The Show Goes On, Even in Fishing

It was not far from the shady palms that dot the resort patios of Baja California’s East Cape, on the desert ocean, that Michael Fowlkes nearly lost a battle against a foe far more formidable than any game fish--the blazing summer sun.

Working on what many consider a dream job--producing and hosting a weekly fishing show for television--Fowlkes had been getting footage in the Sea of Cortez.

He had fished and filmed and filmed and fished in 100-degree temperatures for three days.

He personally battled two 350-pound blue marlin and helped fight striped marlin, sailfish and several smaller fish. When he wasn’t struggling with his rod and reel, he was with the bulky camera he hoists on his shoulder.

He wasn’t aware of it at the time, but through all this the sun was slowly sapping the life out of him. Fowlkes was drinking water, but nothing to replace minerals sweating through his pores. Heat stroke was imminent.

“It was a gradual thing--it didn’t happen overnight,” Fowlkes said recently, while resting in the shade on the Hotel Palmas De Cortez patio. “It took three days for my body to break down, but when it broke down, it shut down completely and I went over the deep end. In 24 hours my temperature was over 106. . . .

“They actually set up a M.A.S.H unit right in the [SPA Buenavista] hotel room. They had the IV hanging off some steel rebar. . . .

“I passed out and was in a coma. I lost all control of my bodily functions. I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t walk. [The doctor] said I was probably within two hours of dying.

“He got the IV started finally, and I took two bottles within a half-hour. I was in a daze. They wrapped half my body in ice. If [wife] Kim hadn’t been there, I probably would have lost it. She gave me cold compresses and held me. . . . I was delirious.

“The ironic part of the story is, the guy that actually saved my life with the IVs--he was telling people down here he was a doctor--turned out to be an escaped patient from a mental ward [north of the border] whose parents had put him into a mental hospital. He had escaped and had come down here and was hiding out.

“He had been in vet school. So he was in vet school, wigged out, his parents put him into a mental hospital and he escaped and came down here and saved my life.”

*

Fowlkes, 44, who said he has no idea what happened to the phony doctor, has long since recovered and is making the most of his second chance.

Since his ordeal a few years ago, he and his small crew--which basically includes his wife, a sound specialist; underwater photographer Bill Wilson and fishing expert Clete Takahashi--have turned Prime Sports’ “Inside Sportfishing” into the West Coast’s top-rated fishing show.

Fowlkes credits his familiarity with the fishing industry and his experience as a producer for his success. But his down-to-earth personality and Wilson’s work in the water also help set “Inside Sportfishing” apart from the other programs aired locally from time to time.

“I call it an entertainment-driven, educationally supported format,” Fowlkes says. “Because I think you have to entertain people first and foremost in television.”

Not hard to do, one would think, in the salmon- and halibut-rich waters of Alaska, the pristine tuna grounds of Mexico’s Revillagigedo Islands or the big-game playground of the Sea of Cortez.

Fowlkes frequents these and other exotic locations and gets VIP treatment everywhere he goes. He pays nothing for rooms or boats. He is always welcome for as long as he wants to stay, and he usually stays two weeks in places people save for years to be able to go for one.

“I would say that Alaskan experience is one of my favorites because of the uniqueness of the environment,” Fowlkes says. “It’s absolutely one of the most beautiful, pristine frontiers left on earth. It’s everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”

A dream job?

Fowlkes acknowledges he has one. “Fishing to me is just an excuse to be out on the ocean,” he says.

But he is quick to point out that it is still a job, one he has worked hard at to be successful.

“People see us out here doing this [fishing] and, yes, this is the fun stuff, the glory stuff out on the water chasing the fish,” he says. “But the editing is a thousand times more work. That’s when it all comes together.”

Fowlkes went to film school at Orange Coast College with the dream of making feature films.

He eventually formed his own production company and produced or co-produced everything from biographies to exercise videos to commercials to comedy specials. He produced his first fishing film in 1983--the Ultimate Challenge, an ABC-TV special on fishing for giant tuna aboard the Royal Polaris. The half-hour video is still considered a classic in fishing circles.

Fowlkes won best student film of the year at the Southern California Collegiate Film Festival in 1976 and went on to win national cable ACE Awards in 1984, 1985 and 1987 for comedy specials that aired on Showtime and the Movie Channel.

But all the while his dream of producing feature films was eluding him, and the daily commute from Newport Beach to West L.A. was taking a heavy toll.

“It just got crazy,” he says. “The L.A. film and television world is just nuts. I mean you got a million people. . . . I could never do lunches. I just couldn’t do it. I just never had that schmooz thing down. I just didn’t have it.

“God, I did that for five years, commuted for five years. And then one day I’m sitting there in a car going home, and I’m wheel-high to a truck, stuck on a freeway for 3 1/2 hours thinking, ‘This is my life. Everything else is an illusion, but this is the reality of what I’m doing.’

“I’m breathing exhaust, and I just said, ‘I got to do something else.’ ”

Fowlkes, who professes a lifelong love of the sea, got his captain’s license in 1985, bought a 50-foot charter boat and changed careers in 1987 to try to make a living on the ocean.

But it wasn’t any kinder to him. The albacore runs that had kept so many skippers in business disappeared. Customers stopped shelling out high prices for the smaller, less-crowded charter boats and opted for the bigger, less-expensive “cattle boats.”

“The last two years I ran the boat I had $198,000 in expenses against $178,000 in receipts,” Fowlkes says. “And I spent only seven nights at my house in seven months. That’s how hard you work to lose $10,000 a year.”

He eventually sold the boat and got back into TV, producing the popular show “Fish-On!” with Dan Hernandez. The two had too many differences, though, and went their separate ways.

Fowlkes then contacted the tackle company Shimano, who came on board as primary sponsor, and sold Prime Sports on the show. “Inside Sportfishing”--which airs Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m.--is beginning its third season, and thus far all parties are satisfied with the arrangement.

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Out on the water recently at the East Cape, under a blue sky and a rising sun, everyone seemed to be fighting striped marlin.

Fowlkes was aboard La Migra when one of its customers hooked a particularly large striper, which seemed to have been through the routine before.

Rather than expending its energy with acrobatics, it jumped only once then remained below, waging a war of attrition. The fact that the crew had to turn off the engine to work on a problem with the fuel line didn’t help the angler’s cause: He had to fight the fish from a dead boat.

Fowlkes was enjoying himself, getting footage of an epic struggle between man and fish. Wilson had donned a small tank and jumped in with his camera.

The fight dragged on for more than an hour. The angler could barely hold onto the rod, much less wind the handle of the reel. Sweat ran down his face and arms and soaked through his shirt. He was breathing hard and seemed close to giving up, but he kept working, gaining line, losing line, gaining some more.

Fowlkes offered little technical assistance, wanting authentic footage. But the flushed face and sweat-drenched clothing of the fisherman reminded him of that especially hot day a few summers ago.

He stopped rolling the camera, grabbed a sports drink from the cooler and held it up to the angler’s mouth.

“Drink it,” he said, emphatically. “You don’t know it now, but it’s something you have to do. It’s absolutely critical--It could save your life.”

NOTEWORTHY

The local tuna season has become a reality, though it is hoped the fish will soon move a little closer to the San Diego fleet. The bulk of the fish--mostly bluefin but some yellowfin--are being caught about 120 miles south of Point Loma, just beyond range of the one-day boats. However, those on 1 1/2-day trips--spending two nights at sea--are finding bluefin in the 20- to 40-pound class, yellowtail and a smattering of yellowfin schooling under offshore kelp paddies. The Qualifier 105 out of Point Loma Sportfishing even reported catching an albacore. . . . The local marlin season has not yet begun, but a striped marlin was hooked Monday off San Clemente Island and two jumpers were seen--and a 26-pound yellowfin tuna reportedly was caught--near the 206 fathom spot, according to John Doughty of J.D.’s Big Game Tackle on Balboa Island. . . . Whale-watching season ended a few weeks ago with the passing of the last gray whales on the way home to the Bering Sea. But blue and humpback whales are thrilling watchers and researchers at the Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands. It is the third consecutive year the graceful leviathans have shown at the northern Channel Islands, prompting researchers to begin conducting studies there. Capt. Fred Benko of the Condor out of Santa Barbara’s Sea Landing said whale-watching trips will begin as demand grows, which it is sure to do.