Hey y'all — I'm Gina.
I grew up in a small rural community in North Carolina, learned to fish before most folks learn to drive, and spent a good chunk of my twenties offshore with my uncles. Somewhere along the way people started calling me the Southern Harley Quinn. The name stuck. So I built something with it.
Southern Harlequin is that something — part lake life, part faith, and increasingly part mission. This page is the long version.
"For the last decade I've been referred to as the Southern Harley Quinn. A comparison I wear with pride."Gina · Founder
How I got here
Small-town NC, and a lot of saltwater
Raised in a rural community where fishing wasn't a hobby, it was just what you did on a Saturday. My uncles took me offshore every chance they got.
Won a Lady Angler King Mackerel tournament
Still one of the proudest days I’ve had on a boat.
Campbell University School of Pharmacy
Graduated, went to work, and put the rods down for a good long while. Life does that.
Picked it back up — bass, this time
Traded the ocean for NC lakes and never looked back. There's a fly rod and a catfish rig in the rotation too, depending on the mood.
Bought my first boat
A 21' Avid FS MAGNUM in Mossy Oak Bottomland camo. She's the reason any of the rest of this is possible.
Building toward the mission
Turning Southern Harlequin into a nonprofit that gets other women out on the water too.
When I'm not on the water
Hockey
Carolina Hurricanes, loudly, every single game.
Shooting
Range time is its own kind of quiet.
Hunting
Fall and winter, when the lake gets cold.
Baking
And eating a proper mater sandwich in season.
Take your meds, drink some water, you matter.
The lake gave me a lot. I'd like to hand some of it back.
Southern Harlequin is becoming a nonprofit that takes single moms and their kids — and women walking through divorce, abuse, or loss — out on the water for a few hours of peace. Here's how you can help make that real.
