Getting hooked

Picking up a new hobby is exciting. Picking up a new hobby in the outdoors is doubly so. But picking up a new hobby in the outdoors that helps you find your community is clutch.

Get Hooked is a six-part documentary series following the fishing excursions of four queer millennial women across Ontario. The quartet soak in angling savvy from a variety of experts while exploring natural philosophies and historical contextual backgrounds along the way.

Fly fishing with Demiesha Dennis

Demiesha Dennis, environmentalist and founder of Brown Girl Outdoor World, hosts Episode 1: Algonquin Park, where the crew go fly fishing for smallmouth bass on the Madawaska River. “We go fishing,” Dennis reframes. “We don’t catch fish, we go to fish. So, if you’re not catching fish, I still want you to look at it as a really great day, because you’re out here…you could be stuck inside.”

In the same episode, educator and consultant Christine Luckasavitch (Algonquin) shares ancestral stories of quartz gathered nearby for stone tools. Luckasavitch also encourages anglers to be mindful. “Any time that you are harvesting, whether it's plants or animals, you never take the first that you come to and you never take the last, because that helps to ensure that it will be there for the future.”

Heidi Lynch feeding the need

Get Hooked Producer Heidi Lynch stated the idea for the show was borne during COVID times, out of a noticeable lack of queer-created angling content on major platforms, further inspired by Lynch’s wife and their friends’ new hobby.

“We want anyone who has questioned whether they belong in the outdoors and in the fishing space to be reminded that they are, and that there are incredible humans beings taking up space in the outdoors that will welcome them with open arms and a fishing rod,” Lynch solemnizes.

When asked if Get Hooked Season 2 is in the proverbial tacklebox, Lynch hints that ice fishing with Demiesha and/or a flight across the pond to UK waters are some reel possibilities.

Get Hooked, Episode 1 is available on YouTube @TheGetHookedSeries. Once you’re hooked there, move over to AMI+ (Canada) or OUTtv Canada. You can subscribe to OUTtv through Amazon Prime and AppleTV+ for Episodes 2-6. Similarly, the companion Get Hooked Podcast is also available on YouTube, which includes a segment on hunting and shooting enthusiast Nicole Moore, as well as more fishing delights.

Episode 1: Algonquin Park