Profile: Capt. Andrew Derr is the real deal

Photo op and quick release. Capt. Andrew Derr photo credit.

Good light tackle guides are in short supply, but a talented fly fishing guide can be a needle in a haystack

Skip Clement, August 2023, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

By Skip Clement

Several good light tackle guides are on the eastern portion of Long Island, New York, where the best striper action happens. However, choosing a fly fishing guide or captain becomes very limited because talented fly fishing and experience set them apart. Captain Andrew Derr stands out among the handful who do.

Captain Derr background

Derr guided in the Florida Keys and taught fly casting for an Orvis Fly Shop in the Ocean Reef Club. While in the Keys [late 1990s to early 2000], his roommate and mentor was celebrity fishing guide Capt. Paul Dixon.

Several other Keys guides have become lifelong friends, including the iconic fly fisher, artist, and contrarian Tim Borski. While guiding in the Keys, Captain Derr co-wrote the twice-republished Fly Fishing the Florida Keys (Amato, 2004).

Captain Andrew Derr with a client’s nice striper on the flats of Long Island Sound, New York – a mile or two from where Derr lives.

Time to move on

By around 2005, Derr took the GM job at the Urban Angler, the only legitimate fly shop serving 8 million New Yorkers. ORVIS was uptown in NYC, although they were bursting back on the fly fishing scene with their lifetime guarantee and the bonus fallout from the movie A River Runs Through It. It remained only a doggy bed and fox hunt clothier for the idle rich.

The Wall Streeters always know, who knows, they can smell such things

Andrew Derr created a buzz with the angling side of Wall Street, Broadway actors, musicians, and wealthy dilettantes—all looking for real-deal information on what they needed to be the best, have the best, and say they knew Andrew Derr.

And the band played on

Derr and the band he played with, The Goods, dented New York’s highly competitive new band scene. It was a young man on the go for Derr, fishing when he could. He became a who’s who in his day job and knew who was who in New York from the Adirondacks to Montauk.

It was strange visiting Andrew

I met Andrew at the Urban Angler, got introduced to staff and walk-in celebrities, and had a late lunch (two hamburgers, two beers, split a side of fries $70 including tip]. After work, around 7 pm, there was a meet-up with his band friends, and he was off. I shopped and napped at the hotel, then taxied to Lower Manhattan and hit the music scene at 11:00 pm.

Life as a musician

The Goods, Andrew’s band, came on at around 12:30 am and played until 1:15. A few rounds and then back to the studio to record, practice some new stuff, and sip on wine until the sun peeked through the canyons of steel and glass. Then, I had a huge breakfast and was off to my hotel.

Fly fishing Jamaica Bay in the winter

Sunday, Andrew and I took the MTA Subway System, called the “train,” to a “stop” near Brighton Beach. We were quite a spectacle dressed in fly fishing attire and carrying five fly rods. A chuckling cabby dropped us off at the Jamaica Bay Docks. There, we met Andrew’s lifelong friend, Brendan McCarty, and fished all day with unexpected success, catching and releasing a dozen stripers of average size.

I flew home to Pittsburgh the next day

On Monday, Andrew began his 30 hours of plane rides to host and guide a half dozen anglers fly fishing the Seychelles from a charter vessel in the Indian Ocean.