fishers — once. "Fortunately, I was in shallow water and just kept thinking, I have to remember to wear a belt," she recalls.
Even though the legislature is in session for only 120 days, it is a stressful 120 days. When the session ends, the fun begins for Love, who is also an avid gardener and dog lover. "From the middle of May through fall, I spend my time fly-fishing and doing the other things I love," she says.
Love works on the junior livestock auction committee and the Citizens of the West dinner with the National Western Stock Show. Proceeds from these two events go to support the National Western Scholarship Trust Fund that awards agricultural scholarships to children.
"I love my work, family and hobbies. When it's summer, life is less intense, and I can spend quality time fly-fishing, riding horses and gardening," she says.
Christine Wiedinmyer spends her days at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, tackling challenging atmospheric chemistry impacts on global and regional scales. This talented scientist earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Texas before moving to Colorado.
Wiedinmyer grew up in the Northeast and fished the Jersey shore, trolling and bait-fishing. She wasn't exposed to fly-fishing until she visited her dad and stepmother on a trip to Snowmass Village. "My stepmom had been to Snowmass before and really loved the place, so we took trips there a few times before I graduated from high school," she says.
Her parents bought a home in Snowmass when they retired. One summer, Wiedinmyer's dad hired guide Bret Gardner for a float trip. Shortly thereafter, Wiedinmyer graduated from Tulane University, and not landing the perfect job, moved to Snowmass before enrolling in graduate school. "Snowmass is a small town, and it wasn't long before I met Bret and we became friends," she says. Gardner spent time teaching Wiedinmyer how to fly-fish that year. "I learned so much from him because he is so patient, and I grew to love fly-fishing so much," she says.
She started dating Bret long distance while working on her master's and doctorate at the University of Texas. On many of her trips back to Colorado, Wiedinmyer would join Bret and fish the Roaring Fork or Frying Pan Rivers or their favorite fishing ponds around Carbondale. "My family grew to love fly-fishing as I did, and it was a great time to be with my favorite people — my boyfriend, dad and brother," she says.
On one trip back to Carbondale, Wiedinmyer stayed at Bret's gorgeous ranch for three weeks while working on her dissertation. "He lived in this amazing place with a half mile of the Roaring Fork running through and three or four ponds that had huge rainbow trout," she recalls. The trout were skittish — or smart — she says, and so the ponds couldn't be fished that often. The night before she left to go back to Texas, she fished the pond and had a fish on, but it broke the leader.
"I told Bret and his roommate not to fish that pond until I returned three weeks later," she says. When she returned, her thoughts were solely on catching that trout. She and Bret went out to the pond, rod in hand and ready to get one of those big rainbow trout. "Bret insisted on my using his fly, and I wasn't crazy about the idea because I'm fairly strong-willed and had my heart set on the fly I had chosen," she says. But she gave in and let him tie his preferred fly — an engagement ring. "The next thing I knew, he handed me the line with a ring attached and was kneeling by my side — I, of course, said yes," she says.
Even though she didn't end up catching one of the big ones that evening, she did go back out the next morning and land one."That's the beauty of fly-fishing. You're in a beautiful setting, and you love it when a fish hits, and you can just block out everything else," she explains.
Getting out to fish isn't as easy as it used to be for Wiedinmyer as she has two small children, Maggie, 3 1/2, and Finn, 13 months. Balancing her dream career, officiating at girls’ lacrosse and raising a family, she has few hours to get out to the streams. "We try to sneak away for a few hours to fish, or we'll go to Snowmass where my family will take care of the kids, and go for a quick float," she says.
She and Bret did manage to take a trip recently to Honduras for a week-long bone-fishing vacation. "It was hard fishing because the fish are spooky, but I liked the weight of the rod and felt I cast better," she says.
"I do a lot of community service because of my work, and because I love it," she comments. Wiedinmyer just presented an activity for the Girls Exploring Science, Engineering & Technology Symposium in Denver, where 1,400 middle school girls were in attendance.
She is an accomplished woman in many regards, but it is her husband and two children that make her the happiest. "Watching my two kids play together today in the yard with Bret was a pretty proud and teary moment," she says.
The first time Connie Rogers went fly-fishing, she was 12. Her family moved to Colorado, and her father's boss had a ranch with streams running through the property. She was handed a rod and given brief casting instructions, and Rogers said, "I was hooked and loved it." She didn't fly-fish again until well into her second career.
Post-college, Rogers often planned backpacking and hiking trips with friends. "I love the outdoors and did everything to take advantage of the mountains," she says.
She worked as a political activist for women's rights and also had a studio where she fired pottery. But she was unsettled with her work and decided to take a different career path and enter law school. Today Rogers practices law with Davis Graham & Stubbs and works in the oil, gas and mining industry, specializing in tribal land law. "I adore my work, I love spending time with my Indian tribe clients, and am so invested that I want to see them succeed. When I'm free, I work in time to fly-fish," she says.
Rogers got a chance to go fly-fishing 10 years ago while on a social outing with her golf pro and several others at the Cordillera resort. "While on this trip, we hired fly-fishing guides, and I was hooked again," she says. She immediately ran out to Wal-Mart and purchased some equipment and set out on short trips to practice. "This trip got me back into fly-fishing, and it was a good weekend with professional women, and I still fish with a couple of the women I met that weekend," she comments.
Shortly after getting back into fly-fishing, Rogers joined Colorado Women Fly-fishers, a nonprofit club formed to encourage and support women who fly-fish. "This is an organization where you meet women from all walks of life, bound by the love of the river and fly-fishing," she says. Rogers discovered the group while attending the Fly-fishing Expo at the Denver Merchandise Mart. "I floundered with my Wal-Mart rod until then," she says.
Always the do-it-yourself, self-sufficient type, she ties her own flies, line and backing. "I had an embarrassing situation on one trip with a guide, when I hooked into a big trout and the fish ran, pulling all of the line and eventually the backing right off my reel," she says. "The guide jumped into the river, grabbed the backing and just started howling, asking 'Who tied that line?'" she sheepishly recalls.
On that same trip, the guide pointed out a fish in a riffle, and he told her where to cast. She cast the line and missed the fish. He rowed back up the river to the same spot, with the same fly, two more times. Two more times she missed the fish. He started to row back up the river for a fourth time, and Rogers said to him, "Don't go back up the river again, I can't afford that kind of tip."
For Rogers, there is nothing like standing in the river, holding a rod and feeling the resistance. "Every angler loves catching fish, assessing the waters, making adjustments and just being engaged, without any form of stress," she says.
Today Rogers is focusing on fly-fishing techniques such as line control, getting the fly placed and mending. "I've also taken up an affection for bamboo rods and like the feel of the rod load," she says.
When her client load is lessened, she ventures off to some of her favorite areas, such as the South Platte and the Arkansas River. "I have lots of favorite spots, but one thing I love to do is hike in the back country and fish some of the streams," she says.
The beauty of fly-fishing is the lack of pressure. Rogers says, "Fly-fishing recharges me like nothing else."
