In May, Rocky Mountain Sportswomen held a Fly Tying Pint Night at Storm Peak Brewing Company in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. After several weeks of preparation, we were excited for this collaboration event. The response it received was overwhelming.
The idea sparked from an Instagram post from Colorado Women Flyfishers, sharing their recent fly tying night. I reached out to them and had a wonderful conversation with the woman whom helped organize the event. I told her I had been wanting to do something similar here in Steamboat. She helped me come up with some ideas to put together our own Rocky Mountain Sportswomen fly tying night. Colorado Women Flyfishers is based out of Denver and has been around for many years! We hope to do an event together in the future. Check them out!
I connected with a few Colorado Chapter Leaders from Project Healing Waters, a National organization that helps heal wounded veterans and active military through fly fishing. We developed the idea to donate all the flies that are tied at the event to Project Healing Waters, more specifically for their annual women’s trip. I am really excited to have partnered up with them, and hope to do more events with them in the future. Read more about what they do here!
Wes from Steamboat Flyfisher was a major help in bringing all the gear together. we were able to borrow 25 fly tying vices from the Steamboat Springs Middle School Fly Fishing Club. Wes also donated materials from the shop and his own time to help teach us the art of fly tying. Alice Tesar, a guide from Steamboat Flyfisher, and April Lassiter were also gracious enough to donate their time to help teach us ladies how to tie zebra midges and San Juan worms.
On the night of the event, Storm Peak Brewing was a bustling place.we had three tables reserved for us. Our bartender, Abby, was incredibly nice, and handled the busy night very well. She is now a Rocky Mountain Sportswomen fan, and hopefully, soon-to-be participant! The beer tasted great as we got the materials set up for our ladies. Overall we had twenty six participants. There were a lot of new faces that hadn’t participated in any of our events yet. We all started off with San Juan worms, which is a pretty basic and easy fly to start with. They are fairly effective too! After getting some practice in, we moved on to the zebra midge, another popular, yet simple fly. It was incredible to see the sense of pride on everyone’s faces at their ability to tie their own fly. Overall, I believe there was a lot learned during this clinic, considering the majority of the ladies who attended, including myself, had never tied flies before.
With donations from Steamboat Flyfisher, BAP, Straightline Sports, and Umpqua, we were able to do some fun giveaway prizes for the ladies who came out! With so much support and positive feedback, This event has me feeling excited for future Rocky Mountain Sportswomen events. Each event seems to be better than the last.
As we all get ready for summer, Jaime and I have a ton of ideas for Rocky Mountain Sportswomen events. Stay tuned for announcements of our upcoming events. If you have any ideas, or may know someone who would like to connect and help put on an event, please reach out! We are always open to new ideas and connections, and want to continue to provide this outlet for women to get into fishing and/or hunting.