It's no fish tale -- there's a girl guide in East Hampton

By Melanie D.G. Kaplan
Columbia News Service
July 7, 2002

In East Hampton this summer, 150 miles east of Manhattan, amidst the glitterati and the snake of SUVs winding along narrow roads, there is a new fishing boat. But the fisherman standing on the stern of the boat, who is gaining a reputation as one of the top on the eastern end of the island, is different from what folk in these waters are used to; she's a woman.

Amanda Switzer, a protege of fly-fishing great Paul Dixon, recently opened her own full-service guiding company and is now the first female fly-rod guide on the East End (East Hampton and Montauk) and one of just a handful on the East Coast. She takes one or two clients out on the water at a time for a half-day ($300) or full day ($450), navigating the waters and leading anglers to fish. She provides fly rods, spinning reels, flies, foul-weather gear, lunch, drinks and snacks.

"She worked for me for two years, and she is bar none the best guide I ever trained," said Dixon, 48, who was listed as the best saltwater fishing guide in Forbes.com and whose clients have included Jimmy Buffet, Minnie Driver, Edward Burns, Robert Rubin and Tom Brokaw. "She has the best fish instinct, and she gets the game."

Switzer specializes in sight fishing for striped bass, in which she stands on the stern, or back, of a flats boat in shallow water. She pushes the boat along with a pole in the sandy or rocky bottom and looks for fish. When she spies a fish, she tells her client, who casts according to her description of the fish's location. East Hampton is just one of a few places in the United States, in addition to the Florida Keyes, where the waters are clear enough for sight fishing.

Switzer, 32, has been fishing since she was a child and is used to working and playing in a largely male world. She calls herself a fisherman, and she has learned from men, cast with men and taught men. And for the most part, men love her.

"She has fish sense," said Peter Kaminsky, author of "The Moon Pulled Up an Acre of Bass: A Flyrodder's Odyssey at Montauk Point" and a self-described "fishing junkie" who has been fishing with Switzer for several years. "Somehow she has an inborn understanding of the tide, the environment and the animals in it.

"And she's pretty, too," Kaminsky continued. "There's a lot that is more appealing than a guy who smokes Luckys and has a beer belly."

Kaminsky, who fishes about 80 days a year, said he has seen the number of women in the sport increase significantly over the past few years, often because their fathers, husbands or boyfriends already fish. He said once women start fishing, those with a natural talent and love for the sport become devotees.

Switzer, tall, thin and tanned, knows that her gender can be a plus for business, but she also knows that if she couldn't fish, she -- and now her business -- wouldn't last very long on her looks.

"In the beginning, I think guys think it's a novelty," Switzer said. "Generally, it's like, 'Oh, who's this new girl guide?' But it doesn't really matter after 10 minutes in a boat, because they see I know what I'm doing."

Some fisherman -- or more accurately, their wives -- aren't crazy about Switzer casting and guiding in a man's world. Switzer said she was talking to a guide friend of hers whose client was going to book with her this summer but who decided not to. "I asked why he didn't book yet," Switzer said, "and the man's excuse: 'My wife said I absolutely cannot fish with her.'"

Switzer said she hopes she can get more women involved in the sport. When men or women start fly casting, she said, they are often hooked, because it's a sport -- like golf -- in which there is always room for improvement.

"We're all addicts," Switzer laughed. "The distance of your cast, your technique, your presentation can always get better. And if you have an off-day, you have to go back and prove to yourself the next time that you can do it."

Sight fishing in particular is very challenging but is gaining in popularity. Switzer described it as a form of hunting, because she stalks the fish rather than luring them in with bait.

"Sight fishing has exploded in the New York metropolitan area," said Josh Feigenbaum, 52, the retired owner of a broadcasting company in Manhattan. "There's so much pressure on the streams within 100 miles of here, and you don't see that many big fish. But saltwater fishers are getting five-to-10-pounders on a fly rod, and the average fish is 25 inches."

Feigenbaum has fished with Switzer, whose fishing is all catch-and-release, for three years. But he has been at the sport for 45 years, and he said Switzer has all the qualities of a good guide.

"A guide knows the water, knows the tides, understands what the wind is doing and is able to find fish," Feigenbaum said. The idea of having a guide working with you is to put you on fish, and that means knowing the water, at any time of the year, any time of the day. Some guides are clueless," Feigenbaum said. "But she's just an extraordinary guide. I knew from the first five minutes on the boat she knew what she was doing."

Close Window