Time for Discovery

Anglers Journal TV returns in August, now on the Discovery Channel.

Season three of Anglers Journal TV kicks off this summer and will be available to a whole new audience that may not have caught the show before. That’s because AJTV—which emulates the quality and style of its namesake, Power & Motoryacht’s sister publication, Anglers Journal— is moving for the first time to the Discovery Channel. We caught up with the show’s host, Editor-at-Large John Brownlee, after he had wrapped up the new season.

How big is this move to the Discovery Channel?

The Discovery Channel’s impressive reach puts us in over 92 million households, and just as important as that, the network is a household name. We’ve secured a Sunday morning slot at 7:30 a.m., and since Discovery is a dual-feed network, the show will air at that time on both coasts. We’re excited about introducing ourselves to a larger audience.

What can viewers—both new and old—expect from season three?

As in the first two seasons, we plan to produce a quality show that focuses as much on people and places as it does on hardcore fishing action. As we like to say, it’s about the “why” of fishing, not the “how.”

Tell us about some of the episodes.

We travel to Connecticut to chase striped bass in Long Island Sound, and we spend a week aboard a mothership at the spectacular Chandeleur Islands in the Gulf of Mexico south of Mississippi. The Chandeleurs took a major hit in Hurricane Katrina, but have since rebounded.

We’ll also sample the incredible offshore action in Key West, Florida; tangle with tarpon on the west coast of the Sunshine State; go after blue marlin out of the beautiful Los Sueños resort in Costa Rica, and much more. We created a ton of awesome memories in the first two seasons, with lots of laughs along the way, and this year will be no different.

How does fishing on TV differ from fishing for fun?

TV fishing isn’t anything like real fishing. That’s because when you’re filming, you have to start and stop a lot of times, waiting for cameramen to get in position to get the right shot. For TV, you never do anything once, you do it 10 times or more to make sure you got it on film. This drives guides and captains crazy at times, because they’re used to getting back to fishing as soon as humanly possible after they’ve caught something.

It also seems that Murphy’s Law applies to filming a fishing show even more than it applies to other endeavors in life. We’ve been through it all: lousy weather, uncooperative fish, dead batteries, malfunctioning cameras, seasickness, temperamental drones and normally chatty guides who clam up completely when you point a camera at them. It’s all part of the drill and you have to learn to improvise and overcome.

What’s one of the most challenging experiences you’ve had filming for TV?

There was the time we went to Key West to target permit. These elusive fish can be extremely wary in shallow water, and on this particular trip, they were downright unsociable. We saw lots of fish but they were so spooked we never got within casting distance of one. We fished three consecutive 12-hour days and didn’t catch a single fish. We had to admit defeat and vow to regroup later. Everybody was bummed out. The next week, we filmed a reef show in Islamorada, 80 miles up the road from Key West. It went so well that we decided to cut the shoot short by a day and drive back to Key West for another shot at the permit.

We made a beeline south that night and met our guide early the next morning. The only problem was that in the week since we’d been there, he had decided to shave off his beard. No problem, we stuck a buff on him and covered his face and no one was the wiser.

As we headed out to fish, we were nervous about our prospects. Could we possibly go 0-4? As it turned out, we didn’t have to worry. The permit cooperated spectacularly and we caught six that day: show saved, morale boosted, confidence restored. All was right with the world once again.

What’s your favorite part of hosting this show?

I always anticipate lots of great fishing and meeting some incredible people along the way, which to me is the best part.