If I had boobs

Who needs a wading jacket?

Joel Nielsson, WikiMedia

Before I venture into this rant let me make it clear that I know that there's a lot of really talented female anglers and fly tyers out there and that I'd love nothing more than seeing more women in our ranks.
This is not a critique of the women who have done well in fly fishing and fly tying, but more like a round of flak to the men who give those whose main talent is a good body, a lot of wind in the sails, simply because they are female, good looking and dress... eh... let's just say that waders and wading jackets are not a big item on their budget.

I'm on Facebook

as the flyfisherman Martin and mostly enjoy it. I'm there for the fishing stories, the flies, the great photos and hints on what's buzzing in the community, what to read and what to watch, what to try and what to buy. My friend count is just around 1,000, and that gives a healthy dose of fly fishing related news and inspiration every day.
The complex algorithms that drive Facebook sometimes suggest some new people that the ghost in the machine thinks I should befriend or a group that I should join. Most of the suggestions make pretty good sense. The people are flyfishermen like myself, know people that I know, are in groups that I'm in, and like pages that I like. They are mainly men in their best age, average Joes, profile images showing them in wading jackets and waders holding a rod and maybe even a fish.

But quite often

there's a woman in the list. She's much younger than the males, typically in her twenties. She's also holding a fish, but in stead of being by a murky river on a cloudy day, she's on a boat somewhere in Florida or the Caribbean and she's certainly not in waders! Let's put it this way: If anglers around me were dressed like this typical young woman, I'd have a hard time concentrating on the casting!
Now and then I do click on to see some more. I certainly don't dislike looking at beautiful women in small pieces of textile. I'm always surprised – not that I see a lot of pictures of a good looking woman fishing, but by the number of Facebook friends and likes they attract. Thousands! Ten thousands! Some even hundred thousands!

Bikinis fishing

Martin Joergensen

There's Fishing Girls.

As the declaration says: “A page dedicated to finding that girl who'll hold your pole!”.
Nudge, nudge! Know what I mean?
Some 4,000 guys think that's a great come on line.
Fishing Girls without the hyphen follows troop with 7,000 likes. “What two things go together perfectly - Fishing and Babes” as the tag line says.

Another group called Fishing Hotties

(yes, really!) has more than 60,000 members. A few of the women depicted wear long sleeves. A major letdown, which is probably the reason for the low number of fans.

Because that's bleak

compared to Fishing Bikini Girls. No reason to risk seeing any long sleeves, jackets or waders. The result? 440,000 likes! I love the tagline by the way: "Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has ever been". Where did that come from? It's just girls fishing in bikinis for crissake!

Brooke Thomas

is a pretty girl who fishes. Some kind of celebrity too, I guess, but not one that spends much money on fishing clothes. Some 360,000 people think that's a pretty good idea, a vast majority of them are probably potbellied, balding, middle aged men like the most of us.

There's a gazillion

of these Facebook profiles, Instagram accounts, Pinterest boards and web sites. Strut your stuff girl! And grab that pole! Men will be flocking...

Now, these girls

might be really good anglers and able to outfish all of us – and judging from the fact that they're always holding up a fish, they catch a lot more than I do. But you certainly don't like them or become their virtual friend because you want to get tips on fishing, gear, flies, locations are whatever, because there's no such thing in sight.
Boobs, buttocks and belly buttons is it!
I know it's the oldest trick in the book: flash some skin, a little pushup and some cleavage and you'll have men gathering like flies on *beep*. Men are so easy.
So if I want success I need some major surgery done. Most of the girls seem to have, in spite of being pretty well equipped from nature. That's obviously much more attractive to anglers than well researched and thoroughly illustrated articles on fly-fishing or simple and catchy fly patterns like mine. I'm orders of a magnitude less popular than even the most untalented fishing girl in a bikini. Who needs skills and brain when there's boobs?

I do suspect that the cover picture for this post will draw a few clicks

If I just had boobs

I'd be a great success in the fishing community...!
On second thought, I think I'll try to push that picture aside and stay with my measly thousand – mostly mature male – contacts, and be satisfied with the visitors that come for the content and not for the boobs - even though I do suspect that the cover picture for this post will draw a few clicks.