Mary Kerske was photographed at the Caney Fork River in Cumberland County.

by Jeff Buchanan
photo by John Russell

As the activities coordinator for Commencement, Mary Kerske helps facilitate the ceremonial transition to life after college, when many students feel like fish out of water. Away from work, Kerske finds her peace fly fishing in the waist-deep streams of Tennessee’s Caney Fork River. She is a member of the Music City Fly Girls, Nashville’s only fly-fishing club for women.

Kerske, who grew up in Michigan, was exposed to fishing at a young age. Her family often made the short drive to her grandmother’s lake home, where Kerske learned from her dad the fundamentals, such as casting, trolling and tying flies.

Kerske enjoys rainbow trout on her dinner plate from time to time, but she and the other Fly Girls generally adhere to a catch-and-release policy.

“We even take the little barb off the hook so that we don’t mess up their mouths too much. It’s mostly for sport,” she said.

Kerske’s love of all things outdoors runs in the family. Her husband and sons run the family business, an organic lawn and gardening store called Gardens of Babylon at the Nashville Farmers’ Market.

 “The herbicides you spray on your lawn will end up in the streams through storm water runoff,” Kerske said. “There’s so much life in soil and in water that when you poison it, something suffers.”

For this “fly girl,” fishing brings a joy she can’t get any other way.

“I love the beauty of standing out there in the stream, early morning with the fog rolling in. Being out in nature is always balm for my soul.”