Fisher with a mission: first woman to chair grayling society wants to protect ‘lady of the stream’

Marnie Lovejoy hopes to inspire other women to fish, protect England’s rivers and lift up the ‘beautiful’ grayling

W ith its iridescent pink scales and elegant dorsal fin, the grayling is known to anglers as the “lady of the stream”, yet the society fighting for its protection has never been led by a woman, until now.

Angling, and fly-fishing in particular, has always been a very male-dominated sport. The fly-fisher’s club in Mayfair, London, where anglers meet to lunch on dover sole and drink fine wine, did not allow women to cross the threshold even as guests until 2024.

One of Britain’s few high-profile female anglers, Marina Gibson has said she’s faced sexism from men in the fishing world. “I was constantly reminded that some people would always resent my presence in fishing simply because I was young, blond and female.”

But Dr Marnie Lovejoy, a criminal lawyer who has been appointed the chair of the Grayling Society, hopes to forge a new path for female fishers. She has had the backing of the former rockstar turned river campaigner Feargal Sharkey, who is the honorary president of the society.

“Women have been less likely to get involved, perhaps because it is traditionally male dominated,” she said, “but if you look at historic texts, a lot of fly-tying was done by females – there were some nuns who used to fish as well.” Fly-tying is the process of creating artificial fishing flies by attaching materials such as feathers, fur, thread and tinsel to a hook.

Lovejoy, originally from Switzerland, has “always loved the outdoors” but got into fly-fishing a few years ago as she was inspired by a “wonderful female instructor” on a river in Hampshire near where she lives. She hopes to inspire other women to get fishing.

“Fishing is a wonderful activity and it makes no difference whether you are a woman or a man,” she said. “We need to open up new communications channels, we had a Facebook site which wasn’t really active. We have to do things on Instagram, we have to visually show what it is all about. What is fly-fishing about, what are grayling about? Not every woman will enjoy angling, but it’s important to show that women are involved and hopefully inspire others to follow suit.”