Editor’s Note: After compiling some of the best fish stories from our female fishing fans over the last month or so, FLWOutdoors.com is finally ready to share them with the public. For the next several weeks, beginning Feb. 12, we’ll feature a different submission every couple of days, with a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule beginning Feb. 16. To be sure, the stories submitted by our readers have been most impressive as well – ranging from the truly humorous to the utterly heartbreaking. We hope you’ll enjoy them as much as we did. And hopefully, as more and more women get involved in the wonderful sport of fishing, we’ll get to read and hear about many more stories from our female fans in the future. Enjoy.
Dawn Decaminada
Orlando, Fla.
Valentine’s Day date begins love affair with fishing
Fishing? Are you kidding? I grew up in the city, went to camp in the “country” once a year to ride horses, and the closest I got to a fish was in my uncle’s pond when one nibbled on my dough ball. My dad didn’t fish, my grandpa didn’t fish. Actually, no one in my family fished, so how was I to know what I was missing?
My first experience fishing was in my boyfriend’s John Boat on Valentine’s Day. Believe it or not, I was a tomboy and the thought of getting dirty didn’t really bother me. I, of course, thought you fished with worms from the dirt; I didn’t think you could actually catch a fish with a plastic worm or a metal spinnerbait.
The first time I caught a fish I thought I was “stuck” on a log or weeds (or whatever it was that grew underwater). I wasn’t very impressed; it didn’t fight like everyone said it would, but I kept on fishing. A few minutes later I caught another, and another, and another. Each one fought harder than the one before, and suddenly it became a competition between my boyfriend and me to see who could catch more. I had beginner’s luck so I won, of course.
That competition between my boyfriend and me grew into my love of fishing. Don’t get me wrong, I live for bass tournaments, but there really isn’t a word to describe being on the water at 6 a.m., watching the sun come up and hearing the birds welcome the day. The sound the water makes when it hits on the side of the boat. I love everything about it. The feeling you get right before you hit the gas and take off into the middle of the lake, when you are the first one to make a ripple. Every morning is a new adventure; you never know if this is the day you are going to catch your “big fish” or you are going to get “skunked.”
Three years may seem like a short amount of time in the fishing world. I look at people that have been fishing for 20-plus years and can’t imagine everything they have seen. I wonder what secrets they have for finding fish. I have tried to soak up as much knowledge as I can, problem-solving when it comes my time to find the fish. So far I have done pretty well. I always say women are better problem solvers than men, anyway. Sometimes you just get that feeling, all the elements are there but you just don’t “feel” the fish. That’s something you cannot learn. That’s how I know that I am a true fisherman; I feel it when I am on the water.
I have experienced my share of highs and lows: days when I don’t get a bite to times that it seems I could put a sock on the end of my line and catch a fish. I have almost mastered the obstacle of being a woman on a boat and having to go to the bathroom. It only takes falling in one time on a cold day to learn to hang on a little tighter. I have hooked myself, my boyfriend, my boyfriend’s father and his brother on at least one occasion. I have flipped into bullrush so perfectly I felt I should be rewarded with a fish, whether one was there or not. I am a better flipper than my boyfriend, hands down. I don’t have as much patience as he has, which I truly admire.
I am a woman fisherman, I compete in a male dominated sport and I win. It used to bother me, but now I know that it doesn’t matter what sex you are, it’s your love and dedication to the sport. I can’t imagine my life without fishing. I hope when I have children I have daughters to whom I can pass on everything I have learned. I hope by that time, women’s names are thrown around as some of the greats of the sport like Yelas and VanDam. I want to be one of those women 20 years down that line that young girls look to and wonder what secrets I know.