Women have always been on the water. First with nets and spears, then with hooks and lines. In Japan, there’s a group of women called ama who have been freediving for shellfish and pearls for over 3,000 years. One of the first books ever written on sport fishing was authored by an outdoorswoman in 1496. In 19th-century Scotland, the hardened women who traveled from port to port to gut and pack fish were called “herring girls” and “fisher lasses.” And today in the U.S., there’s more than 20 million female anglers. Women’s fishing gear shouldn’t feel like an afterthought.

 

 

From day one, we’ve crafted our women’s lineup with intention—designed for women, by women. We work with professional anglers and guides, like Sage Johnson, to inform and refine every detail. We focus on comfortable fabrics that perform on the water, and pair them with silhouettes and considered designs that underscore your style (rather than smother it). It’s all built to keep you out there longer, doing what you love—in styles that both look good and feel good.

Below, we’ve rounded up a few key styles that our friends, guides, and Ambassadors rely on whether they’re gearing up for all-day fishing excursions or poling the flats after work. We also sat down with our Women’s Product Line Manager to run through some of the inspiration and design details that went into some of our favorite pieces.

 

PRODUCT DESIGN NOTES

For the Breeze Flats Pant, I worked with Sage because she felt like a full-length pant was something missing in our women's line. She actually wore the Men's Breeze Pant for sun coverage.

She also loves the fit of our Active Breeze Short with the knit waistband—because it's super flattering—so we decided to integrate that same waistband here into the Flats Pant and see how it turned out. We got the first proto and immediately mailed it to her in Belize for wear testing. She loved it, 10/10 no notes. So we continued to refine the fit on our end and think about how we could outfit these in a way that both looked good and felt great on the water.

 

 

We came up with the Ribbed Bamboo styles that were more fitted, but still comfortable with a stretchy rib texture, and unlike any other tops in our lineup. We felt like those fits were a great companion to the Flats Pant, which has a more relaxed fit. The Ribbed Bamboo fabric, specifically, is exciting because it's a classic textured fabric that we've infused with bamboo, so it's really unique to Free Fly.

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