Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Wesley.
Hi Matt, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I can remember learning to fish at a local pond at Pattison Park in Owensville, Ohio. I remember as a young kid, my claim to fishing fame was catching 21 bluegills on 1 single piece of super resilient SLIM JIM! I grew up within a 5-minute bike ride from East Fork State Park. My friends and I would take just a fishing pole each and ride the trails from our houses to the lake. We’d dig up worms when we got there, and wait for fish to bite while we climbed trees or skipped rocks. Fast Forward another 20 years or so, and you find me with my very first GoPro camera. I was on my honeymoon in Hawaii, and while I still had a passion for fishing, I had not discovered that there was a world of people that enjoyed the experience of watching fishing adventures on Youtube.
When I got home from our honeymoon, I decided to take the GoPro with me and capture some of my adventures. My very first attempt at making a video to post to Youtube resulted in my biggest bass ever! I think that experience gave me the confidence and desire to keep taking my GoPro out on my “missions”. After that, “Matt’s Fishin Mission” was born as my Youtube channel!
In the beginning, it started as just a way to capture some memories that would be fun to look back on when I’m no longer able to wade the creeks or kayak the rivers & lakes. Now, I’ve received countless messages from people telling me I’ve inspired them to go explore the outdoors, get back to nature, learn to fish, or even tell me that I’ve taken them back to their childhood from watching the places I’ve fished that they used to explore 60 or 70 years ago! It’s been amazing and quite humbling to know that going fishing has made that kind of difference for some folks.
I’ve often tried to include some social responsibilities on my channel now that I know I have a watching audience, so I love to promote cleaning up our natural resources and taking care of our parks and waterways. I’ve done Riversweep for the Ohio River and also worked with the Little Miami Conservancy to encourage others to keep working hard to protect these resources. I recently helped promote a fishing tournament put on by the Little Miami Conservancy that provided funds for bank erosion, land development, little cleanup, and much more! In a stroke of combined luck AND skill, I won that tournament against dozens of local competitors!
I started my YouTube channel back in the fall of 2019, and through that, I have made some new friends and even acquired some brand sponsorships. I was contacted by Cast Cray Outdoors in the winter of 2020 about joining their team of Youtube fishermen, and it’s been an amazing company to work with! Rick Provence, the owner, has been not only a great partner, but an amazing friend who’s gone well out of his way to form a friendship that is cemented forever with myself and my wife.
Just this fall, my wife was diagnosed with cancer. Rick put together a fundraiser for us, and through his efforts, the fishing community, and the grace of God, we were able to raise over 15,000 dollars for treatment and medical procedures! It’s been a very trying time that was made so much easier by everyone’s support!
Cast Cray Outdoors is a relatively new outdoor company that is now slated to hit both retail stores and subscription boxes across the United States in 2022, and I’m so glad to be a part of that team and company!
My fishing journey usually takes us around our tri-state area (Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana), but it has taken me into the Rocky Mountain streams fly fishing for trout and pike, and all the way to the Florida Everglades hunting down the exclusively found Peacock Bass!
I love not just the joy of fishing, but being able to teach someone the joy it brings. I’ve taken young kids out at the age of 5 to learn how to hold a fishing pole.. and I’ve taken people out in their 50s who just never got around to learning, and see their child-like excitement when that pole bends and they have their first fish of their life on the line!
Wherever this journey takes me next, I will embrace it with an open heart, a ready fishing pole, and tight lines!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
For the most part, the journey has been amazing. It’s forced me to learn more about video and sound editing, social media marketing, and learning to engage with an audience. If there is a struggle in any of it, I would say it’s just trying to do something different and unique in a highly saturated world of outdoor adventures online.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My profession is as a photographer. Which made for an easy transition into the online fishing space, as the photographers of yesterday are now learning to transition into a more video-centric world of social media. So the combining of both hobby and profession has been a happy and seamless marriage.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
Kindness and empathy are far more inspiring and important than sensationalism and headline grabs. I think being able to relate to your viewers or clients and do them a small kindness is so much more rewarding than any sort of self-congratulatory ego boost has ever been for me.
Contact Info:
- Email: m78wesley@yahoo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattsfishinmission/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MattsFishinMission
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MattsFishinMission/featured
- Other: https://link.fishbrain.com/B8sds1WtPVRGmBRM9
Image Credits
Matt’s Fishin Mission
