Mollie Simpkins – Director

Mollie is the Director of Sweetwater Women’s Fly Fishing School and Director of Conservation and Education for Sweetwater Fly Shop.  She leads the shop’s conservation and education efforts, engaging organizations, the community, and fly shops in protecting our local waters. With years of outreach and event management experience, she creates events and programs that introduce and educate women and children to the sport of fly fishing in an inclusive and fun way.

Mollie has many years of professional business experience working as a Director of Operations and Regional Director of Operations with a leading national broadcasting company before the transition to the non-profit sector.  With years of outreach, development, and event management experience, she creates events and programs that introduce and educate women and children to the sport of fly fishing in an inclusive and fun way.

She has served as a board member for various Trout Unlimited Chapters and led the Mid-Atlantic Program of Casting for Recovery. Currently, she acts as a Mentor for The Mayfly Project program in Bozeman and as the organizations National Media and Outreach Coordinator.  It’s no surprise that in her off time you’ll find her fishing on one of our local waters.

Kara Tripp – Lead Instructor

Kara was born and raised in Northwest Montana, fishing for trout on some of the most fabled stretches of water in the US. Her passion as an angler carried her through college at Montana State University. After graduation, she began looking for a job following her dreams and she was hired in 2009 by The Fly Shop in Redding, California. She landed her first steelhead on the swing very shortly thereafter and became addicted to the tight line tug of the anadromous rainbows. Steelhead started where the rainbows and cutthroat of Montana left off.

Kara is committed to being a full-timer in the fly fishing industry. She has signed on to lead and instruct women attending Sweetwater Women’s Fly Fishing School. Using her years of experience managing the Outfitters Department and Casting Schools for The Fly Shop as well as many years of the highly acclaimed FishCamp program.

When not teaching and sharing her passion with others, she’s designing for Damsel Fly Fishing, a women’s fly fishing accessory brand she co-founded with her sister Lynae. They take bland fly-fishing accessories and add a feminine twist. In between, she hosts trips to Belize in search of the “silver king”, can be followed to the Far East in pursuit of the carnivorous mouse-eating trout that calls the rivers of the Kamchatka Peninsula home, or on the rivers of the Pacific Northwest chasing steelhead. In the winter of 2017/18, she became the first female guide at El Saltamontes Lodge in Patagonia, Chile.

Follow Kara and Damsel Fly Fishing on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.