FISHING NEWED NEWSPAPERMAN RIP WOODIN far from the coast

When he was young, the journalist and the passionate fly, Fisher Rip Woodin did not get caught at all.

Instead, he used his talents on the Tennis courts of the Northern Caroline junior circuit, finally finding himself at team B at the University of North Carolina. There he discovered that the level of talent seemed to extend without him.

“I was in Carolina’s first year team, but I could never play a match because I was on the bench that picks up the bullets,” said Woodin.

How does a young man, who is a decent tennis player but does he not fish at all, becomes a fisherman to life and an ardent conservationist in his last years?

Woodin’s life has seen him move three-quarters of the path through the continental United States and finally return to North Carolina. Now he fishs the waters and does the kind of work he never dreamed of when he was hitting tennis bullets through the net.

After graduating from the UNC in January 1969 with a double major in journalism and English, Woodin joined the Marine Corps where he had a good six -week vacation in Parris Island, in South Carolina. Later, he spent six years working in Greensboro while serving in the Navy Corps reserve.

It was then that, in a twist, Woodin received an offer to join the Air Force and go to the piloting school.

“(I) would probably have been sent to Vietnam and would have met John McCain,” theorized Woodin, but he stayed in Greensboro until 1976.

“I held various reports for the Greensboro Daily News,” he said about the newspaper of the county of Guilford.

Then in 1976, he moved to Jackson, Wyoming. He became editor -in -chief of the Jackson Hole guide and met his wife Jane.

“I lived in the apartment in the basement of a condo while three women lived upstairs. The other two moved and Jane moved below,” said Woodin.

Jackson was the place where they stayed until 1986 and many events that would shape a large part of the life later of Woodin took place.

“We got married in 1979 and two of our three children were born there,” said Woodin about Jackson, where he also learned to pilot fish.

“Paul Bruun was my boss when I moved for the first time, and he gave me a fly rod,” said Woodin.

Bruun would continue to be inducted into the renowned temple of fly fishing in Roscoe, New York, in October 2021.

Bruun was a timely gift because “Jackson is all about fly fishing for mowed trout,” said Woodin.

Woodin, with an eye for newspaper design, quickly found that the thrill of fly fishing was the visual aspect.

“What really appealed to me was seeing the fish get up and get the fly,” said Woodin. “When a beautiful mowled trout arrives to hit a hopper, it is slowly found on it, opens your mouth and brings it back. Then you lift the rod and you have an 18 -inch fish.”

There was also a opportune real estate purchase which was going to shape the last years of Woodin.

“We bought a property that we never developed and when the children were aging and that we were distant, we decided to sell it. The real estate values ​​in Jackson had increased considerably over 30 years, and after using the money to help pay for children’s colleges, we were able to buy a duplex in Atlantic Beach, “he said.

At that time, after having jobs in different newspapers in various states, the return to North Carolina came with a new title, the editor at Rocky Mount Telegram.

The Woodins quickly took coastal life and they decided that they spent a lot of time at the beach, they had to have a boat.

“I went to Jerry to Fort Macon Marina and I bought the boat that I still have today,” he said.

He found that the variety of marine life and salt water fishing was something he really liked, and he quickly entered it.

“I bought a flywater flush rod and started fishing here fairly quickly,” he said.

While Woodin progressed with his fly fishing, he started to move to fairly distant places where he got tangled with a lot of different fish.

“The most difficult is the permit because it is the most difficult to catch and the most difficult to hang,” he said. “They are fighting hard and they are rare. You do not go out and get 10 shots on a license in one day, you usually have the chance to get two or three. ”

One of the most exciting species, however, is Tarpon, said Woodin.

“Obviously, because they jump so much,” he said.

Closer to his house, Woodin likes to fish for false albacore.

“The hardest fighter is the false albacore. They fight better than Bonefish (and I have big Osfish). But fight, nothing compares to a false albacore,” he said.

In recent years, Woodin has mixed his experience as a journalist and his love for the environment and salt water fish and has applied it to be actively involved in conservation with the Coastal Conservation Association, an organization of recreational fishermen focused on the protection of the marine environment.

“For a while, we released a newspaper, which I published, and because of my history in writing, I wrote press releases and stories,” said Woodin. “I always recommend them on a good public relations strategy.”

It is also part of the CCA-NC board of directors and participant active in the activities of the State section.

Woodin’s fishing advice?

“The key is to practice your casting and be able to reach your target, but more importantly is to keep your emotions under control so that you can concentrate and not spoil it when you look at a big fish.”

In the end, Woodin said: “If you take care of the fish, fishing will take care of itself.”