Hard- to- beat combination
Talley’s videos bring together love of art, fishing
The emergence of Violetta Talley’s
fishing videos are a side highlight of the perch explosion on the lakefront.
Her videos of perch- fishing at Navy Pier, highlighted by underwater footage, are set apart by the merger of art and how- to.
I guessed there was a professional element. That proved right when I talked with Talley during the weekend. She and her husband,
Adam, started Fire & Earth Photography & Design, a photography and graphicdesign company, a few years ago. One of her specialties is photographing horse events.
Doing fishing videos was an organic move by Talley, who has roots in fishing and art.
‘‘ I’ve been drawing since I was little,’’ said Talley, who had some study in photography and graphic arts.
Same with fishing.
Her dad, Stanley Jackowski, was a bobber and worm fisherman. There’s a wonderful photo of her first fish at 3.
‘‘ The bug kind of bit,’’ she said.
Merging video, art and fishing is new in the last year for Talley, 37. While looking where to fish and how to fish the area, she found the younger YouTube guys, then began her own way.
‘‘ I wanted to have a little instruction but some entertainment, too,’’ she said.
Her videos accomplish that, growing naturally from her work with a Canon DSLR, GoPro equipment and Adobe Premiere Pro CC video editing. She plans to invest in a drone next year.
Talley is associated with some online fishing groups, the Bartlett- based bass club Midwest Castaways and, recently, kayak fishing.
‘‘ It is interesting to a lot of people in the fishing field to see a woman who knows what she is doing,’’ she said. ‘‘ That added another twist.
‘‘ Nobody in my husband’s family fishes; my husband doesn’t fish.’’
When her husband occasionally goes along to fishing shows, she said it’s funny when people walk past her to him. Then she starts talking, and they realize, ‘‘ Here is a girl who knows what she learned.’’
Living in South Elgin, she made the Fox her home water.
‘‘ The river is right there,’’ she said. ‘‘ If I see a body of water, all I want to do is a take a pole and fish.’’ There’s the rub. ‘‘ Hard part is, I love fishing so much that I sometimes forget the cameras are there,’’ she said. ‘‘ I have walked out to the pier to fish and left the cameras.’’
Find her videos under Violetta Talley on YouTube.
Deer
Illinois bowhunters continue a harvest pace well ahead of last season: 53,731 through Sunday, compared with 48,924 for the same period in 2016.
Waterfowl
Heidecke Lake finished the season with 932 ducks. Goose hunting will go on as long as the launch stays open. . . . Braidwood had a slow week for ducks. Sunday is the final day for ducks there.
Wild things
Snowy owls remain a stunning presence in Chicago. . . . The sandhillcrane count ( 8,891 on Tuesday) is dropping at Jasper- Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area, southeast of Valparaiso, Indiana.
Stray cast
NFL referees act like guys fishing perch with 20- pound line.