Eagle County fly fishers head to Norway to defend world team gold

Aspen —The obvious take is that fly fishing is a leisure activity. It’s a weekend escape. A way to kick back and forget the grind.

Make no mistake. This is war.

Six women from the United States just landed in Åkrestrømmen, Norway. Their mission: defend the world title. They aren’t there to catch a few trout for dinner. They are there to outfish Norway, Sweden, South Africa, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Mongolia, France, and Finland.

Two of them live right here.

Erica Hickey and Katie Mazzia are from Eagle County. They are part of a six-woman squad that won gold last year. They are the first American team to ever take that specific gold. Now, they have to do it again.

“The number one goal as a team is definitely to bring back the team gold medal to the USA again,” Hickey said in an email on Sunday.

The competition runs through August 2. It starts Monday.

The stakes are high. The venue is brutal. The rivers are the Atna, Glomma, and Femundselva. The lakes are Storsjøen and Galtsjøen. Each session lasts three hours. Points are awarded by fish count. Not size. Not beauty. Just the raw number of fish caught.

This is not a hobby. It is a sport where every cast counts.

Norman Maktima is the coach. He is a nine-time Worlds competitor. He won the national championship in 2018. He led four of the six team members into the top-10 last year.

“I think we have a great team going into this year’s Worlds,” Maktima stated in a press release.

He noted the roster mix. Four veterans. Two new members. Several athletes who have fished in Norway before.

“Building on last year’s gold, I’d say holding onto the title is within reach.”

Worth watching is the depth of the team. Tess Weigand, Melissa Smith, and Lindsay Szofran are all from Red Lodge, Montana. Julie Mattson is from Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Weigand won individual gold last year in Idaho Falls. Smith finished second.

Hickey’s path to this moment is less linear. She is originally from Chicago. She spent summers in the valley. Her mom took her out on the Crystal River near Marble in 2005. She cast dry flies. She was hooked.

She moved to Avon seven years ago. She has a four-year-old daughter. She works as a palliative care nurse practitioner at Valley View Hospital in Glenwood.

She saw a Facebook ad for a clinic in Boulder for women interested in competitive fly fishing. She was eight months pregnant at the time.

“The short version,” Hickey said, “is I got hooked.”

Now she is in Norway. The conditions change daily. The fish move. The water level shifts.

“Of course it’s fishing, so every day on a river or lake is different, and we have to try to be as adaptable as possible to whatever the conditions might bring,” she added.

The team will share information. They will support each other. They will do whatever is needed to cross the finish line.

The Czech Republic finished second in 2025. South Africa was third. The U.S. was first.

The locals in Eagle County might see these women at the grocery store. They might see them at the hospital. But in Norway, they are warriors.

The question isn’t if they can win. It’s how much they have to give to keep the gold.

Maktima says it’s within reach.

Hickey says they are adaptable.