Mary Orvis Marbury – A Fly Fishing Legend

February 1, 2020 By: Spencer Durrant

If I asked you to tell me what Mary Orvis Marbury did for the fly fishing community, could you answer?

I couldn’t, when I first came across her name. I reckon most anglers can’t.

But she’s someone you absolutely need to know about. Mary’s contributions to fly fishing are varied, but perhaps her greatest achievement was creating a classification system for fly fishing flies. Mary was the only daughter of Charles F. Orvis, founder of the Orvis Company, and is solely responsible for how we describe flies today.

This article from the Brattleboro-Reformer goes into far more detail, and it’s worth every minute of your time to read. You’ll learn more about Mary’s life, the contributions she made to the fly fishing community, and how her work over 125 years ago is still relevant today.

If you read one thing today, make sure it’s this.