When I told my friends I was going fly fishing, they were incredulous. I’m not what most would consider a nature-oriented person, but this incredible adventure by Marriott Bonvoy combined the great outdoors with the epitome of luxury. Now, Marriott Bonvoy members have the chance to book this one-of-a-kind experience too.
Today, the hospitality company unveiled their newest Marriott Bonvoy Moment: The Catch & Cook experience with Top Chef alum Ashleigh Shanti in the heart of North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains, and ESSENCE was invited to be one of Marriott Bonvoy’s first guests. A guided fly-fishing excursion alongside Shanti and local guides, accommodations, and a Good Hot Fish fry experience with the day’s catch and additional local offerings are exclusively available to Marriott Bonvoy members.
After receiving the agenda, I gamely searched Pinterest for fishing outfits, packed my bags and headed out to Maggie Valley, NC. We had an early morning start and were off to the West Fork Pigeon River where the extremely helpful guides from Curtis Wright Outfitter helped us don our waders (waterproof boots with overalls).
Even though it was summer, my first step into the water was slightly jarring from the cold, but luckily, I quickly adjusted to the temperature. Even though I grew up fishing with my dad, the directions from our guide made me realize that fly fishing was different from what I was used to. I always thought it was a sedentary activity, but it’s extremely physical and engages muscles throughout your entire body, including your core, a fact confirmed by my activity watch.
Shanti was a pro, especially considering she was the only person besides the guides who had been fly fishing before, and she caught her first fish handily. I was close to making a catch myself, about four or five times, but didn’t manage to follow through to get the fish in the net. When they called us out of the water, it was a struggle for me to leave my perch—I just knew I was seconds away from catching a big one.
Then we headed back to Modern Mountain Creekhouse, a part of the Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy portfolio, which can be booked separately from the Moment, for Chef Ashleigh and her team to cook up the trout and other delectable sides, for a true farm to table experience.
Following our delicious meal, Shanti the owner of Asheville, N.C. restaurant Good Hot Fish, sat down to discuss what it’s like being a Black woman catching and cooking food. “One of the things that I have found incredibly important as a chef is connectivity to food,” explained Shanti.
“That’s how my grandmother cooked. If the field across the road had squash, then we were going to eat squash that night, and I’m accustomed to the style of cooking,” the restaurateur noted. “So I just leaned into that and taking on this duty as a chef that owns a seafood restaurant, I felt that I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t have that same connectivity to the seafood that we source, and over the past decade have gotten into fishing and fly fishing.”
“Southern Appalachian foodways aren’t necessarily highlighted, and I think we bring something incredibly special to the table,” Shanti added.
Ultimately, Shanti wants “Marriott Bonvoy members to walk away with more of an understanding of where their seafood comes from, the importance of seafood sustainability, sustaining the waterways. Especially as Black and brown people, I think it’s really important that we get rid of that stigma that surrounds us being in nature and on the water. It’s not something that you see often. I love that I’m able to be a part of dispelling those myths.”
According to Southwick Associates’ 2021 Special Report on Fishing, only 8% of fly fishers in 2020 were Black. As someone who loves to proudly defy stereotypes, this trip helped me do that and so much more. I found true relaxation in nature, which is no small feat.
Marriott prides itself on being “a hotel brand for every type of journey” and their new Catch & Cook Experience Moment is no exception. This city girl had a fabulous time fly fishing out in the Smoky Mountains, and I can’t wait to bust out my fishing outfit again, but this time I’ll fill up the cooler with all the fish I’ve caught.