Gonzaga coach Mark Few netted as sidekick for fly-fishing travel show

By Rich Landers | The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review • Published May 12, 2008

“Seasons On the Fly” may be the first cable TV fishing show in which a Few fish is better than a bunch.

Greg Heister, Spokane’s multitalented TV personality, has launched a weekly Northwest travel and fly-fishing program that regularly features Mark Few, the Gonzaga University men’s basketball coach and one of the most recognized names in the region.

“Mark and I have been fishing together for about eight years, so he ends up on a lot of programs,” said Heister, the play-by-play announcer for GU men’s hoops and Shock football.

“The last thing I wanted to do was another fishing show with two guys in boat catching fish after fish. These are more documentary-style, with pretty photography, focusing on the history of the river and the fish we are catching and the flies we are using. It’s more of a deeper, romantic look at what the fly-fishing experience is all about.”

Heister has filmed 15 shows — 10 of which include Few in the cast — and plans to produce about 20 a year to be rotated weekly on Fox Sport Northwest (FSN).

The shows include rainbow fishing on Montana’s Bighorn River, steelheading on the Grande Ronde River, cutthroat fishing on British Columbia’s Elk and Wigwam rivers, and various salmon, trout and steelhead adventures in Alaska.

The most recent televised program on fishing for silver salmon on the Kodiak Island road system is one of the most visually stunning shows in the lineup, Heister said.

Filming in the wet, wild environment of trout and steelhead is not a cakewalk, Heister said.

“This project almost had an early death on the very first shoot,” he recalled.

“We flew into this remote place on Alaska’s Situk River near Yakutat, unloaded in a Forest Service cabin, put on our waders and hiked up the river.

“We had to cross the river 2 miles upstream, and being 6-foot-6, I wade a lot of places without giving it much thought. But I look back in time to see my photographer go down in the river with the camera and everything.”

Just like that, the show was in the hole thousands of dollars and in a remote location for a week with a pile of ruined production gear.