Hurricane Helene cut a path of immeasurable destruction—500 miles wide, more than the distance between Boston and Washington, D.C.—from the Great Bend region of Florida, through Georgia, into the Carolinas, eastern Tennessee and beyond.
While we are still trying to grasp the total scope of damage, it’s fair to assume that we’ve never experienced a storm quite like this one.
That’s certainly true in the context of the fishing community. Usually, you say “hurricane” and you think of the coastal impacts. But this one affected everyone… saltwater in the Gulf of Mexico… some of the best bass fishing locales in the world… and even some of the best trout fishing towns and rivers in the Southeast.
The trout world, impacted by a hurricane? Welcome to the new, deeply disturbing, climate change-influenced world we live in. The waters and the fish themselves have an uncanny ability to respond and recover to natural disasters. What we need to focus on now are the people and the communities who are feeling the weight of everything.
“The level of destruction is unimaginable,” said Kim Ranella, owner of Miss Mayfly, a maker of fly-fishing waders, apparel and accessories for women anglers, which is based in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area. “It’s going to take years to recover from this, and we still don’t know the status of some guides and businesses.”
The focus now will be help to meet the immediate needs of those affected—food, clean water, shelter clothing. In time, the fly-fishing community will surely organize efforts—as it has in the past—to help fly businesses get back on solid ground.
The American Fly Fishing Trade Association has answered the call by compiling a list of resources to help meet immediate needs here.
