After months of preparation, students from seven Wyoming high schools took to the North Platte River on Saturday for the state’s first competitive school team fly-fishing tournament.
“They’ve all built their fishing rods, tied their flies, and now it’s time to compete,” seasoned fly-fishing guide Joey Puettman of Sheridan told Cowboy State Daily.
He coaches the Sheridan High School team and is one of the founders of the school's fly-fishing club program.
Teams From Across The State
So far, high school fly-fishing clubs have sprung up in Cody, Lander, Natrona, Sheridan, Worland and Thermopolis, and at the Wyoming Indian High School on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
Puettman and other coaches hope the program keeps spreading across the state, he said, adding that it’s an opportunity to get kids hooked on something positive.
“The tug is the drug,” he said, describing the sensation that every fly angler craves — a big trout tugging on the end of their line.
During tournaments, most teams consist of three students and a coach, and each team joins a guide in a drift boat.
The scoring system is simple, Puettman said. Every inch on each fish a team catches will count as one point. And at the end of the day, the team with the most points wins.
During the April 11 tournament, the Cody High School girls’ team emerged as the winners, with 903 points.
The Natrona County High School boys’ team took second place with 830 points, and the Sheridan High School boys’ team took third place with 568 points.
However, because of scheduling conflicts and other circumstances, Lander Valley High School senior Brayden Baker was the sole team member from his school, along with his dad as the coach.
Baker already has a few years of fly-fishing under his belt, so when he was asked about his odds of winning as a team of one, he said there might be a chance.
“I’d like to think so. But definitely, having a team with more numbers would help,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
A Club Sport
Fly-fishing isn’t a sanctioned school sport like football, basketball or track and field, Puettman said.
Instead, it’s a club sport modeled after Wyoming’s rapidly-growing high school trap and skeet shooting team program.
Puettman said he ran a fly-fishing program for at-risk youth from 2004 to 2016 and saw firsthand the difference the sport can make in their lives.
Fly-fishing also helped him through his own challenges, he added.
“I’m the poster child for ADHD,” and fly-fishing helped him focus his energy and purpose, Puettman said.
Puettman is the founder of president of Sheridan Fly Rod Co. Co-owner J.T. Tucker helped Puettman start the high school fly-fishing club program in 2024.
He previously worked with Puettman on the program for at-risk youth and told Cowboy State Daily that he’s thrilled to open the world of fly-fishing for high school students.
When life gets rough, it helps to “close your eyes and put yourself in your happy place,” he said. "For me, that happy place was casting dry flies on the river."
Natrona County High School fly-fishing coach Tom Grogan said there has been no shortage of interested students.
“We’ve had some kids over the years that have asked me, because they know I’m an avid fly-fisherman, if we could start a program, but we’ve never really had the organization in this state until now,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Along with igniting the spirit of competition, he said he hopes the tournament opens new horizons for students.
“I’ll bet most of the kids from across the state who are going to participate in this tournament have never been in a guided drift boat before, so what a cool opportunity for them,” Grogan said.
Passing The Torch
Baker said he was stoked to compete in the first Wyoming high school fly-fishing tournament.
But because he’s a senior and will graduate this spring, it’s also bittersweet.
“I wish they would have had this when I was a freshman,” he said.
Even so, he wants the program to keep growing.
“That’s what I’m hoping will happen, that this will just stay up and running,” he said.
“I think it’s just good for kids to be able to go outside and maybe try something new, if they’ve never been able to go fishing like that,” Baker added.
Tucker said students are given “rod blanks” and other supplies so they can build their own fly rods in the months leading up to the tournament.
The goal is to make that a credited student activity, he said.
“The whole idea behind this tournament is to get Wyoming schools behind a flyrod-building program,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
