The Origins of the DVWFFA 

In 1970, soon after beginning college at Widener University (then PMC Colleges) in Chester, PA I met and became friends with Rabbit Jensen. Much to my delight she became interested in the sport. In a rather atypical progression, she first tied flies and later took up fly fishing. But most importantly, I now had a woman fishing buddy.

She was the only one, however, for many years. Fishing with her, and with my male fishing friends, was wonderful. But I couldn’t help thinking on occasion how nice it would be to have more women fishing friends. Still, life seemed good and I didn’t have much motivation to do anything more than enjoy what I had.

Then, in the spring of 1995, my comfortable situation began to unravel a bit at the edges. In the apparent throes of a mid-life crisis, my previously quite tolerant husband suddenly had a problem with my annual spring fishing trip to Potter County with some of my best fishing buds, all guys. Their wives and girlfriends even offered to go to bat for me with Bob, to assure him that they were fine with the trip as they had been for the past six years. Everyone was there to catch trout, and all concerned parties knew it. But Bob would not be swayed. He kept saying, “It just doesn’t look good for my wife to spend a week in a cabin with four guys.” After much discussion I finally decided that as irrational as this attitude was, and as much as it grieved me to do so, if he felt that strongly about it I would have to give up the trip. 

Now there was a problem to solve. Once again I had to find a way to do my fishing. If I couldn’t go on fishing trips with the boys anymore, I had darned well better find some women to go fishing with. This was the impetus needed to get me moving on the attempt to start up a women’s fly fishing club. I pursued a number of contacts, through fly shops and Trout Unlimited chapters in the area.

After a lot of telephone time, I finally felt that I had enough interested women to get things under way. The organizational meeting for the new women’s fly fishing club was held on January 9, 1996 at the Townhouse Restaurant in Media, Pennsylvania. Nine women were in attendance: Dawn Stevens, Fran Witman, Eileen Gallagher (now Eileen Baltz), Judith Palmer, Eleanor Peterson, Stephanie Arndt, Alexis Hillman, Mary Clarke, and myself. It’s interesting to note that all but two of those original nine are still active with the club. 

I drafted up some proposed by-laws to bring to the meeting, based on the standard Trout Unlimited by-laws. I also chose a preliminary name for the club—The Philadelphia Women Flyfishers. Dawn agreed to serve as the first president, but with a condition. As a resident of Wilmington, Delaware, she did not like the idea of the reference to Philadelphia in the club name. She proposed Delaware Valley Women’s Fly Fishing Association. Although this seemed a bit unwieldy to some of us, all present were willing to defer to her on this point. After all, anyone willing to serve as the first president of the club was certainly entitled to some say in the matter.

Although I was quite unaware of it, and the timing was purely coincidental, I could not have picked a more propitious time to start up a women’s fly fishing club. We were on the threshold of a major upswing in women’s involvement in all outdoor sports. The Becoming an Outdoors Woman program would soon begin, sponsored by state fish and game agencies throughout the country and designed to introduce women to a whole list of different outdoor activities. Women’s fishing clubs began springing up like mushrooms all over the map. The time was definitely right.
Dawn was DVWFFA president for the next six years, serving with tremendous dedication and hard work. The Board of Directors repeatedly waived the term limit specified in the club by-laws, since Dawn was willing to continue to serve and everyone was glad for her to do it. I don’t think anyone realized how much work she was doing for our organization until, for personal reasons, she declined another term. 

Dawn’s departure left a yawning chasm that was nearly the undoing of the club. After six months without a Board meeting, it seemed like the DVWFFA would simply fade away if something wasn’t done to jump start us again. I knew that the club had become important to a number of the members, including myself, and I didn’t want to just let it die without a fight. So I called a meeting at my house of four people I felt would be willing to do what was necessary to resuscitate the DVWFFA. Everyone pitched in, and their initiative and effort started the club on the road to its current solid status.

As our tenth anniversary year comes to a close, all of our members both past and present can be justifiably proud of our organization. We’ve made a difference in the lives of a great many women fly fishers, and hopefully will continue to do so for the next ten years and beyond.

--Mary S. Kuss--
Winter 2007 Issue