Stick around – you’ll want to know more.

Fishizzle – Steve Apple’s first fly fishing movie – showed plenty of promise (but lacked polish), but his latest effort – Hustle & Fish – offers us a glimpse of a fly fishing movie far removed from the simple fish porn formulas now occupying the mainstream.

“Hustle and Fish” Trailer V1 from Rollcast Productions on Vimeo.

The first half of Hustle & Fish feels like extended autobiographical sketch comedy that – simply put – shines.

In simple terms, Apple wants to fly fish – and thinks making fly fishing movies is his ticket to that future.

Sadly, he’s confronted by a world (including his girlfriend, parents & friends) that thinks he’s crazy.

In the wrong hands, the story could easily end up flopping on the bank, but Apple handles the the subject with a deadpan charm, imbuing some of the quieter moments with a dry wit you might miss the first time through.

Using amateur actors, Apple plows through the story of a young fly fishermen at a life-sized turning point, and while the scenes with his parents and friends are funny, Hustle & Fish really hits its stride when it turns it lens on the fly fishing industry – the caricatures of fly shop employees land hard, and yes – made me laugh out loud.

And yes, the return of fictional Fishizzle character and irritating informercialist Al Braughtinwood – who now makes and sells “Extreme” fly fishing videos – is a highlight.

I can only guess at the real targets of Apple’s send-up of Braughtinwood’s “extreme” fly fishing video series, but the fictional commercials are hilarious; the irritating Braughtinwood combines muscle cars, women, and fishermen kneeing each other in the crotch to sell his videos.

Like all good satirical characters, Braughtinwood looks and acts just lifelike enough to maintain the pretense of reality; his appearances are hilarious, barely grazing the border between satire and cartoonish.

Hustle & Fish‘s lead character is confounded by those who love Braughtinwood’s trashy “extreme” videos – even his father watches the wretched things.

In short, the first half of Apple’s Hustle & Fish delivers handily on the promise of Fishizzle, offering us a satirical (and far more human) look at the fly fishing life.

Simply put, I was impressed as hell.

Unfortunately, the movie eventually falters; Apple largely breaks with the endearing, funny-as-hell satire of the first half, opting instead for long sequences of fish porn and guide hijinks.

Yes, it’s gorgeous, well-done fish porn – and lacks the egocentric posturing that often blights the genre – but feels a little schizophrenic when contrasted with Apple’s earlier story line.

The videography is excellent, but like most fish porn, it’s a collection of pretty pictures largely lacking insight or vision, and Apple’s reliance on slow-motion video for almost every river scene eventually wears thin.

The movie wraps up nicely, and yes – if you’re waiting for me to say it, I will – Hustle & Fish is definitely worth owning.

The soundtrack (mostly up-and-coming independent bands) is excellent, and the editing is professional (though the overbearing fly fishing product placements played havoc with several scenes – the product of an independent filmmaker dependent on manufacturers for funding).

Yes – if I were Absolute Ruler of the Video Universe, I’d tell Apple to go back and finish his movie in the style he started it, creating fly fishing’s equivalent of This is Spinal Tap – the famous rock & roll “mockumentary” that changed the way we viewed both rock & roll bands and documentaries.

And yes, It’s likely a large chunk of Apple’s target audience is going to love Hustle & Fish’s fish porn sequences, so I’m going to give Hustle & Fish four fins (out of five) – largely for Steve Apple’s willingness to extend the somewhat rootbound fly fishing video genre.

In many ways, it’s a groundbreaking fly fishing video, and I suspect a bit of a wakeup call for others working in the genre. It’s also one of a small handful of fly fishing videos I’ll bother to keep.

See you in the cinema, Tom Chandler.

Untitled from dave wilson on Vimeo

The trailer runs thick and heavy with what I’ll dub “artistic fish porn” (finrotica?), but filmmaker Steve Apple says Hustle & Fish is built around a plot, and yes – Al Braughtinwood’s back!

First impressions? I like it so far. It’s finrotica (I like the word already) that focuses on the fish and surroundings (instead of bolstering the filmmaker’s ego), and Fishsizzle – despite its somewhat “put together” feel – was still one of the most interesting things to come down the fly fishing movie pipeline.

The movie’s a few months out, but they’re accepting preorders now, so you can be the first on your block to start spewing “Braughtinwood-isms” to your envious, tragically un-hip fly fishing friends.

Will Hustle & Fish deliver on the promise glimpsed in Fishsizzle?

Wait and see, Undergrounders. Wait and see…

Sugar Creek Ranch (an hour north of Mount Shasta) has reinstalled their live underwater fish porn cam, so now – instead of performing reverse trend analysis calculations in that spreadsheet – you can watch big trout swim in and out of view.

Sweet, eh?

This is a screenshot; click the graphic to go to Sugar Creek’s live camera page.

Remember, you heard about it here first on the Underground, which is fast-becoming the Internet Home of Underwater Trout Porn. Or something like that.

See you underwater, Tom Chandler.

AEG’s first two DVDs generated truckloads of buzz, they market hard, they’ve fired up a film tour, and they’ve even persuaded a few fly fishing manufacturers to break open their marketing piggy banks — and this in an industry where "free gear" is the normal currency.

Still, those who rush out to buy AEG’s Fish Bums 1: Mongolia will find themselves viewing a very different kind of movie.

Gone are the slashing surface takes and hold-your-breath sequences of big trout eyeballing a dry fly.

In their place, substitute a handful of less-visual streamer hookups — but bigger, meaner fish, and more miles under the wheels.

Also gone are a few the last edition’s more irritating moments (I didn’t hear "sleeping in the dirt" this time).

The overall effect is one of fewer fish, bigger adventure, and a more mature take on the whole enterprise.

Fewer, Bigger Fish

This time the AEG crew are combing Mongolia in search of Taimen; a big, aggressive member of the salmon family (though they don’t run to the ocean) sometimes called the River Wolf.

Like most apex predators, there aren’t a lot of Taimen to begin with, their numbers are dwindling, and they’re somewhat reclusive.

This brings us to the most most startling aspect of Fish Bums 1: Mongolia: the number of fishless days suffered by the crew at the start of the DVD.

At first, I wondered if this wound wasn’t largely self-inflicted; did they do their homework, or not?

It’s a fine line; adventure is clearly part of the plan, and while you could catch big, carnivorous fish from any number of places closer than Mongolia, traveling halfway around the world — right into the maw of uncertainty — is clearly as much the goal as big fish.

This time, AEG experiences life from 4wd vans, horseback, and even resort to a pair of oversized Russian military uber-vehicles. Interestingly, the farther from "civilization" they go, the less attitude we see.

Finally — after even the viewer begins to despair — AEG finds Taimen enough for everyone in the group, though not before experiencing stuck vehicles, frozen rivers, missing vehicle shuttles, and some pissed-off camels.

To get Taimen to bite, they construct monster streamers from yak fur trimmings, and not only are the flies huge and ugly, they’re also (thankfully for AEG) effective.

A Very Different Feel

The prior AEG videos had the feel of an extended road trip, but the Mongolia version strikes off in a slightly different direction; the sense of removal from what we laughingly call "civilization" is an almost palpable part of the experience.

One online critic derided the Mongolia DVD as the equivalent of a National Geographic special. I’d suggest it has some elements of a travel documentary, but that those moments could be the real strength of the video.

Fish porn only goes so far — especially when you’re talking about fish caught beneath the surface on huge streamers.

After all, footage of fishermen struggling against bent rods doesn’t fire the imagination the way a 10 pound brown eating a mouse pattern might, and you’d be a fool to treat an adventure to Mongolia the same way you’d treat a trip to the local big fish fleshpot.

The Complaint Department

Overall, I liked it, but every reviewer has nits to pick. For example, at times Fish Bum 1 feels a little superficial, as if we’re skimming along the surface, not allowed to see the less-pretty stuff underneath.

At one point, the crew floats up to their takeout point, and their trucks aren’t waiting for them. They build a fire to stay warm, and… and… we’re left hanging just a little bit.

And did the team experience personal conflict, or were we supposed to believe they were a happy crew all the time?

After all, it’s not a glossy travel film with celebrities and scrubbed, smiling hosts. Instead – as the closing credits roll – you want to feel like you’ve been along for the ride (only without the smell).

And at a little over an hour in length, it feels a little rushed. Longer would have been better, though — like most DVDs — some of the best footage can be found in the outtakes.

Last Cast

Fish Bum 1: Mongolia is well worth watching. Production values are predictably good, and the documentary style is straightforward and non-intrusive.

AEG fans will almost certainly buy Fish Bum 1: Mongolia, though I suspect a lot of them would say AEG’s earlier videos offer a better fish porn experience.

So be it. We’ve all caught fish, but hardly any of us have driven across Mongolia after fish, and ultimately, that’s the bit that interests me.

Rather than pure fish porn, I’d tend to cast Fish Bum 1: Mongolia as a hybrid between a Michael Palin travel video and AEG’s earlier efforts (only without Michael Palin, sadly).