I asked the same question about Idaho. And I do understand the need to get back and edit the video. On the Erie trip I was thinking why go out so blindly or so few people? Get one local guide and bring the whole crew! I know it’s a thin line between john Gillespie and his party fishing. But a few more pros on the water for some of these lower # bucket trips would be cool imo.
the drifts on the side of that house looked brutal for one day!!
What we share in the show is really all there is to see. We don’t spend any additional time fishing or lingering around before or after a shoot. Trust me when I say that what we do with the filming of our shows is an experience that few would recognize as a leisurely fishing trip with friends and the only reason it works is I’ve been able to find a few people, like myself, that enjoy the process of making a fishing show each week far more than the fishing itself.
Here’s the breakdown of our trip to Winnipeg.
We left Sunday night at 11:30 PM. I had tickets to the Wild game for the FSN suite that I gave to Ben and Pat. They’re hockey nuts and I knew they would enjoy the experience more than I would so they went to the game while I packed gear. We met at the studio at 10:30 PM and we had everything ready to roll by 11:30PM when we departed.
We drove through the night and arrived at the border around sunrise.
It took 3 hours to process our work permits. I believe we were back on the road by 9:30 AM.
We drove directly to the lake. Upon our arrival we unpacked gear, got dressed and prepped the Glacier for travel across the lake. By that time we were dealing with a white-out so travel was very slow as we picked our way over and around a couple significant cracks.
We got the house to the intended destination by 2 PM, took an hour or so to get the heat going, the generator hooked up and all our gear deployed in the house. By the time we got everything where we needed it to be and lines down it was almost 3 PM. We never landed a fish that afternoon as the stained water on Lake Winnipeg lends itself to midday bites.
Once it was apparent that the fishing were done for the day we shut down the camera gear, made dinner, cleaned up and hit the rack. We had all been up for almost 35+ hours at that point.
Day 2 we woke at sunrise and ate a quick breakfast, cleaned up all the sleeping bags and personal items that were unpacked during the night and started fishing and filming.
We fished until 2:30 PM when it became apparent that the bite was done for the day. We quickly packed everything back up and were off the lake as the sun was setting.
We got out of our warm clothing and settled in for the long drive home. We drove throughout the night, making a stop in Blackduck which was 2.5 hours out of our way to return the Glacier house and arrived back at the studio at 4AM.
Upon our arrival we unpacked all gear, organized it in the studio and Pat started the process of importing all the footage.
I arrived home at 5:15 AM.
Like I said, we don’t stick around for one addition second once the cameras stop rolling so there really is nothing else to share outside of what is shown in the show. For it to be possible to air our shows in the same week they’re filmed we have to be as efficient with our movements as possible.
The suggestion to bring along additional guys might seem like a good idea but it effectively doubles travel, food and lodging costs to do so. We already spend 50+ nights a season in hotels and our diesel bill for one truck, sleds and boat pushed $20k last season. Doubling that would put us out of business in half a season.
So, there you have it. The timeline I posted above is pretty much how we roll trip after trip, week after week. About the only thing we don’t show is me at the wheel for hour, after hour, after hour.
