WOMEN IN WADERS 2019 has come and gone... Bridgette Stegen 2019 has come and gone, I’m still trying to figure out exactly how it all happened that fast. Reflecting on where 2019 took the Women in Waders, it was a year of stepping outside comfort zones and into new experience. We explored the Bushman’s with the charming & uber talented Peter Brigg, we fished our way into the finals of the Tops Corporate Challenge (TCC), we explored different techniques on the river that we had only seen on TV or heard the “buggers” chatting about, we learnt to tie new knots, embrace new rod sizes and, saving the best for last, we travelled to a new country to fish different waters. Our 9th place win at the TCC took us, four women, on a road trip to the abrasive yet abundantly beautiful land of Lesotho. This
trip was an experience I will never forget & I plan to spill the tea in an upcoming issue but for now let me whet the pallet a little. We never in our young dreams of starting this group of lady fly-fishers thought we’d be living the glossy pages of a fly magazine, but that’s truly how we felt. Enduring blistering heat, gale-force winds, hikes that scaled mountain faces technically more difficult that climbing Kili (as told by a Kili climber herself, Lydall Blaikie), extreme drought waters and takes so fierce we still have wild dreams about them. Lesotho was a “pinchme” moment that for a long time seemed wildly impossible, yet it is on our doorstep, accessible to anyone with patience for winding roads, hiking to find the sweet spots and comfortable with the bare necessities.
