“Crisis Averted!”
Stories From Joe’s Journeys
Written by: Joe Weaver
Edited by: Stephen Hines
My name is Joe Weaver, Department of Awesomeness and Video Production Supervisor. I am also the producer, director, videographer, and editor of BrushPile Fishing, and Catfish Crazy. Both shows are produced by NKT Productions in New Knoxville, OH.
I like to share my stories with you in order to entertain, but also help. Hopefully this article will do just that.
While trying to shoot an episode of BrushPile Fishing on Grand Lake St. Marys in Ohio, the host,Russ Bailey, and I ran into a spot of trouble. Russ had chosen a spot to fish that we had shot many times at over the years;so far so good. Russ’ boat has pieces of equipment called Talons. Talons are retractable rods that you can deploy in shallow water to hold you in place while fishing. Basically, they are like anchors. I think the set of Talons he uses are good up to about 10 feet deep. So Russ deployed the Talons, fished for about 30 minutes and, when it was time to leave, sat down, started the big motor and tried to head off to another spot. Did I mention that he forgot to raise the Talons? The lake bottom where he was fishing was mostly mud, but near the shore, it became mostly rocks on the bottom. So, initially, when he started moving the boat there was little noticeable resistance in movement, until we got a little shallower and the Talons connected with the rocks on the bottom near the shoreline. I looked back and quickly noticed that the Talons were still deployed and alerted Russ to that fact. He stopped the big motor and attempted to raise the Talons by using his remote control. Problem the first:they would not raise. They were stuck between some rocks on the bottom. Problem the second:now we were stuck. We were just far enough from the shoreline that we could not jump out, so we stood there and looked at the Talons wondering what to do. We only had a few simple tools on the boat, so after tracking down a few pairs of pliers I went to work trying to take the Talon unit apart to hopefully raise it up so we could get ourselves free from the situation. The only upside to doing this was that the water was not freezing, but trying to use pliers underwater is tricky. I kept imagining that I would drop the pliers or the nuts that I was in the process of loosening, and then be completely stuck. To cut to the chase, I was able to get everything loosened up enough to physically pull the whole unit up enough to get us unstuck. As far as the show goes, it took us a while to get the fish we needed, but we did get it. HUZZAH!!
Not long ago on another shoot, we were on a lake in South Carolina shooting a catfishing show and we ran into a unique problem. The guest on the show was piloting the host and I through a submerged stump field while talking about the hazards of this section of the lake when, wouldn’t you know it, we hit a submerged stump. This type of thing happens, but this time we ended up getting stuck on the stump. The boat was balanced perfectly on the stump, like dead center of the boat. We tried rocking side to side in an attempt to free ourselves, but to no avail. The host got on the trolling motor and tried to take us off the stump while the guest and I rocked the boat from side to side. I looked over my shoulder while doing this and noticed a bunch of smoke rising from the big motor. Needless to say, we all took immediate action to try and dowse the smoking area of the motor. I would like to take a moment to say this:I DO NOT GET IN THE WATER FOR ANY REASON, so being on a boat that might be catching fire is a very alarming experience. So,the good news is that we averted a total fire on board but could not entirely figure out how the motor, which was not running, became so overheated. The best we could come up with is that we must have electrically grounded out the boat when we came to rest on the submerged stump, or it was a coincidence that it happened as we were stuck on the stump. Either way, there did not seem to be any permanent damage, so we got back to the task of trying to get off the stump. The host got back on the trolling motor while the guest and I rocked the boat. Finally we were able to get enough momentum going that we broke loose and were able to continue our day. Again, we ended up getting a great show out of the deal, but not without some excitement.
More recently we were shooting a show on Percy Priest in Tennessee with a guest that we have shot many shows with in the past. The day started out tricky from a videographer’s side. The style of fishing and the placement of the anglers on the boat hindered the way I wanted to shoot the show. Since they were both sitting at the front of the boat, I did not have a good angle on the fish while it was reeled in towards the front of the boat. I had to rely on a GoPro to pick up this action which is not ideal, because I cannot monitor this as the action happens. Mostly I’m just guessing that I will be able to see the fish in the water while editing the show. This caused me to rely more heavily on the GoPros I use to shoot the show. Not ideal from my point of view, but also, not the end of the world. Sometimes I like the setup of things and other times I don’t, but when you only have a 21’ x 8’ area to work with, you take what you can and run with it. Speaking of that small area to work with,not only is the small area a consideration, but think about this:there are lighting considerations, camera placement, power supply issues, and wind that all make my job so much more difficult. Now consider this:the anglers need the wind to be in their faces in order to properly control the boat which can be the opposite of what I need for lighting. The anglers also need to be able to see their poles/lines/bobbers, so having them looking directly into the sun does not work for them (although it works great for my needs). Certain boats do not have the power supply I need to power my cameras, which means I have to rig them up to portable power packs. There are a lot of things that have to go right for me to be happy with a shoot on the water. Anyway, back to the point of the story. We were shooting and the guest got his hook snagged on a limb underwater so, instead of pulling on it and risking scaring the fish away, he set the rod in a rod holder off to the side and used another pole to fish with until we were ready to leave the area. While doing this he continued to use the trolling motor anchor feature called “spot lock” to hold us in place since it was too deep to anchor. The wind picked up a bit and pushed back a few feet and the trolling motor compensated by moving us back to our spot; just as all of this was happening the guest caught a fish but,just as he was turning to show me the fish, the rod in the holder started bending straight down. His line had got caught in the propeller of the trolling motor and ended up pulling about 30 yards of line off and wrapping around the prop. It happens to the best of them, but trying to get that line off the prop can be challenging, especially while sitting in the middle of a lake. So he decided to pull the trolling motor up and use the big motor to pull up into shallow water near the shore so he could address the problem. All of us were laughing about it and joking, so I decided to get my phone out to do a Facebook live of him trying to get the tangled line out. I did not initially say that we were live, but then in a moment of panic in my head, I informed the guys that we were live because I thought, ‘What if they start swearing?’ That would not look good for the brand since it is an educational show. The guest, realizing he was live, made the best of it and went on to show the fans how to handle the problem by taking the prop off the shaft and pulling the line off. The funny thing is he was doing this while standing in a foot of water since we could not pull all the way up to the shore. The reactions from the fans were the same as mine:we’re glad to see this happen to the professionals too.
Things like this happen from time to time, and when they do, I get to switch from being a videographer and producer to mechanic or some other occupation. I’m the type of guy who is not afraid to take something apart with hopes of making it work and with even more hopes of being able to put that thing back together. Also, being a one man band while shooting the show means I ultimately wear several hats, like boat loader and unloader, dropped rod wrangler, line untangler, fixer of broken things, as well as problem solver. All of that stuff suits me just fine, though. It is funny how some people think that I just shoot, produce and edit the shows I work on, but they find it amazing that I handle so much more than that.
Check back in and I’ll share some more technical aspects of shooting the fishing show and other shows we produce. Always feel free to reach out to me with any and all questions you might have. Thanks for reading along. Be Well.
