The Outdoor Line

You never know what you're gonna get when you meet someone in person that you've only seen on TV.

Back a couple years ago,  I had a chance to shoot a few episodes of The Outdoor Channel's "Western Sportfishing with Lee Horsley". 
Lee Horsley was TV's "Matt Houston" a private investigator that was something of a cross between "The Rockford Files" and "Magnum PI".

I had never met or even spoken to Lee prior to meeting him and I found that he was a complete gentleman, a passionate outdoorsman and a great guy!

Logan Horsley (Lee's son), Yours Truly and ol' Matt Houston himself!

In fact, we're still friends and I'm looking forward to hosting Lee and his son Logan on a Columbia River springer trip later this year.

Prior to meeting Glenn Hall of Hawg Quest I had something of a different, not completely flattering impression of the host of the popular FSN fishing show. His on screen persona had me thinking that this guy was the love child of Barbara Streisand and the Tasmanian Devil!

Late last year, Glenn was scheduled to appear on The Outdoor Line radio show in studio. True to my misconception of him he showed up late.

"Yup, big-timing us" I thought.

Well, nothing could be further from the truth! Glenn was polite, humorous, self-effacing  and a delight to work with on-air!

It was then and there we planned to film a show on the Skagit when Glenn was in town for the Western Washington Sportsman show in Puyallup.
Robbo Endsley and I met Glenn on the river and he followed us to one of our old Skagit haunts. We all piled in to my Wooldridge "DaWg Sled" and we were out after the elusive ironhead!

Robbo and Glenn have a bit of a technique debate on camera.

Last year on the Skagit was tough for wild fish and Robbo & I were wondering just what kind of day we were going to have. The cameras add a bit of pressure to produce some action, but Glenn put us at ease:

"Hey guys, we're just fishing and we just happen to have the cameras along.  If we get a show it's icing on the cake."

Well, it didn't take long to break the ice as I stapled a fish on the first drift! Handing the rod to Glenn, cameras rolling, it became apparent that this was not the 20-pounder we had hoped. In fact, it wasn't even a steelie! As the chunky dolly varden came to the boat, I had an opportunity to take a shot.

"Cmon Glenn, you didn't think I would hand you a steelhead did ya?"

It was on after that and Glenn hooked fish on the next two drifts...and they weren't dollies!
An eight-pound native buck was his first Skagit steelie and a 12 pound hen came quickly afterwards.

Glenn carefully releases the beautiful Skagit hen and this scene will be coming soon to a Hawg Quest episode very soon!  

Around mid-day we took a break to talk about the Skagit steelhead fishery and the finer points of working the Skagit with the jet sled.

Although we didn't land any other steelies that day we still had action on resident rainbows, dollies and a cuttthroat. Glenn brought the camera to the Puyallup Show to round out the episode and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

One thing I didn't realize from watching Hawg Quest was the passion Glenn Hall has for fishing. He's a very experienced, driven angler and I feel fortunate to have been able to share a day with him on my favorite river: the mighty, scenic Skagit!