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FLY-FISHING: Amanda Switzer, GuideBy Russell Drumm
But the strong hands, their having that certain look of being outside and wet much of the time, steal the surprise that she is one of only two female fishing guides to ferry anglers to within range of bluefish, striped bass, false albacore, even mighty bluefin tuna in the waters that local sportfishermen like to call the Fishing Capital of the World - a man's world, up until now. Serena Vegessi, captain of the Lady Bones charter boat of Montauk, is the other. Switzer said she never paid much mind to the woman in a man's world thing. "I don't respond to that kind of resistance. Early on, I would come up too fast [on another fishing boat]. 'Oh, sorry,' " she feigned sweetly, batting her eyes the way she did to disarm an angry fellow guide. "I used it. Now, I abuse it," she said, throwing her head back and flashing a big smile. "Fishing is a huge mystery," she confessed over a Coke on Friday, one that began to draw her in as a girl. She started visiting East Hampton from Floral Park at the age of 10 when her grandmother bought a house here. "What the hell is this?" she recalled asking her mother in an oft-repeated scene at home, holding up an eel or some other form of sea life she had just caught. " 'Put it back,' her mother would say. 'But what is it?' I said. It was all fascinating." And still is. She is now in the third, and final, part of what is, for her, a three-phase season in the annual sport fishery for small light-tackle and fly-fishing boats. It's her sixth season in a fishery that has exploded in popularity since she got into it. "I fish every day from May to December. In the spring, I have a sight-fishing clientele. In August, it's fathers and their sons. Now, in the fall, it's combat fishing," she said, only half kidding. Switzer guides using two boats, a shallow-draft "flats" boat and a more seaworthy Parker required during the fall off Montauk when fly fishermen and their guides swarm after schools of false albacore. She poles into the calmer shoal waters of the western Peconics in early May, when "fish and bait are coming out of the estuary." "There's the resident fish and big cow bass up there early. An early migration of bunker around Robins Island and Shelter Island. 'Estuarial' is what one of my clients calls it around Mashomack Preserve. It's great sight-fishing," Switzer said, referring to the kind of fly- fishing where an angler casts to visible fish or their shadows. The arcane world of fly-fishing was known to her in only a rudimentary way in 2000 when she began to guide. She knew the greater world of sportfishing, however. "I've fished from 10 years old to 30, from docks to party boats. I started fishing at Gann Road [on Three Mile Harbor]. I used to ask the old guys questions, until I felt accepted." Later, she fished as a customer aboard Montauk's Viking party boats, but usually wound up as an unpaid mate, "to learn." She fished on charter boats for the secrets of shark and tuna fishing - "any excuse to be on the water." "I was 21 and bought a landscaping business. Then, when I was 27, I went to landscape architecture school at City College, urban landscape design. That was from 1997 to 2000. At about the same time, I started fly fishing, accidentally." Switzer said she knew only the basics of fly fishing and was working on her technique from a kayak one day when she realized she could actually see the fish. She saw places where striped bass could be seen from shore - "I could sight-fish here." At about the same time, Switzer was invited to a party in Montauk that was attended by some of this country's fly-fishing greats, including Lefty Kreh and Robert Clauser. "I was introduced to Paul Dixon [one of the founders of the local saltwater fly fishing phenomenon], whom I'd met before. I asked if I could go fishing. It was an awakening. An incredible discovery." "I was living in Queens, then, flash! I realized I could get paid to fish. Or, I thought I could," Switzer added with a smirk that acknowledged the truth behind Dixon's admonition to her: "If you want to give up everything and not make any money. . . ." "I asked him if he would hire me if I got my captain's license. He said yes. I had just finished landscaping school and went to Florida to learn how to pole." She worked as a guide for Dixon's To the Point charters before striking out on her own. Switzer has a following, perhaps because, for her, the joy is in "the peripheral aesthetics: osprey taking a baby bass. Deer in Accabonac Harbor. Poling with fish all around." "I love my clients. The sport brings all sorts of people together. People love the environment. There is not the conquering atmosphere. They're not meat fishermen," she said of her regulars. On the other hand, she said she didn't like everything about the catch-and-release philosophy either. "The commercial guys say we play with our food. I have mixed emotions, but how else do you get to see nature like that? It's the lesser of two evils. The answer is to let the fish go, but fast." The use of overly light rod and line to extend the fight with a fish often killed them, she said. Switzer said she also had an issue with "the masculine, conquering, combat fishing," that takes place among the mosquito fleet of light-tackle boats off Montauk Point this time of year. "I said, in the interview with ESPN, that I have mixed emotions. If I could catch them without a hook, I would." Earlier this month, Switzer took part in the filming of a kind of reality production for the cable sports network. Four guides lived together in a house and were filmed preparing to meet their clients in the early morning hours, and talking shop. Much has changed in the past few years. During the evolution of saltwater fly fishing off Montauk, overly aggressive guides have encroached within casting range from shore, a practice that did not endear them to surfcasters. And, good seamanship has, at times, been sacrificed during the hot pursuit of quickly moving schools of false albacore. Inattention to big waves and strong currents around Montauk Point have resulted in several capsizings. "In Montauk there's more adrenaline. They get off on the adrenaline. I still shake. I have to keep them safe, watch for surfcasters, try not to get hooked, and stay on the fish. It's always safety first." Switzer admitted she was not immune to the adrenaline rush, especially when 20-to-40-pound bluefin tuna swim along the south shore within range of her Parker the way they did this summer. "They were blitzing like bluefish. We caught 14." Two years ago, Switzer guided a client, Wallace Henderson, to a 90-pound bluefin, which he landed using a 14-weight rod. Guide, client, and bluefin appeared on the cover of Flyfishing in Saltwaters magazine. "I can't wait for November: herring, bunker, big bass. Going around the Point to the sandy beaches after big bass. It's going to be a great November," Switzer predicted. The guide said she planned to keep fishing, but a need to express herself artistically runs through it. "I've lost my love of landscaping. I'll keep fishing, but I'm serious about the production company. The video stuff will be the same as why I fish: travel, learning a subject I don't know about." "Last year I went to San Francisco and shot a little film about a group that helped homeless people with their pets. I didn't know homeless people had pets. It's another way to capture - to fish. A wider horizon." |
It's her hands that give her away. Otherwise, walking down the street in Montauk or East Hampton, Amanda Switzer might be mistaken for a real estate saleswoman, a teacher, or a newspaper reporter.