Women taking up fly-fishing in greater numbers
There are no exact numbers, but by and large, fly-fishing has long been regarded as a "male-dominated" activity. There's little doubt that a female angler on the banks of a trout stream a few years ago would raise an eyebrow.
Not anymore.
An unscientific survey of Colorado's fly-fishing cognoscenti confirms that somewhere in the past decade, women have made a significant ingress.
"Fly-fishing is very restorative," said Erica Stock of Trout Unlimited. "It's not a race. It's not a competition. It's meant to relax you."
And so, she explains, fishing emanates a kind of welcoming atmosphere from one angler to the next, whether male or female. Sure, there's a bit of my-fish-is-bigger rivalry on any stream, but Stout said fishing's inherently mellow nature takes the edge off most clashes of ego. She also notes that, much like yoga, fishing offers a kind of mental relaxation that is often hard to find.
"It has a meditative quality," she said. "You have to remember that you will never achieve perfection, so you have to go into a kind of Zen Buddhist mind-set."
