Most anglers consider fishing an escape, an antidote to our plugged-in lifestyles. For several Orange County executives, it’s also a great way to entertain clients—the sport provides ample opportunity for uninterrupted conversation and reeling in the catch can be a team effort.
“Fishing can be a great equalizer, where everybody can enjoy it,” said Brandon Birtcher, chief executive at Newport Beach-based Birtcher Development. “If you’re not a good golfer then you won’t have a good day on the course, whereas I can take a golf pro fishing and he has a very good chance of catching more fish and bigger fish than me. And he doesn’t have to know a thing about fishing—unless you’re tournament fishing, you’re able to help somebody hook a fish and pass the rod to them and let them enjoy fighting the fish. As opposed to the pro putting his arms around my shoulders and helping swing the club and getting a hole in one—that will just never happen.”
On some occasions, it’s the client who sparks the love for the sport. Birtcher was an avid sea fisherman when his company closed a deal on a lease for Il Fornaio in Irvine. To celebrate, he took the restaurant chain’s owner Larry Mindel on a fishing trip to Cabo. The client returned the favor with a trip to Montana’s Bitterroot River and taught him how to fly fish.
“It has now become probably my favorite form of fishing,” Birtcher said.
He started fishing when he was five, exploring the Back Bay in Newport Beach with his father Ron. His first major catch was a bonito he reeled in in Ensenada when he was eight years old.
“That was the biggest thrill of my life, and I could think of nothing more fun to do,” Birtcher said.
His trophies since include a 995-pound black marlin he caught off the coast of Australia and a world record for most swordfish caught in a day—four.
“They’re extremely difficult fish to find, and even more difficult to hook” Birtcher said, adding that swordfish are deep water feeders who are generally not hungry when they come to surface and are usually caught using a harpoon.
He takes after his mother, an avid angler with fishing records of her own, and his father, who caught 11 swordfish using “rod and reel” in local waters, a seasonal record that according to Bircher no one has beaten since.
Doing Good
Bill Sanderson, chief administrative officer at Golden State Foods in Irvine, a $7-billion food distribution company, also started fishing with his father at a young age, on trips to Arizona and Mexico.
“Some days we would just load the boat up with fish and come back exhausted, and other days we’d go out for what he would say was a really long boat ride,” Sanderson said. “And my dad had an expression, ‘There’s fishing and there’s catching and fishing’s not half bad,’ meaning, even if you’re all day on a boat and you don’t catch anything, it’s still just great to be out there and especially with your son and enjoy the sunshine and the beautiful water and the quietness of the deep blue sea.”
Along with family ties, the sport can also help solidify business relationships begotten elsewhere, Sanderson said. He met Birtcher and several other fishermen through the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).
The group goes on fishing trips several times a year, including an annual pilgrimage to Cabo San Lucas for the Stars & Stripes Tournament.
The event raises funds for children charities in Southern California and Mexico. It was a brainchild of Sanderson’s friend Dick Gebhard, founder of Pinnacle Landscape Management in Santa Ana, who at the time was serving on the board of directors of the local chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.
Gebhard goes spearfishing in Mexico at least a half dozen times a year, and when the non-profit’s board was looking to expand its fundraising efforts in 1997, he suggested starting a fishing tournament.
He now runs the four-day tournament with a group of board members, or Knights, as they call themselves.
The event, which includes golf competition and nightly music performances, netted more than $3 million this year for the non-profits, about $30 million since its inception.
The Hunt
Competing in Stars & Stripes and other tournaments is usually a team effort.
“You need a captain who knows the local waters well [and fishermen] who know how to hunt, to look for signs of the fish—whether it’s bird activity, or bait activity, or water temperature, satellite images—to find areas that are more likely to hold certain game fish we are seeking,” Birtcher said. “Then actually getting the fish to bite takes a bit of a talent and luck, various combinations on different days, whereby you have to present the right bait, and set the hook properly, which is difficult to do with some species of fish. And then when you’re actually fighting the fish, you need to have the patience to allow the fight to develop where you don’t bring them in too quickly or take too long. If you take too long, the line will wear out, and if you catch them too quickly you could break the line.”
His team—when not competing—keeps only what they can eat and releases the rest of the catch.
“For me, it’s the thrill of the hunt, and the baiting of the fish, getting them to actually bite and then the fight itself and then seeing a successful release,” he said.
LoanDepot Chief Executive Anthony Hsieh is among the OC executives who participate and underwrite fishing tournaments. He’s a captain of Team Bad Company, which “has won more than $6 million in prizes, has caught Blue and Black Marlins exceeding 900 lbs., and has caught and released thousands of Marlins around the world,” according to the LoanDepot website.
Hsieh is sponsoring a War Heroes on Water tournament Aug. 16 to Aug. 19 in Catalina.
The Escape
Jim Connelly, president at Creative Teaching Press in Cypress, also practices catch and release. He’s been on numerous sea fishing trips with Gephard, Sanderson and Birtcher but prefers the solitude while fly-fishing along a riverbank up in the mountains.
“It’s a real special time when you’re one or two people and you’re in a river and in beautiful surroundings,” Connelly said. “It gives me a chance to really sit and then quietly reflect on things maybe that were bothering me down here.”
Birtcher also appreciates connecting with nature during the fishing trips, often a humbling experience.
“As a Christian, and as a strong believer in God and in the divine creation—I have looked at the water as one of the great wonders of life, the miracle of its creation,” he said. “I go out on the water and float on the surface, hunting for fish where the water below me could be a mile deep and just think of the quantity of fish or the quantity of vast emptiness that exists … I see sharks eat their prey or whales breach or porpoise surrounding the bait with air bubbles … I just call it an enchanted sport because you just are so linked with nature’s miracles that occur randomly all the time.”
Sanderson, who oversees several global support groups at Golden State Foods and has previously served as its chief financial officer, said he enjoys fishing because it’s “just so different than what I do day in and day out. … Being out on the water, whether it be standing in waders on a stream and fly fishing or out on the ocean, it’s just so peaceful, relaxing. A lot of times the cell phone doesn’t work so people can’t reach you. It’s the yin for the yang of what we do in business each and every day.”
Gebhard, aside from fly and sport fishing likes to spearfish, a skill that took “years” to master.
“You’ve got to be able to go down underwater, hold your breath, and wait for the fish to come to you,” he said. “I work out in a pool about three to four times a week. I swim a mile underwater in an hour and six minutes… And more you train, the better your cardiovascular system is—my heart rate dropped almost 15 beats a minute.
“Fishing changed my life physically. We created this tournament that had helped all these kids. My wife and I fish together. I’m spearfishing with freaking sharks and big fish. It’s a great life that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”
