# Fin Girls have a lot of fun fishing and dancing



## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Fin Girls have a lot of fun fishing and dancing

http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/statewide/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1149021612144790.xml&coll=1

Sunday, June 04, 2006 By Bob Gwizdz

SOUTH HAVEN -- The Finwarrior, a 31-foot Tiara over 100 feet of Lake Michigan water, was rockin'. 

It was rockin' from the two- to three-footers the north wind was generating. 

It was rockin' from the pop music blaring out of the CD player.

And it was rockin' from the five women aboard, who were dancing on the deck. 

Do a little dance. Make a little love. Get down tonight. Get down tonight. 

Only, between the Get down tonights, the gals thrust their arms skyward and added a well-choreographed "Fish on" to the lyrics. 

Then, all of a sudden, Tracey Laaksonen blurted out a random "Fish on," abandoned her position in the chorus line, jerked the rod from the holder on the middle downriggers and leaned into a chinook salmon. 

Meet the Fin Girls, Michigan's self-proclaimed all-girls fishing team, five anglers who head out of port to go for the gold whenever there's a tournament . 

Laaksonen, who skippers the Finwarrior, is a licensed charterboat captain -- when she isn't teaching fourth grade -- working out of Lake Erie during the walleye bite and Ludington the rest of the summer. But she pilots her rig to the tournament locales when her schedule permits and mixes it up with the others in what has traditionally been a male sport. 

None of the gals are landlubbers and some of them have impressive angling pedigrees.

Laaksonen grew up in fishing, mating first for her father, Lake Erie charter captain Jerry Welton, then for other skippers until she married one of them, Richard Laaksonen, himself the off-spring of a charterboat skipper. Her crew also has angling in the family, either through blood or marriage. 

Tracey's sister, Shelly Anderson, is married to a charter captain, who often runs one of Richard's brothers' boat. So is Melissa Ruboyianes, the baby of the group at 26. And so is Jamie Hickman, a pharmaceutical representative whose husband runs one of Richard's boats. And Angie Wolf, a St. Joseph clothing designer and on-line boutique operator, is married to a former charterboat captain.

Ruboyianes and Hickman started fishing when they met their guys. So did Wolf, who now fishes a lot as the couple often winters in Florida and competes in billfish tournaments.

"Years back, there were hardly ever any women fishing," said Laaksonen, remembering her early years as a mate. "Now . . . 

Well, now, there are a lot more women who fish. Still, five of them on a boat without a man among them is a rare sight. 

"All of us fish a lot," Laaksonen said. "But we wanted to do it for fun. Our husbands encouraged us right away -- maybe they just wanted to get rid of us." 

The team entered two events last year and finished just out of the money, but they got into the black when they entered a "Ladies Tournament" in Ludington. However, the title of the event is misleading -- the rules said that each boat had to have a minimum of two females aboard and most teams went out with male skippers. Not the Fin Gals, who finished fifth. 

And most of the guys accept them in the tournaments, they say. 

"They're the best all-women tournament team I know of," said Tracey's husband Richard, a top Lake Michigan skipper. "And all of them are married to some of the best fishermen I know." 

But Richard gives the women high marks on their own.

"These girls set the rods, chose the course, net the fish," he said. "This is for sure, an all-girl crew. They're confident and they all work together." 

They've got assignments. Ruboyianes runs the lead-core rods, Hickman runs the divers, Laaksonen and Anderson run the downriggers and Wolf handles the wheel. 

And they catch fish. They boated 12 the morning I went out with them -- the first male they have allowed aboard during an excursion.

"Are you ready to fish with five chicks?" Tracey asked me. "Most guys say you're either brave or lucky." 

Most of all, they have fun, singing and dancing, cutting up and letting out a big "whoo-eee" whenever a fish bites and a similar holler when it's netted and hoisted aboard. 

"People ask how we catch any fish because we're always dancing," Anderson said. 

They've got matching Fin Girls visors and matching pink sweatshirts and also have matching lace underpants (a gift to the others from Hickman) that they've named a spoon after. In fact, they are talking about trying to get the company that makes them (Hanky Pankies) to sponsor their boat. 

They've also got a future in the fishing world, Richard thinks. 

"Half the time the reason girls don't go (fishing) is because they've never been exposed," he said. "Guys should hand them the boat keys and let 'em go."


----------

