Chasten Whitfield is a seventeen-year-old competitive angler from the Bradenton, Florida area who donates every dollar she wins in fishing tournaments and spends her weekends taking terminally ill and disabled children fishing out of Palma Sola Bay. In this episode she sits down with me after a day on the water in the Keys to talk about how it all started, the charity work she has done since first grade, the all-girls team that won the biggest local tournament, and the wheelchair-accessible boat being built for her right now.
Chasten Whitfield is a 17-year-old competitive angler from the Bradenton, Florida area who has dedicated herself to helping others through fishing. She donates her tournament winnings to charities including Children's Burn Camp and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and she takes terminally ill and disabled children fishing every weekend through a partnership with Children's Dream Fund. She began her charitable work in first grade when she donated her piggy bank savings to the Red Cross after seeing a Hurricane Katrina commercial.
Chasten had always fished with her family around Palma Sola Bay, where her mother taught her to fish. In seventh grade, after realizing competitive cheerleading was not for her, her mom suggested she try a fishing tournament. She entered the Fire Charity Tournament, won first place, and has been competing ever since. She bought her first boat, a 13 or 14 foot Carolina Skiff, with money she earned babysitting.
Chasten partners with Children's Dream Fund, an organization similar to Make-A-Wish, which connects her with children who have terminal illnesses or disabilities. She tries to take a child fishing every weekend, sometimes fitting two or three trips into a single weekend. She funds these trips through t-shirt sales and donations, roughly one hundred dollars per child. Yellowfin Boats is building her a custom 21-foot wheelchair-accessible boat with hydraulics in the floor so children in wheelchairs can board more easily.
Chasten won the Fire Charity Tournament as a 14-year-old fishing out of a duct-taped 13-foot boat. She later entered the Crossway Tournament, described as the Super Bowl of local tournaments, with an all-girls team, the first all-female team in the tournament's history. They won both the juniors under-16 division and the ladies division, and gave all the winnings back to charity.
Chasten receives messages from young girls on social media dealing with bullying, body-image issues, and even suicidal thoughts. She encourages them to pursue what makes them happy regardless of what others think. She also teaches Girl Scout groups and speaks at fishing tournament captain's meetings. Her core message is that girls should not feel pressured to follow the crowd, and her own path from cheerleading to competitive fishing is the example she lives by.
Chasten operates a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and accepts donations through her website, chastenwhitfield.com. You can also purchase a Chastenation t-shirt from the site, with proceeds going directly toward funding fishing trips for terminally ill children. She can also be reached through Instagram and Facebook under the name Chastenation.
Paul Fizzicaro, who builds our websites and lives here in Marathon, sent me a piece about a teenage girl from Bradenton who was winning fishing tournaments and giving all the money back. I watched it and immediately thought she would be a great guest. I have a daughter, and the work Chasten is doing with young girls, helping them with confidence and encouraging them to step outside what feels safe, hit home for me personally.
The other thing that got my attention is that Chasten is seventeen and already doing more for other people than most adults I know. She is taking terminally ill kids fishing every single weekend, and she is not keeping a dollar of it. I have been around fishing my whole life and I have not met many people at any age with this kind of drive.
Chasten's path started in first grade. There was a commercial on television, a piggy bank with a dollar fifty in it, and a trip to the Red Cross that made the local news. The chain of events that followed, from that moment to raising thousands for St. Jude through garage sales by age twelve, does not sound real until you hear her tell it. Listen to that section.
Chasten showed up to the biggest local tournament in her area with a team of teenage girls, and nobody took them seriously. She describes the captain's meeting, the stares, the comments. I have been in enough weigh-in lines to know exactly what that room felt like. What happened at the scales the next day is one of those moments that would lose something if I wrote it out here. Watch it in the player above.
There is a moment where Chasten describes a young boy with spina bifida catching his first fish off a pier. I am not going to try to retell what happened next, because her voice when she describes it carries something text cannot. That moment is the reason she takes kids fishing every weekend, and the reason Yellowfin is building her a wheelchair-accessible boat. The full story is in the episode.
Chasten Whitfield is seventeen years old. She has a 501(c)(3), a partnership with Children's Dream Fund, and a custom wheelchair-accessible boat being built by Yellowfin. She takes terminally ill children fishing every weekend and has never kept a dollar of tournament winnings for herself. I spent the whole day with her on the water and I can tell you she is also a genuinely talented angler.
I told her I would help however I could, and I meant it. If you want to know why, listen to the episode. The article gives you the facts. Chasten gives you the feeling.
The Tom Rowland Podcast brings you long-form conversations with the most accomplished anglers, hunters, conservationists, and outdoor professionals in the game. Listen to every full-length Tom Rowland Podcast interview.
Chasten Whitfield is a 17-year-old competitive angler from the Bradenton, Florida area who donates her tournament winnings to charity and takes terminally ill and disabled children fishing every weekend through a partnership with Children's Dream Fund. She raised thousands for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital through garage sales as a child, led the first all-female team to compete in and win the Crossway Tournament, and has been recognized as a local Hero of the Month. She is partnered with Yellowfin Boats, which is building her a custom wheelchair-accessible boat, and she operates out of Palma Sola Bay near Bradenton, Florida.
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