CWF News and Events

See where CWF is going fishing in 2008!

Monthly Meeting: First Tuesday of every month except July and December. Piccolo's Restaurant, Hampden & Monaco in SE Denver.

Schedule:

• 5:30-6:15 p.m. Social Hour
• 6:15-7:30 Dinner (optional, $10.00), announcements etc.
• 7:30-8:30 Program

Incoming CWF President Joanie McCord and Outgoing President Diane Meyer celebrate CWF's 10th anniversary at the 2006 holiday party.

Casting the Royal Wulff: Starring Joan Wulff
By Arlys Warfield

In the beginning, there was Dame Juliana Berners. This English nun wrote in 1496 the "Treatise of Fishing with an Angle," the first English publication extolling sport fishing. There followed in the late 19th century other women of fly fishing note, among them Sara Jane McBride, who published papers on the subject of aquatic insects for anglers, and Mary Orvis Marbury, whose "Favorite Flies and Their Histories" (1892) helped to standardize fly patterns.

But arguably the most influential woman in fly fishing is Joan
Salvato Wulff, who raised fly casting to a whole new art form in the mid-twentieth century. Distance fly casting was her joy; teaching and authoring books was her contribution to the form. Her books -- Joan Wulff's Fly-Casting Accuracy, Joan Wulff's Fly-Casting Techniques, and Joan Wulff's Fly Fishing: Expert Advice from a Woman's Perspective, and her video and DVD -- Joan Wulff's Dynamics of Fly Casting -- have taught rod and gun store,
Joan combined her childhood dancing and acrobatic lessons with her other favorite pastime, fly casting. She won her first casting title at the age of twelve in 1938. In 1951 she won her first title against all male competitors and in 1960 she set an unofficial women's record, casting 161 feet in the New Jersey State Tournament. At sportsmen's shows, she became a show-stopper, performing in high heels and a strapless silver and rhinestone evening gown to the music of "Up the Lazy River." Her belief was that "casting has both a visual beauty and a feeling of oneness in the combination of body motion, rod action, and the weight of the flexible line."

In 1967, Joan Salvato, the most famous woman fly caster, met and married the most famous fly fisher, Lee Wulff, and in 1979 they opened the Wulff School of Fly Fishing in the Catskill mountains of New York. There they would teach fly fishing techniques and promote the "catch-and-release" philosophy they knew would protect fish for future generations.

A natural teacher, Joan evolved from a dancing school teacher as a young woman to a legendary fly fishing and casting instructor.
One of the foremost authorities on casting in the world, Joan Wulff believes women anglers need lighter rods and smaller grips, To that end, she has designed rods, reels -- and an easy-casting weight forward line with a change of color between the weighted sections.

Joan holds records for brook trout and Atlantic salmon, has won 17 national casting titles, and writes a regular column for Fly Rod and Reel.