Cathy Sanders

CEO

Cathy Sanders is the founder of Fishin' Girl, a company dedicated to gathering women who love fishing and want to enjoy it together. She is also a beach surf-fishing guide in Northeast Florida.
Cathy grew up loving fishing her whole life. Not having any family members who fished, she only had rare occasions to get out on the water and learn fishing techniques without the convenience of YouTube and the Internet. She has fond memories of catching tons of goldfish and catfish from local ponds and bringing them home to create a labyrinth of tunnels for them to swim through in a kiddie pool in the backyard. Later she remembers fishing offshoots of Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, New York (a polluted lake that has since been cleaned up) and catching lots of little bluegill from worms she dug up or found on the driveway after it rained.
Fast-forward to college, where she met her husband, Andy, and they would go fishing all the time in Springfield, Missouri, either for bass and bluegill or at night with lighted bobbers to find catfish to reel in. Upon graduation, they served as ministers and pastors in various churches, then later traveled with their two children across the country as evangelists. During this time, hobbies were put aside, including fishing apary from a few rare fishing trips to the Erie Canal to catch northern pike or up in the Thousand Islands with friends, catching whatever was biting. In their many travels, Cathy would see ponds, lakes, or streams and look at them wistfully, missing the tug of a fish on the line, while Andy thought it was a mostly a long-running joke that she was always thinking about fishing.
But fishing took a turn for Cathy in the middle of 2020 after dropping their kids off at college and moving to Palm Coast, Florida, becoming empty-nesters. There in the southern paradise, she saw some people fishing on the beach and decided that's what she wanted to do. Armed with an 8' rod various store-bought tackle, Cathy started learning how to fish in the surf, starting at Flagler Beach. Surf fishing quickly became an obsession for Cathy, and she was constantly watching videos on YouTube, listening to a Podcast, or connecting with other surf-fishing friends on various social media platforms.
Taking what she learned, Cathy went fishing every opportunity she could, applying tactics and tips and becoming successful on almost every fishing trip. She would also consistently post water reports from Flagler Beach or other areas she visited, trying to help others be better prepared if they were planning to fish those areas. Soon other women who saw her posts and pictures started asking Cathy to teach them how to fish on the beach, getting addicted to the sport themselves in the process. And it wasn't long before the vision of Fishin' Girl was born!
In 2022, Cathy tied the GA state record for female angler for Florida Pompano, a 40-year old record that no woman had come close to in all that time, giving her new recognition in the fishing industry. Just before this event, Cathy started running beach-fishing charters, teaching locals and visitors alike how wonderful it is to catch fish from the beach. Also in 2022, she started the Fishin’ Girl YouTube channel, which currently has almost 200 videos and over 1,500 subscribers. Over the last year, she started a women’s only fishing group on Facebook, which has grown to almost 600 ladies from all over the globe who are just as addicted to fishing as she is!
Cathy is the president of the Saint Augustine chapter of Salt Strong, the largest saltwater fishing club, and loves to speak at fishing clubs or other groups about surf fishing whenever she has the opportunity.
Cathy began to be recognized in the Northeast Florida surf-fishing community, and its hard to go too many places locally without someone recognizing her who watches the Fishin’ Girl YouTube channel, hired her for a charter, or has seen posts about Fishin’ Girl on social media.