Cleveland HS grad hooks four gold medals at World Flycasting Championship

PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV) - She was the youngest flycasting world champion in history at the age of 12, now Portland’s Maxine McCormick is 18 and back home with another haul of gold medals.

Portland to Norway and back, Cleveland High School graduate McCormick just hooked four gold medals at the World Flycasting Championships.

“Accuracy and then two of the distance events, and then I won the all-around,” McCormick said.

FOX 12 last met McCormick in the summer of 2019 as she was preparing for her third world championship event, then came COVID-19.

“It’s just really relaxing, and I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s nice to come back to,” she said.

McCormick just put on one of the best overall flycasting displays on record.

“It was kind of unexpected because I hadn’t cast in a while and I didn’t know if I was going to do it again when I went to college,” she said.

The incoming sophomore biology major at the University of Washington scored a perfect 80 in accuracy by not missing a single target bullseye, the most ever by a woman or man.

“It kind of shows that it’s not really about strength, especially for accuracy. It’s really about technique and how many hours you put into it, so it felt really good to beat every,” said McCormick.

Her sea trout cast of 165 feet goes down as the longest by any female, ever.

“I usually don’t tell people so if people find out, it’s either my friends talking about me or somebody just randomly looks up my name and finds out, which is pretty fun,” she said.

Angling on the scene for half of her young life, McCormick caught the bug alongside her father, Glenn, who just won gold in trout accuracy.

McCormick is an inspiration to the next crop of casters.

“I have met some younger girls on Instagram and chatted with them on Instagram, which is really cool, and I think over the past 4-5 years, I have definitely seen more younger people getting into it,” she said.

McCormick’s dad and the 10-member crew of Team USA, including her coach, Chris Korich, captured 20 total medals - not bad to reflect upon back on her home pond at Westmoreland Park.

“It helped me get to where I am today, so it is definitely a special place and we are so lucky to have such a big casting pond in Portland,” she said.

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