Meet Kastine Coleman, the only female certified fly-fishing instructor in N.L.

As a child, Kastine Coleman would while away summer days floating like a starfish down the river that flowed into George's Lake, on the west coast of Newfoundland.

On her belly, goggles firmly in place, she had one desire: to admire the salmon swimming beneath her. She also spent those sunny seasons fishing with her father, catch-and-release style.

"It was all magic," she said.

The two would wander through the woods, past several spots along the river that Coleman would consider suitable, but, as if her father were clairvoyant, he knew exactly where to go. In her words, she caught the fishing bug bad.

"There was just so much to know about them," she said.

Now 43, Coleman has turned her salmon obsession into a career. Based in Corner Brook, she's a casting instructor and fishing guide; in fact, she's Newfoundland and Labrador's only female Fly Fishers International-certified casting instructor.

She's the owner of Tight Loops Tight Lines, a company that offers casting lessons and guided salmon fly fishing trips, along with business partner Terry Byrne who is known for finding the 40-pounders.

In 2022, she was also awarded the Newfoundland and Labrador Organization of Women Entrepreneurs'trendsetter award.

Her goal is to help her students become independent anglers, including women who may be weary of the male-dominated pastime.

"It's a really intimidating sport," she said. "Especially if you go to a place where there are a lot of people around. You're kind of expected to know what to do or you feel like you're going to get in trouble."

That's where she steps in.

Putting the skills to use

Coleman has held her fishing guide licence since she was 16, but it wasn't until years later that she put her skills to professional use, after working as a yoga instructor and a kinesiologist, and starting a family.

One day, she was out in the water by herself trying to reach a run of salmon on the other side of the river. Suddenly, she was submerged up to her chest.

"'If I fall in now, it could take somebody six days to find me,'" she remembers thinking. "'And I have three kids waiting for a ride home from school.'"

She started teaching herself to cast furtherso she wouldn't have to wade out as far.

"It's so technical, the casting element of fly-fishing, that I just became so very interested in the techniques you could use to cast further," she said.

Techniques that aren't all about physical strength.

Then her brother mentioned Fly Fishers International.

"People actually do this for a living, and they teach people how to cast," he told her.

"No way, that can't be true," she responded.

But it was true, and after a significant amount of reading, studying and exam taking, she reeled in her certification.

"There's a need for this here in the community," she said, as one of only two instructors on Newfoundland's west coast, and one of four provincewide.

"I just thought that I would really enjoy doing it, so I dove in."

And the best part so far: "As more and more people asked for help, every time I went somewhere, a lady would come up to me and say, 'I've always wanted to do that.'"

Appreciating the surroundings

Tight Loops Tight Lines has been up and running since 2019, and Coleman's goal goes beyond shaping anglers who can hold their own in the water. She wants her students to slow down.

When learning, she said, it's easy to get caught up in the details of safety, how to set up a rod, how to choose the right fly, and of course, how to actually fish.

But there's so much more to fishing.

"You can smell the forest and you hear the water, and that is what really makes it a whole event," she said.

"When you start to appreciate your surroundings and then you start to love the river system and not just the fishing, you start to take care of the forest and then you're picking up trash on the way out. You always want to be able to make that special and heartfelt connection with not just the fishing, but also the river and everything that fishing encompasses."

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