When women wade in

A Driftless Area stream

Photo by J. Harrington

A week from Friday, on March 18, the Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo opens at 1:00 pm in St. Paul at the Hamline University Walker Fieldhouse. Since yesterday was International Women’s Day and March is Women’s History Month, today we’re pleased to note that several of the presenters at the Expo are women. Here are two women currently listed as speakers:

Monta Hayner

Monta is a teacher and guide at the Driftless Fly Fishing Company in Preston, MN. She grew up trout fishing with her family in Michigan and Oregon. She took up fly fishing 17 years ago after discovering the trout streams of the Driftless area. She has since spent many spring breaks with her brother, Mel Hayner, fishing the streams of SE Minnesota. Since joining Fly Fishing Women of Minnesota she has taught beginning fly fishing classes and became a mentor to club members and a mentor with the DNR Minnaqua fly fishing program.

Val Wagner

Val has caught pike for over 50 years and on the fly for the last 20. She has caught many different species on the fly, including many on a stand up paddle board. She is active on the Chapter 642 TU board and has taught women's fly fishing workshops with her husband Bob. She lives on the Turtle River north of Bemidji, Minnesota.    Riverwood Designs 

On Saturday, at 2:30 pm, there’s a presentation on Restoring the Kinnickinnic River. The speaker isn’t a woman but the topic is one I’ve become involved with so I’m promoting it here. More than one of the exhibitor’s tables, such as the KinniCC  or the TCTU booth, should have information about the dam removal and river restoration effort currently in process in the vicinity of River Falls. The prospect of an urban trout fishery is intriguing.

Alice Paul

Katharine Rolston Fisher - 1871-1949

I watched a river of women,
Rippling purple, white and golden, 
Stream toward the National Capitol. 

Along its border, 
Like a purple flower floating, 
Moved a young woman, worn, wraithlike. 
All eyes alight, keenly observing the marchers. 
Out there on the curb, she looked so little, so lonely, 
Few appeared even to see her; 
No one saluted her. 

Yet commander was she of the column, its leader; 
She was the spring whence arose that irresistible river of women 
Streaming steadily towards the National Capitol.

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