Personal Best: Fly fishing is life for O’Sullivan
By: David Liepman
Special to The Examiner
May 17, 2009
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| (Mike Koozmin) |
SAN FRANCISCO — One of San Francisco’s countless hidden gems may be found across from the buffalo paddock on John F. Kennedy Drive toward the western end of Golden Gate Park.
As a visitor climbs the stone steps past a rhododendron garden to the Angler’s Lodge, he is greeted by three beautiful casting pools surrounded by towering Eucalyptus trees. On any given weekend, a smiling, petite woman in her waders may be found waist-high in the water, creating artistry with her fly-casting loops.
“The only time I’m not there is when I’m fishing or traveling,” fly-casting pioneer Donna O’Sullivan said.
The Daly City resident began fishing at the age of five in her native Hong Kong. On their father’s 36-foot cabin cruiser, O’Sullivan and her siblings would fish for grouper and striped bass with hand lines and bait.
O’Sullivan moved to San Francisco in 1984. Fly fishing appealed to her husband, Robert, as it required more energy than standard bait fishing. The couple took up the sport in 1994.
In 2000, after Robert passed away, O’Sullivan joined the Golden West Women Flyfishers.
“The club really helped me get through. Going to the meetings and having the support, making new friends, going fishing, just not being alone,” O’Sullivan recalled.
The 5-foot O’Sullivan discovered that she had a real talent for the sport and joined the venerable Golden Gate Angling & Casting Club, headquartered at the Angler’s Lodge.
In 2004, she was the first woman to compete in the prestigious Jimmy Green International Spey-O-Rama, an annual San Francisco tournament featuring two-handed fly casting.
“It was a tremendous honor for me to cast with the best in the world,” O’Sullivan said. “I felt like I needed to represent women in this contest.”
After winning the first three annual contests, O’Sullivan has come up against some stiff competition in recent years. She came in second place in 2007, third in 2008 and lost to ex-San Franciscan Whitney Gould last month in the 2009 Spey-O-Rama.
“I was too busy organizing and not at my top form,” the good-humored project manager at Chevron said, proudly indicating that Gould, an ex-pupil, had set the women’s record with a 117-foot cast.
O’Sullivan is also proud of her anglers distance bronze medal earned in last year’s American Casting Association’s 100th National Tournament. In the contest, held in San Francisco’s polo fields, she cast her one-handed, nine-foot, 10-weight fly rod a distance of 102 feet.
O’Sullivan and her conservation-minded comrades generally practice the “catch and release method” of fishing.
If not, “it’s like winning a tennis match and then killing your partner,” GGACC member George Nitikin explained.
When she isn’t practicing or competing, the popular fly fisherman takes 12-15 excursions each year. O’Sullivan’s passion for the sport has taken her across the globe with annual visits to Norway for trips with her fishermen friends, the Syrstad twins.
PERSONAL FACTS
Donna O’Sullivan
About her: O’Sullivan is a local fly caster, fly tyer and angler
Golden Gate Women Flyfishers: Focus on fishing and conservation; www.gwwf.org
Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club: 450 members strong, headquartered at the Angler’s Lodge and the Golden Gate Casting Ponds, 1270 John F. Kennedy Drive, S.F.; free lessons, www.ggacc.org
Today’s event: Watch Donna compete at the OCC Championships: Oakland Casting Club, McCrea Park, 4469 Carson St., Oakland; activities begin at 8 a.m.
