Brendan McCarthy has been many things: bartender, photographer, reality-television star, and Argentinean grill–maker. But for the last 29 years, his real job has been guiding fly anglers in Queens’s Jamaica Bay—without a guide, most people wouldn’t know that you can fish right next to J.F.K. Airport—and around the eastern end of Long Island.
With McCarthy’s expertise and some luck, there’s a good chance you’ll catch a striped bass or a coveted false-albacore tuna from the deck of the 23-foot, center-console boat while he looks on with approval. The relationship between a guide and his sport is a complicated one: He’s part expert and part armchair psychologist but also the employee of very wealthy clients. His fee is $800 a day, plus tip.
