Bonefish & Tarpon Trust is celebrating founding member Joan Wulff's 100th birthday. Wulff began fly-casting at age 10 and won 17 national casting titles over her career. She and husband Lee Wulff opened the Wulff School of Fishing in 1979 in New York's Catskill Mountains. Wulff helped found BTT after tarpon populations declined in the Florida Keys, joining anglers who sought scientific data for conservation. BTT gave her its 2017 Curt Gowdy Memorial Media Award. She was inducted into BTT's Circle of Honor at age 90.
Bonefish & Tarpon Trust bestowed the 2017 Curt Gowdy Memorial Media Award upon one of its founding members, the "First Lady of Fly-Fishing," Joan Wulff. The award recognized her storied career in fly-fishing and its media, both print and on-screen.
One of the best fly-casters and instructors of all time, Wulff was born in 1926 in New Jersey—the daughter of a sporting goods store owner/newspaper outdoors columnist. Wulff began fly-casting at age 10, winning her first statewide casting tournament in 1937. She went on to win 17 national casting titles and wrote an acclaimed 1987 book on fly-casting. A celebrated ambassador of the sport, she traveled the country representing fishing tackle companies and conducted casting demonstrations at many of the largest sportsmen's shows in the United States. Author Monte Burke wrote, "When Joan entered the sport back in the late 1930s, it was exclusively a man's world. That's not the case anymore, largely due to her."
In 1966, Wulff and her future husband Lee Wulff spent 10 days fishing for giant bluefin tuna in Newfoundland for an episode of the television show, The American Sportsman. The couple married in 1967, and together they had a profound influence on fly-fishing and conservation practices. They opened the now-famous Wulff School of Fishing in 1979 in New York's Catskill Mountains, which is still successful today. This "First Couple of Fly-Fishing" lectured extensively and appeared in many ABC and CBS network television programs until Lee's death in 1991.
In the 1950s, tarpon became Wulff's introduction to saltwater fly-fishing. Over the years, a decline of the tarpon population began to trouble guides and anglers in the Florida Keys. Wulff joined a group of like-minded anglers who would seek scientific data to forge a path for the conservation of their beloved flats species. That group would become Bonefish & Tarpon Trust.
"Joan has been a friend, mentor, and inspiration to so many within our BTT family since our humble beginnings," said Jeff Harkavy, a fellow BTT founding member and Circle of Honor inductee. "Her insights provided meaningful anecdotal evidence of the decline of tarpon, and her introductions to many leaders and colleagues helped us expand our membership and influence. My daughter, Heather, who met Joan at her fly-fishing school in 2006, affectionately calls Joan 'The Fairy Godmother of Fly-Fishing,' a title that is always received with a giggle and warm embrace!"
At the time of her induction into the BTT Circle of Honor, Wulff, then age 90, recollected that she had once worried such a career might lead her to tire of fly-fishing. But she said, "Sixty-seven years later, and I've yet to get enough of it."
Today, at age 100, Joan Wulff remains an iconic ambassador for the sport whose legacy continues to inspire countless anglers around the world.
Please join BTT in wishing the "First Lady of Fly-Fishing" a very happy birthday!