Fly fishing means something different when you grow up around the river. You learn lessons by watching

flows change. You learn respect by seeing what happens when water is stressed. And you learn stewardship

simply by spending enough time to care. Tricia Valdez is here to talk about growing up fishing

in New Mexico and how her early experiences on local rivers influence the way people fish later in life and why connection to place often

matters more than chasing the next destination.

This is the wet fly swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to

for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip

and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love.

In this episode, Tricia Valdez is going to share some of her background, and we're going to find out about someone whose fishing roots were shaped by the Mora River, the Mora River in New Mexico.

And we're going to find about how this path grew in fly fishing and how she started the New Mexico lady anglers. We're going to get into that whole story and all of her connections around there with community. Plus, we're going to get some fishing tips on New Mexico, one of the great places. All right, let's get into it. You can find Trisha Valdez at trisha Valdez.com. Here she is. How you doing, Trisha? I'm good. How are you, Dave? Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah, we're going to jump into New Mexico, which is a place that I have, I still haven't been to yet, although it's got to be close to the top of my bucket list, because it seems like you have everything there, the good weather mountains, you've got the desert, all that. But we're also going to jump into New Mexico lady anglers and kind of maybe talk about some rivers and streams you fish there. But yeah, how is it? What is it this time of year? Is it still pretty awesome to be in Mexico when it's kind of the middle of winter? You know what? Actually, it is. I mean, we've had such a balmy winter, if you will. The winter's just been so warm that pretty much a lot of things are still fishable. Of course, you've got the San Juan River. That's always fishable all year round. But yeah, you can go out there and find some chunks of ice and dig underneath there if you want to get a fish.

Nice. You can. So you can do it. All right. And so I think part of this, I think you first San Juan

Rod Works, Gary, who we've been working with, I think he was the first person who mentioned your name.

And I'm always interested to connect, you know, with more lady anglers because I feel like that's a big struggle of ours, you know, connecting with more women out there. And maybe start there. Talk to us a little about that. How did New Mexico lady anglers or maybe just fly fishing in general, have you been doing all this working with the group and doing this for a while? Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks Gary for like the shout out. Yeah.

By the way, Gary has a, talking about you probably have some of his rods. Have you ever used the San Juan rods? Yeah, I did. I bought the frying pan. Oh, yeah, frying pan. Yeah. I bought the frying pan. I had like, okay, so with New Mexico Lady Anglers, we have like a monthly meat. And one of our meets was to, I like to incorporate

anybody in New Mexico that wants to talk about what they do, their fly shop, it doesn't matter

who. We don't like stick with one certain person or one certain venue. We're like all over.

Yeah, it's just like us. We interview everybody because we love it. Exactly. Yeah, it doesn't matter

what kind of fishing you do. I don't care,

just as long as you get out there. But with Gary, I wanted him to introduce that fly rod to our ladies because a lot of ladies think that they have to spend a lot of money in order to do this, you know, to do fly fishing. And you just don't. And so he came out and he brought his rods. he showed us how they work. He put them together. He talked about the different weights and how they swing. And I mean, things like that are important to the ladies because when they go into a fly shop, they don't really know what they're looking for unless they're educated on it. And that can be intimidating. And that's the whole pretty much premise of why I started New Mexico Lady Anglers. Oh, wow. So you started it. Oh, yeah. Wow. Okay. So we got the founder on here. This is going to be great. I think that, you know, we've talked a lot about this over the years, you know, going back. I think the Orvis 50-50 movement always is a big, you know, part of it because there was that big movement. But, I mean, just in general, it feels like, I mean, what's your take on it? I know there's been some struggles because you've heard stories about women going into fly shops and not feeling, I don't know, supported, right? And kind of, what's your take? Have you been, do you think about that a lot these days? Dave, was I a victim? Yes.

You were. You victim. I was a fly shop victim. There you go. Let me tell you what happens. So basically,

I didn't really know a lot about fly fishing, but I've been doing it for a long time, so I didn't know the

specifics of it. I think one of the best things that I did to help me was to actually go to a fly shop and beg for a job.

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