In 1964, Lee Wulff told Bob Wethern of the Flyfishers Club of Oregon that “a loose federation of fly fishing groups could be of considerable value.” Today’s Federation of Fly Fishers is the result of efforts to make that idea a reality, and as the organization’s website notes, “today the FFF has grown to over 300 clubs,” with the emphasis now increasingly on being an organization composed of individual members. But it’s no easy task to develop and sustain such an organization, particularly in a sprawling region like Southern California, where multiple factors conspire to disperse the energies and interests of fly fishers.
In 2009, Michael Schweit brought new life and renewed commitment to the FFF’s Southwest Council in Southern California, a group whose presence and profile had dwindled. As he wrote in the council’s July 2009 newsletter, “We never left,” but “the SWC faced what challenged a lot of our clubs. Volunteerism or lack thereof.” Recognizing both his success in reinvigorating this important organization and the ways in which other angling organizations face similar challenges, we decided to ask Michael about how to meet the kinds of challenges he has encountered.
Bud: I’m mostly going to focus on the Southwest Council, but I like to begin with some biographical information. So: When did you start fly fishing?
Michael: I started fly fishing in 1981, the year I met my girlfriend Robin. The previous year, I had been camping with a friend, and we killed about six small brook trout because we were using salmon eggs, and the hook went too deep. As we were cleaning and eating these tiny things in camp, we were lamenting having to kill something so small. The guy camped next to us overheard and came over to explain about fly fishing, barbless hooks, and the catch-and-release ethic. I came home and told Robin about this. That November, she spotted a course at UCLA Extension called “The Art of Fly Fishing,” and I signed up.
Neal Taylor, who just passed away, taught the course. He was a champion plug caster and a wonderful personality to introduce and teach any sport. He could have taught toilet-brush cleaning and made it entertaining. We also have a local fly shop, Fishermen’s Spot, and their old manager, Jan Sadlo, breathed fly fishing. He taught me to tie, took me surf fishing, and introduced me to the local streams.
Bud: Fly fishing is in many ways an individual sport (nobody can make that cast but you), and even when “fishing buddies” are involved, the dynamics of association tend to be informal. You’re now president of what’s in effect an umbrella organization, one level up from that of organized local clubs, which are themselves at least one level up from standing alone in a river, waving a stick. How did you get involved in organized fly-fishing groups in the first place? How did you end up president of the Southwest Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers?
Michael: I became a member of the local club, Sierra Pacific Fly Fishers, in 1981. I went to a meeting because they had a speaker named Lefty Kreh talking about saltwater fly fishing, and I had fished the ocean since I was 12. I spoke to him about albacore and whether it was possible to take one on a fly. You know his answer.
I stayed a member to support the sport and always got the newsletter, but I was busy with work and fishing with friends, so I rarely attended meetings. One day, they had another speaker of interest, and I went to the meeting. The members were quite welcoming. I ended up getting involved and became outings chair, because it gave me a good excuse to go fishing all the time.
Becoming a board member was a real eye-opener as to what works and what does not. Then the water issues here in California really started to make headlines, and I, like others, wondered what I could do. I went to some water and environmental caucuses and met some very involved people. One was Mike McKenzie, who is a member of the Federation of Fly Fishers and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and is very involved with Delta issues. He did not sit there and blame Southern California for the water problems and really helped educate me. I was wondering what to do to help in SoCal, and he said, “Why not become president of the Southwest Council and do something?” Nonprofits never have enough volunteers, so I attended meetings for a year and then offered my services.
Bud: As president, you’ve devoted a lot of time to invigorating the Southwest Council. That basically has meant increasing and energizing its membership. The Southland is a sprawling megalopolis where getting like-minded people together in the same room, let alone motivating them to act together, can be difficult. What are some of the challenges you’ve faced in getting people involved in fly-fishing organizations in Southern California?
Michael: We are still struggling with membership numbers in our council. The biggest challenge is distance, and we are one of the smaller councils. The Southwest Council stretches from Santa Barbara to Las Vegas and from Mammoth to San Diego. So when we have a quarterly meeting, the club representatives end up driving anywhere from one to four hours. I give these folks a lot of credit. We move the meeting around, but I really wish teleconferencing was up and running on an affordable level.
It is up to the Southwest Council board to make these meetings worthwhile. The first meeting I chaired had one discussion, and it was on increasing membership. The ideas that emerged came from a collaborative effort. I was fortunate in having a mentor, Dennis Tsuyuki, who got me to understand the importance of “owning” a process. Basically, following a survey that was sent to the clubs, we decided that what they wanted to do, they owned. That is always in the back of my mind. It is not about what the council wants, but rather what the clubs want.
One mistake that is made in any organization is not empowering your constituents. We told the clubs that we would do whatever they felt was important, and we continue to respond the same way. For example, in 2011, we had a booth at five fishing shows. The booth is not about the Southwest Council or the Federation of Fly Fishers, even though our name is on it. The central piece is a large three-by-four map of our area with all of the clubs listed. The mantra is to promote the local club where the interested person lives and then talk to them about membership in the FFF. One aspect I find consistently in fly fishing is the desire to learn more, and we have lots of teaching programs that are also fishing opportunities. We have loads of bass lakes and not a lot of fly anglers taking advantage of them, for example, so Conway Bowman has offered to help us rent a lake, teach people how to cast better and read the water, then go out and fish. And last year, we had our first ever InterClub Tournament on the Kern. We all fish for trout, but the Kern is a different animal, with large boulders and deep runs. So Guy Jeans is going to do a seminar this year before the contest. Others are teaching how to fish the surf. And there is also room for teaching outdoor photography, tying, and casting. There actually are many opportunities to entice the interest of the public and share our enthusiasm for fly fishing.
Education also is playing a large role in what we are planning in the future. When I speak to anglers and they tell me they are not joiners, we show them what we do for youth education (Boy Scout Merit Badge, Trout in the Classroom), outreach (Project Healing Waters and, I hope soon, Casting for Recovery) and conservation awareness.
Bud: In meeting those challenges, what has worked — and what hasn’t?
Michael: It has been important to figure out the lines of communication to the clubs. We all use e-mail, but sometimes you have to pick up the phone. I’ve gotten a bit of a reputation as a nag, which I wish wasn’t so! I did manage to travel to all 22 clubs in my first year to meet their memberships. No matter where the club is located, it is made up of people who love the sport, and it encompasses all professions, all backgrounds, from those who have been fishing since they were eight to those just starting out. Meeting and talking with such a variety of interesting people about our mutual joy of fly fishing and the outdoors is one of the perks I have.
We also started a once-a-year meeting called Club Management Day. This idea came from Carole Katz, who is also the Western regional coordinator for Project Healing Waters. It allows the clubs to send their entire board so that they can break into groups (for example, Webmasters, conservation chairs, newsletter editors, and so on) and share knowledge and problems. The first year, we had 35 people. Last year, we had over 50. I hope we can continue to grow so that the clubs will benefit. Here is something that did not work.
We decided to have our summer 2010 quarterly meeting in Mammoth Lakes: fish, stop for lunch, and then fish some more. No one wanted to attend. It seems you can do meetings or fish — not both.
One enduring problem is how to reach anglers who are not a member of any club or of the Federation of Fly Fishers. How do we inform them, not just about the benefits of our organizations, but about the issues that affect angling and conservation? There are approximately 2.5 million fly anglers in the United States. Current paid membership in the FFF is around twelve thousand. Where are the rest? If you were a hunter, you would be a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association. Granted, the national office of the FFF in past years had not done a great job in getting the word out about what they do. It is run by five paid staff, and the tireless national president, Phil Greenlee, is unpaid. He is working on returning it to a bottom-up organization, and the councils are seeing the changes. But for every one thousand people who join the FFF at $35.00 per year, you could hire another person. So when people ask us why the FFF does not do more, and claim that if it did, they would join, I reply that if they would join, it could do more.
Bud: Raising the profile of an organization like the Southwest Council — or of my own local fly-fishing club, for that matter — is the same kind of chicken/egg problem. You’ll be hosting a program featuring Joan Wulff this coming October 15, for example, and it takes an A-list group to get the A-list people who can help make it an A-list group. What advice do you have for other clubs who need to solve this problem?
Michael: Your words are so correct, and I use the same expression. As I said, we could do more with more people, but to reach them, we need more people. Our board is seeing more involvement than when we started up two years ago and good feedback. It just moves at glacial speed.
But here is something we can all do: Keep talking. Good things happen. We would have never had Joan Wulff come here if it was not film producer/director Jeff Pill, who has known her for years. It was his idea. Likewise, I met a film editor,
Robbie King, and he wants to help promote the sport and put together a fun presentation that we can take to nonfishing organizations. It always circles back to the fact that we do better as a group than as individuals.
Bud: Mounting programs such as Trout in the Classroom and Project Healing Waters, or just doing “how-to” presentations to promote fly fishing, takes a lot of effort. What rewards can people experience who commit their energies to such projects? Why should they get involved?
Michael: As I said earlier, fly anglers love to learn. So those who attend outings and seminars pick up lots of information and shorten the learning curve. And they usually meet lots of nice people who become their friends. And you need to go fishing with friends, so the more fly anglers you meet, the more you fish, and the less time you spend cleaning your garage.
Seriously, the reasons for involvement are twofold. One is to share and partake in knowledge. The second is that a group gets more done and has a louder voice than an individual. We need to work together. We are a lucky state in that we have two Federation of Fly Fishers councils, and I work with Anne-Marie Bakker and the Northern California board on Delta and agricultural issues and getting the word out down here.
Bud: The leadership of fly-fishing clubs tends to be pretty ad hoc. Few people yearn to be president of such groups, and most take office reluctantly. Yet leadership matters, especially in such loosely formal groups. What skills should I look for in the people I might dragoon into leading my local club?
Michael: I believe it is not so much skills that you are looking for as someone with enthusiasm and drive. If you take on this role as leader . . . lead! And if you need help, ask for it. I recently attended a nonprofit workshop on how to improve your particular organization. I walked away with a ton of ideas and information and am now looking to bring the person who conducted it down to give a workshop for all current and future leaders.
Also, I was lucky to inherit a very involved board of directors. Bennett Mintz, who does communication, has been with the council since 1990 and is a great, wonderful wordsmith for press releases. And at my first general meeting, I met Melinda Burns. She and her husband, John, got involved with fly fishing as something to do together. She is a firecracker who inexplicably took on both the job of the website
and the job of secretary. We had our website in six weeks! John Rose has stuck with the newsletter and is teaching himself how to use publishing software so each edition is better than the last. And for educational opportunities, I have Marshall Bissett, an FFF certified casting instructor, Tim Lawson, a master certified casting instructor, and Naomi Okamoto, who is a great teacher of tying, along with the famed Steven Fernandez, who thrives on getting as many tyers in a room as possible. Don Davis just came on to coordinate education and events, and we have a retired biochemist, Tim Bartley, at conservation, and he actually likes to read position papers. But the one person I still feel for is Joe Lemire. He does membership and is constantly looking for ways to get people to join. We might have to send him house-to-house soon. Oh, I did pull a guilt trip to get a treasurer. I was fishing with my cousin, Kevin Green, and told how in need we were. It’s hard to refuse relatives. Finally, we scored with our Boy Scout coordinator. Howard Kern helped write the Fly Fishing Merit Badge program, so we have the resident expert. We challenge each other and keep striving to do more. It makes me look forward to my next term, if I were to get reelected in July.
Bud: You’re awfully busy, working with the Southwest Council. Do you ever actually get to fish?
Michael: Fish??? The council has cut down on my free time, but as I said, this is my chosen role. However, I went to speak to our Las Vegas club, and they took me out carp and largemouth bass fishing. It was a hoot, and I met some really great people. And in May, I go fishing every other Wednesday out to the Channel Islands. The other eight people fish conventional tackle, and I get the bow to fish for bonito, kelp bass, white seabass, and yellowtail. I also arrange two offshore charters for tuna that go 50/50 conventional and fly anglers. I make it to Mammoth and surroundings about two or three times a year, and I always take a week for bonefishing in Ascension Bay. It helps that I do not have children and that I know all my angling friends will take care of me when I am old.
Bud: Here we are at the traditional Silly Tree Question: If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?
Michael: Coconut, for sure. You live in the tropics, everyone loves your fruit, and your leaves get used for renewable roofing materials. And you bend in hurricanes!
