Robson's Extreme Fishing Challenge

Channel: 5 star
Production Company: IWC media 

In the episode I watched Robson went to western Canada, specifically British Columbia and the Yukon. As the beautiful vistas pan across the screen it suddenly occurs to me that the show is just an extremely specialised travel program. Of course most people wouldn’t choose a holiday destination based on the fishing at the destination but some might. And who wouldn’t want to go to the Yukon anyway? I have to say that this programme was all the more enjoyable to me because it was set in an area that I myself have an interest in and would like to visit.

So what exactly is the show about? Robson’s Extreme Fishing Challenge is an evolution of Robson’s Extreme Fishing, apparently Extreme Fishing isn’t extreme enough but now you need a little bit of manly competition to make it more exciting. Sorry, extreme. So the aim of the show is now that Robson has travelled the world and learned how to hunt (yes, the he does say that you hunt fish) some extreme fish he is now pitted against the best fishermen from across the world to catch the most extreme fish, or the longest, or the most. 

Rather than spot things which could be used in other shows I noticed the many other things which had been borrowed from other shows/formats. The map to show Robson traveling from the UK to Canada gave me flashbacks to Indiana Jones movies. The top trump like stats for contestants and battles reminded me of Wrestling or even Robot Wars.

Through the course of the show we were introduced to the White Sturgeon, Northern Pike, Greyling, Lake Trout. As someone who has only been fishing once it was interesting to see all these fish, the little details about them such as the White Sturgeon’s anatomy hasn’t changed in 200 million years, the Greyling exist in a ratio of 7 females to each male, and the colour of the Trout’s belly is dependent on its diet.

One thing I was keen on was the humour they managed to shoehorn in amongst all the fishing. The tutorial on facing up to a bear was informative and hilarious at the same time. There were forfeits for failing the fishing challenges – going from a sauna to a cold lake and spending a night in bear infested woods. This was Robson’s forfeit spending the night in the woods, though it was put on the bear attack and Robson getting bear mace in his own face was funny.

So, over all I’m not sure I’ll be watching again unless perhaps I’m flicking through channels and it appears that they are in an area that I am interested in. And that is something that I think could transfer from this show to another, specialised travel. I think it would be interesting to see how people choose their holiday destinations, based on a hobby etc. This could be a series with each episode focusing on a different hobby and the top destinations around the world for that past time or, like with this show, choose one hobby and then spend series going round the world doing it. It’s just another way of seeing the world.