World Fishing Network’s BC Outdoors Sport Fishing television show is coming to Powell River on September 7 and 8 to film an episode and check out the best that the area has to offer to anglers, jiggers, trollers and casters alike.
Mitchell is coming at the suggestion of Darren Robinson of Tourism Powell River, who, after seeing an episode, contacted the show to tell them about the often over-looked area. The team behind the show will be coming here to fish, shoot some footage and put together an episode.
Show host Mike Mitchell will be escorted around the area’s best fishing holes by Powell River Outdoors owner and avid fisher Sam Sansalone. Sansalone is excited about the visit and sees the show as an opportunity to put the spotlight on the area’s great fishing and to boost tourism and the local economy by letting other people know what Powell River has to offer.
“Last time I checked the water’s paid for, the mountains are paid for, we got a network of trails sitting there doing not very much. Why? Because we don’t get the word out enough,” said Sansalone. “With this, yeah, it’s strictly fishing but we’re going to try to promote absolutely everything else.”
For two days Mitchell will be shown around the area and taken out on the water to see what he and Sansalone can land. Sansalone said that for the first day he’s going to take Mitchell out to Lang Bay to fish near the hatchery, which he said will promote the hatchery and the area as a great fishing spot. People are invited to come down to Lang Bay on Wednesday, September 7 to watch the filming and to potentially have a chance to become involved.
Powell River has a lot of things to offer fishers, said Sansalone, some of which are quite unique. For one thing, unlike somewhere like Campbell River, which tends to get very busy during fishing season, Powell River is an extremely peaceful place to fish, where a person can still find solitude and great fishing at the same time. Also, the weather is relatively predictable and calm in comparison to the west coast of Vancouver Island, where weather often prevents people from being able to go out on the water.
For these reasons, combined with the fact that the ocean and lakes are very close together and that most of the best fishing spots are a short distance from the harbour, the area is an untapped paradise for fishing, said Sansalone.
“We got Malaspina Strait here, you can do that and then in the afternoon you can go catch trophy trout and then finish up with nine holes of golf if you wanted to,” said Sansalone. “I mean, that’s why I moved here.”
Sansalone also plans to take the show’s crew prawning while they are out and he is still finalizing where else they are going to go during the visit. Sansalone is open to suggestions for where to take the show’s personnel for some fishing. He is also looking for anyone who has a great fishing story or something to show that might be of interest to get in touch with him. Sansalone can be reached at either 604.485.2555 or by email at [email protected].
“We’re going to put Powell River on the map and show what it has to offer for everybody,” he said. “We’ll make it so people want to come here.”
