If you are wondering what kind of stresses come with filming a show, I will tell you. Obviously, the fish have to be biting, which they had been the last two weeks, incredibly I might add, so this wasn't really a concern. We had to use Bobs boat because of sponsorship obligations, so fishing from a new boat and boat control is a major issue. This day however, there was no wind so I was confident I could pull it off.
I rely heavily on my GPS when I guide so not having my waypoints kind of stresses me out. Fortunately, Lowrance has a new feature on their graphs that lets you download regional waypoints instead of downloading all 5000 waypoints from a unit. Just box the area you want to download and load it onto a chip then upload it onto another unit. I highlighted the whole lower Niagara River to include all the waypoints and trails from the day before and uploaded them onto Bobs unit. I had everything I need for a successful trip.
Here are a couple of screenshots to show what i am talking about. Really easy on the touch screens.
Getting a grand slam usually isn't a problem at this time of the year as there are plenty of rainbows, browns and lake trout in the system. I had tried to get Bob out on two different occasions earlier in November however high winds and dirty water put a stop to that. I had a cancellation and called Bob to see if he would be available to shot the next day. Bob is a fisherman and he understands when an opportunity arises for a good bite to jump on it and he did all he could t get there the next day. We hit the water at 1pm and headed right for the mouth to catch some lake trout. I didn't even have my jig tied up and Bob was already hooked into a lake trout on a new Johnson jigging spoon. He was having a hoot catching Lakers on the spoon landing a few more. I hooked one up on film on a Berkley jerkshad on a jig head but lost it on the fight. Believe it or not, he had never fished the Niagara Bar for lake trout. I found that hard to believe. We could have easily stayed there the whole time and just fish for Lakers but I had to remind him about the premise of our show and that we should move on. It was now almost 2 pm. It was so funny, he was like a little kid. He really loves to catch fish.
We ran back into the river to a spot I had been catching Brown trout on for a couple of weeks including some giants to 15 lbs. We made 5 or 6 drifts and didn't hook up. I was getting nervous, Bob wanted to eat a sandwich. The guy doesn't get rattled. He told me when there is a camera in the boat, the fish stop biting....great. I ran to another spot which is a know Brown spot and hooked a decent one to about 6 lbs. We could have stayed and made a few more drifts but time was becoming an issue. It was already 3 pm. We had to catch some Rainbows or the show would be lost. We ran up river to Queenston to finish the show. Ironically, I caught 12 browns of the first spot the very next day with clients...he was right.
We made one drift on Queenston and nothing, I started to get nervous again as the bite normally starts to die as the sun drops below the horizon. We made another drift and Bob hooked up a small bow. Thank god I though in my head. At least the show will be saved. We proceeded to hook up on every drift after that. I asked if he wanted to run back down river to try to get a few more browns but he was happy hooking bows.
This was Bobs 13th and last show of the season and he was happy to get it finished as he was going away on vacation that week.
I have filmed a few shows in my time, but I have to say, even though I didn't have allot of time to do it, it was the most fun I have had filming. Bob is no doubt Canada's leading TV fishing personality and you would think it would come with some kind of over inflated ego, but I have to say, he is no different than me or you, he just loves to fish. He will be the first person to tell you, he is the luckiest guy alive. Good fishing.
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