This conversation with Frank Smethurst — fly fishing filmmaker, former Trout Unlimited TV host, Colorado guide, and the guy who chased roosterfish on foot down Baja beaches in Running Down the Man — is a wide-ranging catch-up between two old friends who have not shared a boat in fifteen years. Frank and I talk about how he got into fishing as a kid in Atlanta, the films that helped shape the fly fishing film world, permit strategy, carp as training wheels for the flats, and why humor belongs in every fishing film ever made.
Press play in the YouTube player at the top of this page, or scroll back up to watch. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and iHeartRadio.
Frank Smethurst is a fly fishing filmmaker, former television host, guide, and industry sales rep based in Colorado. He starred in the acclaimed fly fishing films Running Down the Man and Eastern Rises, both produced by Felt Soul Media. He produced and hosted 39 episodes of Trout Unlimited TV and has competed in and won fly fishing competitions including the Fly Fishing Masters. He grew up in Atlanta, started working at the Fish Hawk fly shop at age twelve, and has guided in Colorado, Alaska, and the Sea of Cortez.
Running Down the Man is a fly fishing film from Felt Soul Media that follows Frank Smethurst and friends chasing roosterfish on foot along Baja beaches using a dune buggy to cover ground. The fishing is extremely athletic — barefoot sprints in the surf, long casts into the waves, fly line tangling around feet — and the film premiered at the Telluride Mountain Film Festival before the Fly Fishing Film Tour even existed as a formal circuit.
Eastern Rises is a fly fishing film shot in Kamchatka, Russia, also produced by Felt Soul Media with Frank Smethurst. It won the top award at the Banff Mountain Film Festival and is widely considered one of the most acclaimed fishing films ever made. Frank left for the shoot while his wife was pregnant with their daughter, and the film includes a brief cameo of the baby.
Dubai on the Fly is Frank Smethurst's most recent film project. It documents fly fishing for queenfish — specifically talang queenfish — in and around Dubai's developed coastline. The film also features traditional fishing with an Arabian dhow captain and explores how Dubai's coastal development has actually enhanced fish habitat in unexpected ways. Frank describes it as his latest adventure fishing comedy.
Frank's father built Fenwick glass fly rods for Frank and his brother and mentioned to the Fish Hawk staff that his son might make a good employee. Frank had been visiting the shop on Saturdays since he was a small child — it was his version of getting ice cream. Owner Gary Merriman gave him a shot, and Frank worked there tying commercial flies until college, with a client catching a 160-pound tarpon on one of his cockroach patterns when Frank was just thirteen.
Frank believes carp are one of the most instructive fish you can target on a fly rod. He says if you can routinely catch carp in a place like the downtown Denver South Platte, you have a real shot at succeeding in the Florida Keys. Carp teach you to read body language — pectoral flares, dorsal movement, attitude shifts — in slower motion than tarpon or bonefish, which makes the lessons easier to absorb before applying them to saltwater species.
Frank Smethurst is an old friend. We fished together in the Marquesas about fifteen years ago, and I have always enjoyed being around him because he has this energy about fishing that is just infectious. He does not take it too seriously. He likes to laugh. He calls what he does "adventure fishing comedies," and I think that phrase tells you everything about the guy.
I knew Frank from the industry side — he was a rep, he was a guide, he was making films before the Fly Fishing Film Tour was even a thing — and I wanted to sit down and just catch up. I had not heard him tell the full story of how he ended up at the Fish Hawk at twelve years old, or what really happened with Running Down the Man and Eastern Rises, or what it was like to walk away from the TU TV gig to be home with his daughter. There is a lot in here that I had never heard him talk about. Press play and hear it for yourself.
Frank did not come from a fishing family. His grandfather was a serious fly fisherman and bird hunter, but he died before Frank was born, and the passion skipped a generation entirely. The way Frank describes how the bug found him anyway — hand lines on docks as a toddler, trolling for mackerel in Penobscot Bay with his mom's family in Maine, his dad secretly building Fenwick glass rods — is one of those origin stories that only works when the person telling it actually lived it. His high school friends called him Professor Fenwick. That detail alone is worth hearing in his own words.
I have always loved the story of Running Down the Man, but there is a piece of it I had never heard. Frank's future wife was seated next to him at the Telluride Mountain Film Festival premiere. She was his best friend's sister. She knew who he was but was not particularly impressed — until the film started playing. Frank told me what she said to him after the lights came up, and it is one of those moments that is just better as a story than as a sentence in an article. They got married on a roosterfish beach in Baja. Their daughter's middle name is Dolores, after the river where Frank and his wife fell in love. Listen to that section.
Frank produced and hosted 39 episodes of TU TV. He fished everywhere from Long Island spring creeks to the Ozarks. He told me the biggest brook trout in the world used to come from Long Island — sea-run fish, fourteen-pounders caught by Daniel Webster on the Cairns River. I had no idea. The reason he stepped away from the show is not what I expected, and it connects to something I have felt in my own career about travel and family and knowing when to stop saying yes. The way he describes the moment his daughter became a tractor beam is worth hearing in his voice, not mine.
Frank has a position on carp that I think every permit angler needs to hear. He draws a direct line between reading a carp's body language on the South Platte and reading a permit's body language on a Keys flat. He won the Denver Carp Slam tournament. He has been fishing for them for years after friends basically forced him into it. His description of what carp teach you about pectoral flares and dorsal movement — in slow motion compared to saltwater fish — is the kind of thing that changes how you look at a fish the next time you are on the bow. Watch that part of the conversation in the YouTube player at the top of this page.
Frank reminded me of something I told him in the Marquesas fifteen years ago about where to throw a fly at a permit. I barely remembered saying it. We went deep on live crabs versus flies, the clicking sound a healthy blue crab makes, why scent might matter less than motion, and a day at Hawks Cay after the hurricane where we caught three permit on shrimp in a spot where we were only looking for bonefish. This section of the conversation kept going because neither of us could stop. If you fish for permit or have ever wanted to, this is the part of the episode to listen to.
Frank Smethurst is one of those people who makes fishing feel like what it is supposed to feel like. He said something during our conversation that stuck with me — the only thing better than fishing is sharing it, and the only thing better than sharing it is sharing it with ever more meaningful people. I have always felt that way, and hearing him say it reminded me why I started this podcast in the first place.
We did not even get to Dubai. We ran out of time. I told him he has to come back, and he will. In the meantime, this conversation covers fifteen years of catching up in about ninety minutes, and it is the kind of episode you put on while you are rigging rods or driving to the ramp.
Press play in the YouTube player at the top of this page, or scroll back up to watch. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and iHeartRadio.
Brad Ellis · Gary Merriman · Doug Kilpatrick · Ben and Travis (Felt Soul Media) · Tom Baez · Lee Wulff · Ernest Schwiebert · Zane Grey · AJ McClane · Barry Reynolds · Shane Smith · Jeff Malone · Mark Croka · Clay Watson · Fitz Coker · Dottie Ballantine · Tim Linehan · Moana · Daniel Webster · Cotton Cordell · Lance Russell
Frank Smethurst is a fly fishing filmmaker, television host, guide, and industry professional based in Colorado. He starred in the acclaimed films Running Down the Man, Eastern Rises (winner of the Banff Mountain Film Festival's top award), Carpland, and Dubai on the Fly. He produced and hosted 39 episodes of Trout Unlimited TV and competed in and won the Fly Fishing Masters competition. Frank started working at the Fish Hawk fly shop in Atlanta at age twelve, has guided in Colorado, Alaska, and the Sea of Cortez, and ran the largest fly fishing rep territory in the industry stretching from Salt Lake City to New Orleans. He lives in Colorado with his wife and daughter Mallory.
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