This month, with a sad heart, we feature the late (and so wonderfully great), Margaret Bell for our From the Riffle submission. Margaret was excited to be Casting for Recovery’s October feature, but passed away only weeks before this submission after a long, hard fought battle with metastatic breast cancer. She faced her diagnosis with tenacity, courage, and found joy in fly fishing. 

Many of you within the Casting for Recovery community had the opportunity to get to know Margaret and learn how much CfR meant to her. Read on as we honor Margaret.

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Prior to attending a Casting for Recovery retreat, Margaret caught a small brown trout on a spin rod in Yellowstone National Park, and decided at that moment that she wanted to learn to fly fish. She and her husband John, were planning a trip to Ireland, so they took an introductory fly fishing class ahead of time. Margaret had her sights set on catching a salmon on a fly rod in Ireland. Unfortunately that did not happen, but she enjoyed it so much that she knew she wanted to continue to fly fish. 

Upon returning home from Ireland, she applied to a Casting for Recovery retreat in Colorado, and was selected to attend in June 2018. She was paired with Kay DuShane as her guide, and they experienced a carefree day on the water – nothing but feelings of joy, gratitude, and the thrill of catching monster trout; whoops and hollers could be heard up and down the river, as her fellow participants experienced the same.

Margaret continued to build upon her love of the sport, and spent many days fishing with newfound friends from her retreat. Cheesman Canyon on the S. Platte River became Margaret’s home water, and she spent many days fishing that magnificent stretch of water, which could easily have been pulled from the cover of a fly fishing magazine. 

Margaret’s first retreat, following her trip to Ireland, was in June 2018 at the North Fork Ranch in Shawnee, CO. and the Metastatic retreat later that same fall. She met so many amazing women, participants and volunteers alike; she was committed to giving back to CfR. Margaret trained as a co-Retreat Leader at the last retreat of the 2018 season, and in 2019, eagerly took on the role of Program Coordinator and Retreat Leader for Colorado. She also participated on the Program Coordinator Advisory Council, and the Core Values Task Force. 

A favorite event of Margaret’s was CfR’s Cast One for Hope. She attended the event four years in a row, and met so many wonderful people, most of whom became cherished friends. It has been an honor and privilege for CfR to have Margaret be involved with this organization in many different capacities. 

Margaret has said that CfR gave her so much joy and hope, and it affirmed her passion for a sport she loved dearly, and she made many friends along the way. She was grateful and honored to serve with the Colorado CfR team, and to be able to share this life changing opportunity with other women. It was most definitely her experience as a CfR participant that she attributed to launching her into this joyous and life affirming hobby, with new lifelong friends and family. Margaret couldn’t have imagined that one of her proudest accomplishments would be to say that she had fished in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mexico and Ireland, and that she was able to check many species of fish off of her bucket list.

Margaret’s wish was for a cure for breast cancer, but until that day comes, she wanted every woman affected by this terrible disease to be afforded the opportunity to attend a retreat, and experience the CfR magic for themselves. Colorado is one of the few programs that offers a metastatic retreat, and because many of the issues are unique for those with metastatic disease, she wanted to see more of these specialized retreats expanded throughout the country.