There is no such thing as a bad hair day for Glenda Smith when she is doing what she loves - fishing!

She just slips on a cap or pulls it back, collects her gear and heads for the water.

While most of her girlfriends wouldn't think of spending several hours on a boat chumming, baiting hooks and cleaning fish - at least not on a regular basis - Ms Smith doesn't give it a second thought.

She can't think of anything else she would rather be doing in her spare time, preferably on a boat, but sometimes she'll go off the shoreline, too.

"I do that when I'm camping, because I camp all summer down here (Coney Island). When I get a chance I go down here, out there...all round," she explained, waving her arm around the picturesque setting of Coney Island.

Ms Smith got her love of fishing from her mother Mabel, while growing up in Harris Bay. Her mother loved fishing from the shoreline and six of the eight girls in the family also enjoy fishing.

Fish are more plentiful in a boat and Ms Smith often goes out off the north shore in a 16-footer with her friend Hubert (Hubby) Outerbridge and his father Ken, two licenced fishermen.

"I'll go out every day if the weather is good, I just like fishing, but nowhere past North Rock," she stated.

"I've been going with them for a lot of years. We have two boats and there is a bigger one called Blue Moon."

Ms. Smith has had sea sickness a couple of times, but that isn't an issue now, she says.

"Maybe off south shore, but we don't go that way," said the fisherwoman.

She has her own fishing gear and can hold her own out there on the water, doing just about everything that a fisherman would do.

"Except fillet, I don't do that, but I scrape (take off the scales) and gut," she revealed.

"I like doing that, it's nothing to it. They fillet faster than me and I don't want to waste the meat. I've done it but I would rather scrape than cut."

Handling smelly bait and fish is an `acquired taste' and most women, including some of her girlfriends, don't exactly have an keen interest in it.

"They'll do it, but not like me," the Bailey's Bay resident stated.

"I guess is they went out for the day they would come in and clean the fish. If they come down here and see me cleaning fish, no they won't help.

"Maybe one of them would help if I catch turbots, and if they want the turbot wings they'll clean them. Fishing is nice, you have good days and bad days."

Ms Smith may be regarded as something of a novelty, but she says there are other women out there with a keen interest in fishing.

"If you go down to Burchall's Cove you will probably see some of those guys' wives fishing with them," she revealed.

"I have seen a couple of women down there cleaning fish like I do. I like it, I was brought up doing it. My 11-year-old nephew (Donavin Adams) loves to fish and he goes with me sometimes. Everything we do he wants to try.

"I've caught a rainbow runner, turbots, a puppy shark, porgies, amber fish."

The disappointment can be heard in her voice as she revealed that she hasn't been out for awhile because of the weather.

"We would go all year round if we can get out, but not in weather like this," she said a few days ago as the cold and windy weather hit the Island.

"We don't leave in the rain either, but it's okay if it rains when we get out there."

And she is seldom in a hurry to come back in, especially if the fish are biting.

"Sometimes we will be in one spot and the fish are biting but have slowed down and we will move to another spot. Sometimes I don't like it but I won't say anything. Sometimes I don't even feel like coming in when they are ready."

Fishing has clearly been a passion of hers for a long time. When she worked at Mariott Castle Harbour she recalls going fishing with colleagues when they were not working.

"We used to go down to St. George's and fish," she said. "A group of us at work would get together and go fishing evenings."