Tara Folz Lived Her Multi-Generation Sailfish Dreams

As she approached 40, Californian Tara Folz had a somewhat sudden yearning to fulfill what she saw as a family legacy. It involved a sailfish, but not just any sailfish from any waters – she wanted to cross the continent to catch one from the ocean off of Miami. 

The urge may have come upon her quickly, but it’s a story that simmered for multiple generations, and while she hadn’t fished much in recent years, the sport runs through her blood. Her great grandfather, George Robey Sr., was a legend of the saltwater fishing world, a longtime director of the prestigious Annual Metropolitan Miami Fishing Tournament. He’d caught a sailfish decades before Tara was born, and had it mounted. Throughout her life, whenever and wherever she visited her grandfather, George Robey Jr., it had been on the wall behind him, a living – well, in this case dead and mounted – reminder of their family’s angling heritage. Every time she saw him, there it was. When they spoke on the phone, she envisioned it behind him. 

Her father, George III, a noted outdoor writer, had introduced Tara to the sport, per her birthright. “Growing up, I fished with dad all the time, that’s what we did together.” He introduced her to archery, too, and that sport has been a driving force in her life.  Indeed, she trained at the US Olympic Training Center, claimed multiple national titles, and was a collegiate All-American. Today she’s the President of Archery House, an instructional facility in San Diego and a happily married mother of three. Her passion for the outdoors never waned, but her fishing time did. 

“Talking to my grandpa over the phone, we ended up talking about that sailfish,” she said. “It kept coming back to fishing. I thought to myself, ‘Why not go sailfishing?’ When that one is passed down, I want that sailfish, and then it kind of hit me that I should get another one to add to the wall.” The house already has her mounted walleye from an Erie kids tournament when she was 11, plus the first deer she shot, but they’d make more room for two family heirlooms that came from disparate generations and distant decades.  

She quickly and diligently started to research charter options in Miami, and settled on Double D Charters based on repeated glowing recommendations. In May all of that came to fruition as she found herself headed out early on a calm morning, first catching bait, and then setting up the spread. “We had kites on one side of the boat and we were drifting bait on the other side,” she recalled. “Within the first 20 minutes, Billy, the mate, said we had one on. I ran up and got it. I was pretty excited. The rod was driving into my hip, but the Captain told me not to worry about the pain.” 

Indeed, when the 89-inch billfish was properly landed, the whatever pain had ailed her during the fight all washed away. “It was the most beautiful fish I’ve ever seen.” Late in the day, they hooked up with two more and both she and her husband fought them to the boat simultaneously. The trip was a success, not only by fishing standards, but by the measure of a life well-lived. “I’ve always loved it, I just hadn’t done it in a long time,” she said. “Between my career, getting married, having kids, and moving away from home, I got away from it. This reminded me of being a kid in my dad’s boat on Lake Erie. It was like being home again.” 

Unfortunately, because of the quick scheduling of the trip, her father George, who lives in Johannesburg, couldn’t make it, but he was there in spirit, and learned of the accomplishment before anyone else. 

“He was definitely the first person I sent the picture to,” Tara said. “Just me being back on the water got him excited.” 

Shortly thereafter, she reached out to order a replica from Gray Taxidermy, and “they’re working on it right now.” Only one problem: She and her family had not yet determined if they had enough space allocated for one sailfish mount, let alone two. “We’ll find a spot,” her husband said, wielding a measuring tape. The resulting plan was to clear space for both of them in the living room, above the mantel, where they’d command the attention of anyone entering the home – just as her great-grandfather’s sailfish has been a point of family pride for decades.” 

While she was fired up about strengthening her connection to her great-grandfather and 94 year-old grandfather, Tara hadn’t envisioned that the growing family outdoors tapestry would extend in the opposite direction, too. Since returning from Miami, “my little guy, who’s just four years old, keeps asking me to go,” she explained. “That’s our plan. We’ve already taken them to some local lakes and ponds to see how they’ll do. It’s important to me to hold onto to something that’s so special to our family. It’s really been passed down from generation to generation. I just want to keep that line going. This is my way of keeping the outdoors alive in our family.”