An Underground Review: Trout Bum Diaries II (Kiwi Camo)

The first Trout Bum Diaries DVD took fly fishing by storm.

Quirky and interesting, it was a documentary-style movie that followed a handful of young fly fishers as they roamed around South America, fishing for big, big trout, some of which may had never seen a fly before.

Let’s face it: Big fish – in real life or on video — never had a problem finding an audience among fly fishers.

Kiwi Camo

Trout Bum Diaries II is the sequel. Titled Kiwi Camo, this movie’s based in New Zealand, where the fish are huge, and the fishing is tough.

Right out of the gate, I’m going to cut to finish: Kiwi Camo is a better produced, higher-quality, slicker DVD than the original Trout Bum diaries.

Watch the DVD’s starting sequence, and you’ll know why. The camera lingers on the logos of the project’s corporate sponsors, who presumably supported this DVD with more than just equipment.

As a result, production values are far better, though I can’t say whether life on the road for the bums was more comfortable.

Better. Prettier. Louder.

Simply put, the quality of the footage is stunning. No doubt aided by New Zealand’s crystal clear waters, the above-water photography in Kiwi Camo is as definitive as anything I’ve seen.

Indeed, the sequences where a big (OK, monster) trout slides downriver as a fly drifts overhead are numerous and frankly, agonizing to watch.

It’s these scenes that are at the heart of Kiwi Camo – those and the ongoing problems the group had actually hooking big trout who ate their dry fly.

The soundtrack is excellent, and the editing far tighter than before.

The transitions were cleaner, and the overall effect is one of a truly professional operation – not the more amateur production that was Trout Bum Diaries I.

If you liked the first Diaries, you’ll probably like this one better. Simple enough.

Beyond the Fish.

Some have compared the Trout Bum Diaries to Warren Miller’s skiing epics.

Still, I’m an old fart, and the temptation to compare the Trout Bum Diaries to Endless Summer – the 60s surf epic that marked the emergence of surfing as a popular lifestyle – is inescapable.

And here’s where it gets sticky. Outside of its ferocious fish catching scenes and slow-motion pans of gorgeous water, Kiwi Camo isn’t quite as interesting to me as the quirkier first volume.

Big fish – and the fish in Kiwi Camo are huge – only go so far, and in fact, there are plenty of places on this globe to catch finned monsters.

I’m as interested in the journey as the fish, and it’s here where Kiwi Camo loses a bit of ground to a movie like Endless Summer, which was more willing to parody itself and indulge in some lighthearted humor at its own expense.

In this case, I really didn’t want to hear phrases like “sleeping in the dirt” or “tell our viewers in their comfortable little homes” uttered, especially when New Zealand dirt was pretty much on the menu from the start.

The Bottom Line.

Kiwi Camo is an excellent effort, and if you liked the first Trout Bum diaries, you’ll almost certainly love the second.

The footage is stunning, and the soundtrack was excellent.

I’ll give it a thumb’s up – as does Willow, Ian and Charity Rutter’s two year-old girl. It speaks well of her that she’d rather watch Trout Bum Diaries II than her numerous Barney tapes.

Truly, there remains hope for humanity.

To get your own copy from Amazon, simply click below:

Trout Bum Diaries Volume 2 : Kiwi Camo

Visit the Angling Exploration Group’s Web site (the producers of the Trout Bum Diaries).

[tags]fly fishing, fishing, trout bum diaries, kiwi camo, dvd, fly fishing video[/tags]