Women's team proves fly-fishing isn't impossible
Artemis Sportswomen team, mostly beginners, completes 15-species challenge in 24 days
UPDATE: Team Artemis is the 2022 Challenge WINNING TEAM and gets a free Illinois River fishing trip with guide Donavan Clary. Congratulations ladies!
Looking at that #4 hook buried in Cara Cunningham’s thumb, my first thought was I wished I’d remembered to smash the barb on that popper before I put it in the hands of a woman who had less than three hours using a fly rod.
Cunningham had said that morning that after this day she would decide whether to purchase the loaner rod and reel she was using or take a pass on fly-fishing after catching a minimum of fish needed for her part in Trout Unlimited 420 Chapter’s 15-week, All Fish All Oklahoma Fly-Fishing Challenge.
And here she was, pre-dawn, with a shiny new double-barrel blue-and-black popper solidly perched on her thumb with the help of a confused cast and a breeze that popped up over her shoulder. I could tell it was a good hit because the hook was in well past the barb and there was absolutely no blood.
It was not the time for photos or social media posts about how to remove a hook with one of the new state ambassadors for Artemis Sportswomen Oklahoma. Nothing helps a group recruit and re-activate women into the outdoors like showing a new fly fisher holding up her thumb with what amounts to a bumble bee with a 1/2-inch stinger stuck in her hand!
After it was over, I thought again and should have known better. Nothing stops competitive women. In fact, I’ve imagined what a great little film it would have been if I could have magically grabbed a selection of the best clips of the adventures of the four women in Team Artemis Sportswomen as they not only took on the 15-week challenge with 4-weeks to go but finished it with plenty of time to spare.
If ever you’ve considered fly-fishing but thought it would be too hard and it would be impossible to catch a fish, the story of this team will prove you wrong.
The challenge, which ran from Memorial Day Weekend through Monday of Labor Day Weekend, wraps up with awards presentations this evening (Sept. 15) at the monthly meeting of TU420. Prize-winning teams and individuals will be drawn from among those who successfully completed the challenge.
Twenty-one of 55 individuals completed the challenge, as did 12 of the 18 teams. The individual winner gets a split of the pot and bragging rights with the traveling trophy and the winning team gets a guided float trip on the Illinois River.
The festivities tonight include a talk by renowned angler Davy Wotten. It is free and open to the public, and it starts at 6 p.m. at Hardesty Library, 8316 E 93rd St, Tulsa.
Team Artemis Sportswomen was a good idea early on that was starting to feel impossible by the end of July.
It had been a month since I’d contacted #OkieFlyGal Bridget Norris Kirk to agree to be “team captain” and anchor an all-women team my one-man company KJBOutdoors would sponsor.
And it had been a month since Trout Unlimited Chapter 420 buddy Scott Hood said he would help with some guiding, if needed, and that the organization might have some old loaner equipment after Cunningham had said she was interested but had never even touched a fly rod and was about to head out of state on a long vacation.
People’s summers are busy, daily temperatures kept hitting triple-digits, and the long-term weather forecast in August was simply gross.
Asked again, Kirk said she was still game. She was on seven different teams this year and posted the largest smallmouth bass for the tournament at 17.25 inches and the biggest white bass at 17.5.
She was not only still game to anchor this team but ultimately decided she would repeat the challenge and log all 15 species again for Team Artemis. Each of the three other team members would only need to catch three species unique from each other’s lineup. Easier said than done.
Dr. Jennifer Donnelly, whose fly-fishing cred was “I’ve got a fly rod and been fishing but have yet to catch a fish,” came through with an all-important second line, “I have a friend I think will want to do it too.”
Donnelly brought on Marlow Perkins Sipes, who had some experience with big trout on small Colorado streams, and on August 3 they were set to go.
Before the first day passed, Kirk put the team on the board with three sunfish species and Donnelly jumped in at a Tulsa pond, literally, with a bluegill, her first fish ever on a fly rod.
She sent the team a text with a photo of her first fish, followed by another of some mud-stained, moss-filled watery muck. The concrete drainage she stood upon apparently was slippery with algae.
“I was so excited I slid into this,” it read.
And then she noted, “I fell straight on my ass and bloodied my arm. Lol.”
A day later I met Cunningham at Mohawk Park for a couple of hours of fly-casting instruction and a little time fishing. She was a natural. She quickly picked up on how to make a roll cast and had bluegill and a “wildcard” hybrid green sunfish clicked off her list before sunset.
The text string between the four of the next 24 days is a good guide for questions all new fly fishers have. They discussed when and where to fish, what lines they needed, what boots or wading shoes they should have, fish identification, team strategy, photography techniques, and loads of detail about exactly which flies they needed to cast, how, and where.
Kirk goes fishing every week on spots from the Illinois River Drainage to Lake Texhoma to the Blue River, but the other three hit a wide variety of spots too, including Tulsa public ponds and local lakes, and wading into the Arkansas River near Tulsa in at least two locations. They, too, fished the Illinois River, as most in this contest do at one point or another.
I joined Marlow and Donnelly on a trip with local striper slayer, Heirloom Rustic Ales owner, and Trout Unlimited Chapter 420 member Jake Miller as they waded into the Arkansas River. They learned how to cast sinking lines into the currents and fished hard and without fear—and without luck—until it was too dark to see. We walked back to the car by the light of a full moon and mobile phones.
None shrunk from the challenge. Marlow was the most experienced, after Kirk, but was cursed with plain bad luck I personally witnessed on two occasions. Still, she logged four different species, including one very nice rainbow trout.
Donnelly put the finishing touch on the team challenge with eight different species, which included the last one needed to finish the challenge, a crappie. She sent the photo of herself with the fish, wearing her scrubs, with a note that she fit in the boat-dock catch between her last surgery and a 5 p.m. meeting, on her 25th wedding anniversary.
Never should I have doubted their odds, but as I clipped a length of 20-pound test fluorocarbon to wrap around my hand and that #4 stuck in Cunningham’s thumb the second morning into their challenge, I confess I worried things might be going off the rails.
I asked her how she was feeling. She was calm but clearly ready to be rid of that hook.
“It hurts so I want it out of there, but don’t worry I’ve had plenty of piercings,” she said.
“Count of three,” I said.
I could see she had a good angle and was pushing down perfectly atop that popper to get minimum resistance from that barb on the way out.
“One.” And it was out.
She put on a bandage and quickly got back to enduring incredibly near misses with that popper. It took a couple of hours, but finally, using an olive-colored woolly bugger, she landed a nice largemouth.
As we left the pond she said she decided to buy that loaner fly rod, and that afternoon she hiked a local creek with a rock-hounding friend and caught spotted bass, longear sunfish, and a green sunfish.
In all, she would log six different species in her first three weeks as a fly-fisher, on public waters, in Oklahoma.
Not many Oklahoma anglers can say started out that successfully, but the experiences of Cunningham, Sipes, and Donnelly are proof it can be done.
Congratulations Artemis. When I was talked into the challenge I didn’t know I would be sharing my Brother with another team. And you should have heard him whooo it up when you won the top pick.