Video review: Fly Fishing the World
A TV series from 2008 featuring John Barrett fishing different very attractive locations with celebrities like model Niki Taylor, musician Huey Lewis and actors Liam Neeson, Henry Winkler and others. Nice fishing, but a typical TV-show, including commercial breaks! But two entertaining DVDs with 3+ hours of video for less than 10 bucks is pretty hard to beat.
I bought this set of DVD's inspired by Henry Winkler, who mentions it in his book "I've never met an idiot on the river" (which I bought inspired by Steve Schweitzer's review on this very site).
Henry Winkler mentions the show because he is one of the participants. The concept is fishing with celebrities, and Winkler is one of those celebrities.
Since it's a show back from 2007 and 2008, I could pick up the DVDs used for next to nothing. I actually paid 2.21 USD for the set and got it for less than 15 USD including shipping from the US to Denmark.
Watching other people fish can be a lot of fun. It's not anywhere near being there, but it's entertainment. I find watching celebrities fish both fun and annoying. Fun because most people - even celebrities have interesting things to say about fishing and are entertaining to watch - and annoying because so many of them are actually not very good fly fishers. Some are down right bad. It's nice to look at Niki Taylor for obvious reasons. But why this former supermodel is interesting to invite to go trout fishing (apart from the super model thing) is beyond me.
She catches her first trout while filming! Hardly a hard core fly fisher. People like Huey Lewis and Merlin Olsen are more interesting. They may catch their first bonefish and redfish respectively in their sections of the show, but these guys can fish! As can Liam Neeson and Henry Winkler although none of them are proficient casters and amongst the people featured here, you'll see some serious arm waving and rod flopping.
The guests are:
Niki Taylor, former supermodel, fishing trout near Fernie BC.
Huey Lewis, musician (Huey Lewis & The News) fishing Bahamas for bonefish.
Les Claypool, musician (Primus) fishing trout in Idaho.
Merlin Olsen, former football player, fishing for redfish in Texas.
Liam Neeson, actor, fishing for trout in Ireland.
Henry Winkler, actor, fishing for trout in New Zealand.
John O'Hurley, actor fishing for bonefish in Belize.
Denis Potvin, former hockey player, trout in Montana.
John Havlicek, former basketball player, dorado in Argentina.
The video has all the hallmarks of great TV-productions. This is an NBC-show, and the muscle and resources behind it are obvious in the finished result. Just the locations indicate some willingness to spend money: Bahamas, Belize, New Zealand and Argentina. Several cameras cover all scenes, and the crosscutting between footage from many angles, closeups and large vistas is really beautiful, and there's no feeling of the amateurism that is seen in many modern fly fishing productions. The production is smooth and professional without in any way being boring.
On the other hand I'm glad this DVD-set was inexpensive, because I feel like I am watching it on a commercial TV-channel since the episodes are interrupted by commercial spots every 10 minutes and there's a lot of lodge and guide endorsement going on. I know that's the way of the world, but I would still like to be without these interruptions on a commercial DVD.
But what the heck. For just over 2 dollars plus postage it's unfair to complain. I have just been well entertained for more than 2 hours with nice people and great fishing spots.
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