Ladies are hooked on a great feeling (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Ladies are hooked on a great feeling

8:16am Friday 29th May 2009

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Fishing is a great stress-reliever.

Most fishermen and women take it up as a relaxant to get away from the stresses and strains of the daily grind, but one woman is promoting fly fishing as a therapeutic pastime for women coping with breast cancer.

Casting For Recovery began in the US in 1996. The organisation takes women who have had – or still have – breast cancer on fishing retreats in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Sue Hunter is the woman who brought Casting For Recovery to the UK. Her introduction to fly fishing came shortly after her second diagnosis with the disease in 1999. Sue recalls a friend suggesting she accompany him on a fishing trip. “He said he would take me fly fishing but I thought, ‘God No!’ I thought, ‘I’m not touching worms and maggots’. I was very sceptical but he said he’d buy me lunch so I said, ‘right then!’”

The mother-of-two, who spent 17 years in Bradford before moving to London, never envisaged she would become hooked on a pastime which has become such an integral part of her life.

“I thought I’d have half an hour and then make a great getaway, but I never went off the water I was so hooked on it,” recalls Sue.

“I always had my nails polished and I wouldn’t go out without my make-up on. I was into clothes and shopping, that was me but it’s not any more!

“The last footwear I bought, a year ago, was a decent pair of wellies. I spent £100, I thought they were the bee’s knees!”

Following her first fishing expedition with her friend, Sue, who was working as a trainee legal executive at the time, took on some bar work for a few nights a week to save up for her rod and fishing kit. “I saved up for that then took it from there and was out on the water every minute,” she says.

She’d only been fly fishing for 18 months when she landed a place in the England team, which she has captained twice.

Sue mentioned Casting For Recovery – the US-based organisation she’d read about in a fly fishing magazine – to some of the girls on the England team. “I thought, ‘I have to bring it here’. The time was right, so I asked a few of the girls if they thought we should have a crack at it.”

Negotiations with the US organisation began in 2001. By 2007, Casting For Recovery UK was set up and the first retreat organised.

Initial concerns over how they would fund such a large-scale retreat were allayed with a generous donation from the Countryside Alliance, who remain a dedicated supporter of the group. Sue explains they need professional medical staff to accompany the group.

“The whole retreat is made up of several elements and fly fishing strings them all together. It is good for the mind. If you are really focused on what you are doing, you cannot think of anything else and it is impossible to dwell on anything negative when you are fishing. It gives you the opportunity to clear your mind,” says Sue.

“You are getting these girls together in a situation where they don’t have to explain to others how they feel. It gives you hope and confidence that this is achievable. You can get through this.”

Sue speaks from experience. Her first battle with breast cancer began in May, 1992, when she was living in Bradford, where she’d moved from the South. She went to see the doctor after discovering a lump in her left breast. The cancer diagnosis confirmed her worst fears. Sue says she would be lying if she said having her first mastectomy didn’t bother her. “But I was more concerned with staying alive,” she says.

Her second diagnosis, resulting in a second mastectomy, came after a mammogram. “I was more annoyed and upset because it had been seven years since my first diagnosis. I’d got my life back on track.

“The illness was a distraction from what I wanted to do, which is fishing, but you realise how far you have come down the line. You wouldn’t believe you can actually get over the fact you have had that illness, but you can. It doesn’t mean you don’t think about it. I don’t live my life in the same sort of fear as I used to do when I was first diagnosed.”

Sue’s experience made her conscious of all the other women battling the disease. Taking them fly fishing not only introduces them to a pleasurable and relaxing pastime; it can divert their minds away from the disease.

Sue says fly fishing is something women can do even if they have restricted movement after surgery. “Exercise does play a part in recovery, and fishing is the most wonderful, gentle exercise,” she explains.

So far, more than 3,000 women have been on retreats through the US organisation. This year, more than 100 women will have participated in retreats through Casting For Recovery UK but, Sue hopes more women will take advantage of the outdoor programme.

Her ambition is to host longer and more frequent retreats. “It’s my blue-sky dream but, at the moment, I just want to reach these women and get them to put their name down. It won’t cost them anything, it’s two and a half days out of their life.”

• For more information, visit castingforrecovery.org.uk or write to Casting For Recovery UK, PO Box 3611, Slough, Berkshire, SL3 3BY.

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