Some anglers become known for the fish they catch; April Vokey became known for how completely she gave herself to the sport. Raised in Surrey, in the suburbs south of Vancouver, she was — by her own account — born with an unexplainable passion for fishing, coaxing her father onto the water as a child and, once she could drive, spending every free hour on her local rivers. That single-mindedness carried her from an unlikely start to the front rank of fly fishing.
The guide
Vokey started guiding in 2005, at a time when the number of female fishing guides across British Columbia could be counted on one hand. She had been enrolled in a classical-music program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University when fly fishing took hold; in 2007 she left school and launched her own company, Fly Gal, guiding an even mix of men and women on northern BC's most fabled steelhead rivers. Steelhead — the sea-run rainbow that defines West Coast fly fishing — became her signature water.
▶ April Vokey — A Life in Fly Fishing (Fly Culture Magazine)
Known for
Vokey made her name as a steelhead specialist on northern British Columbia's storied rivers — the Bulkley and Skeena among them — where the fish are earned the classic way, on a swung fly. Beyond the guiding, she's known for three things:
The voice
Guiding was only the beginning. Vokey earned her Federation of Fly Fishers Certified Casting Instructor credential and built a second career in the written word — Canadian field editor for Chasing Silver and steelhead columnist for Fly Fusion. In 2014 she started the Anchored podcast, long-form conversations with the sport's most interesting people, which grew into Anchored Outdoors: a membership network of fly-fishing experts and, by her own reckoning, her most fulfilling venture yet.
▶ So You Want to Be a Fly Fishing Guide? — Anchored with April Vokey
In their own words
“I feel even more responsible now to keep it so that she has fisheries waiting for her when she gets older.”
— April Vokey, on protecting BC's fisheries for the next generation
Kootenay Mountain Culture ↗
Sources & further reading: aprilvokey.com/about; the Kootenay Mountain Culture profile; and Outside. Videos © their respective creators, embedded from YouTube.