200 episodes!
It’s a daunting number and in a crazy age of television production and migration to all things digital and online, it remains pretty cool.
I was fortunate to start Ridelounge Productions more than 25 years ago and produced Sacred Ride Backcountry Snowboarding Series and World Cup Snowboardcross and Mountain Bike for well over a decade. This was a ton of TV in an era where TV was still, well, golden.
About 20 years ago things started changing in the snow sport world and our crew had started families and grown avalanche risk averse, so I started spending more time on water. A few days here. A few days there. And then a few more.
Finally we started fishing on the Ocean Explorer out of Hakai, which doubled as a held-ski operation in the winter. It was amazing, Tyees were plentiful and my first taste of fishing famed tacks like Spider Light, Purple Bluff and further South Hole In The Wall.
It was around this time a lightbulb went off. “We should just do a boating and fishing show,” I remember thinking. “No more worrying about weather or avalanche danger or climate change…it’ll be easy!”
Well damn, it sure hasn’t been easy and like all good things in life…a lot of hard work, time and patience has been required. But what a blast along the way. And what a great crew of people I’ve been fortunate to work and fish with. And what an amazing coastal experience from Alaska to Washington I’ve had. Story of dreams really.
The list of amazing guides and friends I’ve fished with over the past 17 seasons is simply amazing, and unfortunately too long to list. Or sometimes even recall. From Kenny Meyers to Gibran White to Travis McNeice and Jim Henschke, I thank you all and the rest of the salty dogs I was lucky to share a deck with.
From more than a decade running the BC Inside Passage and the same running Albacore Tuna offshore with Jes McFarlen, I’ve gleaned some amazing experience. Running the boat to Alaska, Portland Canal, Great Bear, Desolation Sound, Vancity and around Vancouver Island has been as much captaining fun as one West Coast stalwart should be allowed.
Fishing is far from the same as it was 200 episodes ago. We killed everything then and now we release all Tyees and most 20s while working on hatchery, tagging and various conservation programs. My salmon heart remains with the Percy Walkus Hatchery in Rivers Inlet (Wuikinuxv) and helping ensure these amazing Chinook are here for generations. And it’s extremely personal work, as I toil a good part of summer trying to just hook one or two of these amazing fish in the saltchuck.
Anyway, thanks for tuning in all these years and I hope you enjoy a special 200th episode this week. It’s the first episode with our new Bridgeview BV30 Cabin Cruiser with Twin Mercury 300 Sea Pro Outboards and it’s up in Prince Rupert. Jump on board with James McNeice, his son Kipton and I, as we break in the new rig in the Work Channel and Dundas Island!
This…is Big Coast!
