Family of 'Obsessed' Fisherwoman Will Start Kids Fishing Foundation in Her Honor

When Megan Pfautz discovered fishing aboard the Hampton Lady, a charter fishing boat that sails from the docks near Shinnecock Inlet in Hampton Bays, it changed her life.

It was 2021, and she was using a walker to get around at the time, recovering from a fall. Her father, Dan, saw the stability of the 60-foot Hampton Lady’s broad decks and two-hour evening trips as the best way to get his daughter, who had been obsessed with fishing her entire life, on the water for a little while with a broken hip.

“The first thing they ask you when you go to start physical therapy is what are your expectations — all she wanted to know was when she’d be able to go fishing again,” Pfautz’s mother, Jayne, recalled. “That first time on the Lady, it was like she’d found a new home. Before you knew it, she was going three or four times a week. She and Jimmy were fast friends — it turned out they had the same birthday, and she just adored being out there, even if the fishing was terrible.”

Pfautz became a fixture aboard the Hampton Lady and other South Fork “party boats” — as the charter boats that sell individual tickets for a day of fishing, rather than having to charter the entire boat, are known.

And so, when Megan died suddenly at the age of 33 last December of a heart attack — later determined to be a symptom of an undiagnosed enlarged heart — her mother knew that she had to do something in her daughter’s memory to help other people discover the joys of being out on the water that her daughter had been so drawn to.

The grieving mother almost immediately started a GoFundMe in her daughter’s honor, the Megan Pfautz Memorial Fund – www.gofundme.com/f/megan-pfautz – and started planning with Hampton Lady owner Captain James Foley to start a new charitable foundation that will be dedicated to getting disadvantaged kids who might otherwise not have the means, on the water with a fishing a pole in their hands.

With $30,000 in seed money already in its coffers, the pair have started working with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Long Island on a mobilization plan to introduce fishing to new young people this summer.

“She always brought egg sandwiches for our crew, and she spent half her time just helping others on the boat, giving them tips on what to do and helping them bait their hooks — people started to think she worked on the boat,” Foley said.

“She was just a genuine, kind person. Since her passing, I’ve become very close with her family, who are such amazing people. We want to use her memory so kids who can’t afford it can come out fishing and experience what she got to experience. I think it could be a wonderful thing for a lot of kids.”

Megan had been a lifelong fisherwoman. She grew up in Manhattan, attended private schools and summered in Sagaponack. She loved women’s fashion and the fast-paced nightlife of the city’s preppy scene. But fishing had always been her passion.

She started out fishing around Sag Harbor for fluke and snappers in the summer, roaming the shores of lakes behind her grandmother’s house in Boca Raton during winter breaks casting for largemouth bass, and on the flats of the Florida Keys on an annual birthday trip with her dad.

“I still have a deep freezer full of fish that she caught, but she always said it was really about the experience — she would always say, ‘It’s called fishing, not catching,’ and she was just happy to go,” her mom said. “She would point out dolphins to people and say, ‘Do you see where you are right now, on a boat, in the sunshine? It doesn’t matter how the fishing is.’”

Megan was not squeamish about holding fish, or about posing for a photo, and she featured prominently in the social media feeds of all the boats she fished on regularly.

She’d never had a driver’s license — like a true Manhattanite — but was in the process of applying for a boat captain’s license when she died.

Jayne Pfautz said that the Megan Pfautz Foundation will dedicate every dollar it raises to putting kids on the water and some will be able to be outfitted directly by Megan — and the mountains of tackle and fishing gear she had accumulated over the years.

“She had so much stuff — boots, skins, rods — she never wanted a Chanel purse, she wanted custom fishing rods,” her mother sighed. “It hurts, seeing all her stuff here. And that’s why we are going to do this. I want her memory to be on the water.”