New series urges queer people to try the ‘calming’ act of fishing: ‘Much more than a rod and a fish’

During the pandemic, actress, writer and producer Heidi Lynch was struck by an odd epiphany: “…is fishing going to save the world?”

Not the ocean-obliterating, commercial scale sort of fishing; rather the up-at-5am, tea-on-a-stove, holed-up-in-a-tent-by-a-lake-for-12-hours sort. The hobby kind. Lynch’s wife got into it first.

Between lockdowns, she and her friends – all queer, London-based, working in fashion, or entertainment, or graphic design, cool types – would head back to their roots in the northeast of England to find stocked fishing holes. One morning Lynch got, for want of a less punny word, reeled in.

“We were the only people of our demographic there. It was all a very specific kind of northern, white, straight man of a certain age… I felt like I was treading on someone else’s territory,” she recalls today. As she busied herself making stove coffee, “the women and non-binary folk I was with started catching fish, and then you saw the guys take them more seriously and ask what bait they were using.”

Lynch was astonished to see the act of fishing bridging the division between the two groups – “these people who never would’ve normally talked to each other” – even if that division was manmade. “These barriers really do fade away and they have such a common ground, which is this passion for fishing.”

It was this encounter that laid the groundwork for Get Hooked, a new, six-part documentary series on LGBTQ+ streaming platform, OUTFlix. It plonks four queer women into postcard-perfect vistas in Lynch’s home city, Ontario, Canada, where they meet with six different expert anglers from diverse backgrounds to experience firsthand the community-building, mentally restorative practice of catch-and-release fishing.

Adolescence star and fishing aficionado Faye Marsay, who worked with Lynch on their 11-time Canadian Screen Award-nominated comedy Avocado Toast, leads the queer quartet with her pals Emma, S.J. and Vik. In the last episode, they teach queer British comedian Rosie Jones – Lynch’s neighbour – all they’ve learned. On paper, it’s an incongruous, even peculiar series, unlikely to have been commissioned by any other streamer. Yet it makes for a meditative, invigorating watch – and that’s just thanks to the scenic views.

Perhaps Get Hooked seems like an unlikely series to pull off because nothing else like it exists. I rack my brain for examples of LGBTQ+ representation in fishing, and all I can think of is Sam Smith referring to themself as a “fisherthem” in 2023. Hardly awe-inspiring stuff.

After that revelatory fishing trip up north, Lynch went searching too. “I went home and started doing research, but it was all like: Bob and Joe’s big fish! Big bros, big fish! Men, men, fish! Bros, bros, fish!”

It’s true that fishing is tarred with a certain kind of Republican-aligned machismo, so much so that it’s become a bit of a running joke online: If you’re a man holding a fish in your dating app profile photo, you’re probably one to avoid. It’s not exactly a hobby marketed to young queer women, while in the UK, The Angling Trust has been swept into the argument of whether it’s “fair” for transgender women to fish competitively in the women’s category. Lynch believes that the lack of LGBTQ+ visibility in the angling worlds adds a “fear factor” for those wanting to give it a go.

Marsay agrees. “I’ve always fished with the girls so I’ve always felt safe doing that, but as a kid I was very aware, when my dad would take me with my brother, it was very much a male sport… it had a certain vibe to it,” the Game of Thrones star says.

Rosie Jones pulls fewer punches in her brutal analysis. “Before I went fishing I thought it was a white, straight, non-disabled, old male hobby where men would gather round to complain and just be grumpy,” she deadpans. Yet both learnt, albeit through different means, how wrong they were. “What I found could not have been more the opposite. I found that anyone can fish, whoever you are. It is a hobby that is welcoming to everyone,” Jones concludes. 

There’s a distinct dearth of queer nature content full stop, let alone queer fishing. It does exist – in Get Hooked episode one, the group are led by Demiesha Dennis, the queer founder of BrownGirlOutdoorWorld, which works to open outdoor opportunities for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour – but it’s rare. 

“The people who are funding [nature shows] want to see themselves represented, and across the entire film and TV industry, we’re still really far behind in terms of diversity and [seeing queer people in] leadership positions,” Lynch opines. Even with her show, it took a major fluke to get the ball rolling.

“The very first person who said yes to Get Hooked was a man in Toronto who owns a large company, and is a straight man, and his kid during Covid, [aged] 12 or 13 came out as non-binary [and] got obsessed with fishing. It was just a random luck thing.”

Lynch wants Get Hooked to act as a gateway, allowing queer people to see that there is a way into an activity like fishing, even if it seems tailored for a cishet world. Though her childhood didn’t include fishing – “it was always my Dad at the end of the dock” – she reaped the benefits of being able to immerse herself in the Ontario wilderness. “Our lives were very chaotic and busy, but [in] the summer we’d go up there to the cabin and the water would be still and sparkling and the trees would be so green,” she remembers. “You come back to being an animal, you get off your screens and you really feel the mental health benefit of that.”

Each expert angler in Get Hooked has dealt with some personal hardship that has led them back to the soil and water of the earth’s surface. There’s Frank, a recovering addict turned addiction counsellor; Dave, who continued to fish after going blind; Emily, who spent time in prison. As they share their stories and pass on specific fish-based knowledge, it’s clear that it’s more than a hobby: it’s a saviour.

“You’re trying to cast your line into the water and you’re waiting to see if anything tugs on it. And as you’re doing that, the wind goes through the leaves and you’re staring at the water and you’re getting fresh air and your world becomes simpler and smaller and slower,” says Lynch. 

When the world feels simpler, smaller, and slower, it’s easier to handle. Jones, as ever, puts it best. “It is not about the fish at all,” she insists. “It is about going outside, being one with nature, just giving yourself time to readjust, to work out your priorities in life. It’s so much more than a rod and a fish.”

Episode one of Get Hooked is streaming on OUTFlix in the UK and OUTtv in the US. The first full episode is streaming on YouTube, too. New episodes are streaming on Mondays weekly.

Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.