So, You Wanna Be A Star?

Yeah.  The whole fishing show thing never really much did it for me.

Standing like a dork beside another angler, asking questions I already knew the answers to, shaking my head like a bimbo, all the while making sure the light was hitting my face at the right angle……  No thanks.

In a television world starved for independent women who “brave the harsh conditions of a man’s world”, women (whether they be legitimate or trained to look as though they are), are highly sought after to be the face of television, posters, magazines, and everything in between.

This said, I would hope that no one hears any ego in my words when I write that I’ve been offered a show or two throughout the course of my angling career.

See, the truth is, I couldn’t fathom being the girl to contribute yet another painful fishing show to the networks.  Host oriented and, often times ego driven, I opted to stick to guiding and writing the occasional magazine article, focusing mostly on morals and conservation.  I had no desire to be the star of a series.

Faces and casts like these simply don’t belong in show biz….. (Yos Gladstone photo).

Then things changed.  Nick Pujic of the Canadian Fly Fisher magazine and I had a sit down on a rainy night during one of his short visits to BC.

Fishing television and its unfortunate demise somehow became the subject of our conversation.  I made reference to the agony sitting through most episodes caused me and he laughed in agreeance.  That was all it took.  As usual when the two of us are paired together, we got to thinking….

What if we had a show where there was no star?  No dialogue even!?  What if we could capture the experience on tape?  Just straight up, hard-core fishing buddies who fished their asses off to funky music, delivering authentic fish porn to the viewers.  No nonsense, no fluff, no lessons, no eye-rolling endorsements.  Simply 100% pure fly-fishing.

The result?  Fly Max Films was born and Nick (and co-partner Paul Langford) created a monster.  www.flymaxfilms.com

As the years have passed, Fly Max has added anglers (upwards of 50 now), adventures, episodes and way cooler cameras to the list.  The show is a success on WFN (The World Fishing Network), and is a breath of fresh air from the standard fishing shows.

But, I still envisioned more……

So, on yet another late night, only this time in Denver, Nick and I sat down to brainstorm.  I had an idea to do a show that captured personality, education, travel, and most importantly, a no-frills/no- gimmicks experience.

Nick pondered the idea, and took some time to think about it.  He’s quite possibly the busiest man I know, and I felt awful asking him to take on yet another project….

But true to his workaholic nature, he took the bull by the horns and has teamed with myself, Naoto Aoki, Paul Castellano, Paul Langford and cameraman Tim Myers to create a new and unique show called Fly Nation.

Ape and fellow angler, Naoto Aoki, playing with rods before hitting the river to film.

We’re filming Fly Nation this year, and will be airing in 2010.  Networks will be announced and adventures will be shared…..

Puj gearing up (Josh Nugent photo).

The first load of several (Josh Nugent photo).

April booting up (Josh Nugent photo).

It’s going to be an interesting journey and we would love to be able to share it with you!

Hope to see you on the water,

Ape.

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