We added this “About Us” section to the website because we wanted you to learn why we created this site.
About 25 years ago I was introduced to this phenomena men call “fishing”. I never really spent time outdoors except for the occasional trip to a local lake to go swimming. Our family spent our vacations down in Mexico. Although that may sound exotic, it really was only visiting people my parents knew. Three times I was able to go to some of the resorts on the coast, but only for a short weekend.
It wasn’t until I met my husband that I really got to experience fishing. So let me tell you about us. My husband grew up fishing. His grandmother and uncle took him and his family fishing at local ponds and then graduated to Wisconsin inland lakes. My husband and his brother embraced the sport and have become really good at it.
While dating my husband, he invited me to go fishing with him. Of course, I knew nothing about the sport except for the fact that I would have to get on a boat and deal with my motion sickness. I thought it would be great to spend time with him, which was very limited. I agreed to go along and quickly realized how relaxing this sport is. This sport allowed us to spend time together talking, dreaming and exploring without any interruption from people, appointments, cell phones or emails.
So let me tell you more about us. Although I thought it would be great to hang out with him, he ended up teaching me the sport. I would systematically follow casting, pulling weeds off the lures and recasting. Keep in mind; I caught about two small fish after several trips out on the lake. After about half an hour of that, I would lay down on the boat and get some rays. It wasn’t until one late afternoon we were Muskie fishing and I wasn’t really paying too much attention to what I was doing (seeing that I never really caught fish), I casted a surface bait (the Creeper).
The Creeper reminded me of a frog, as you can see from this picture on the right. Yes this was the exact bait I was using.
I was reeling in my cast then BAM!!! a large Muskie hit my bait. The Muskie did a 180 and took off to get away. It nearly pulled me into the lake. I was following all the steps for setting the hook and reeling in the monster. I struggled with the fish as it pulled me from one side of the boat to the other. After about 5 minutes of that, the fish pulled me, literally, pulled me to the back of the boat and tangled the line around the motor of the boat. Low and behold, the line broke and “it got away”. I was so taken by this whole experience. Afterwards my heart was pounding out of my chest and the palms of my hands had my nail marks embedded into them from holding on to the rod so tightly.
I WAS HOOKED! I could now understand what everyone was saying about fishing. You do get a “rush” when the fish hits your line.
The final thing about us – after years of fishing with my husband, I started watching fishing shows with him and attended fishing sport shows in our town. We would shop at local fishing stores to purchase fishing equipment and plan an annual fishing trip to a resort in northern Wisconsin. Although all of that was fun, I quickly realized that the sport was not targeting me, a woman. The industry was targeting men. There were websites with only men on them. The sites had very limited information for beginners, let alone women.
For several years my husband and I would talk about how I felt that the sport was not talking to me, a woman. I felt that there was not much out there for me to get involved in the sport, unless I was an avid angler. Although my husband taught me how to fish, which was very informational, it would have been great if I was able to see how other women fished. If someone I could relate to would show me, I’d be more successful with the sport. There wasn’t much out there, so we decided to create the Woodsy Woman.
The Woodsy Woman is designed to give you valuable information about fishing. There is so much information on fishing – I thought I’d narrow it down for someone who wants enough information to start being an active participant in the sport.
The information provided to you in this website is not intended to be from experts. Some is information I learned from other sources and some is information I share with you that comes from our experiences.
We hope you have enjoyed learning About Us.