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Dan Kegley/Eric Verkowteren, associate producer of Outdoor Channel’s “Familiar Waters,” stands on Tilley’s Bridge to film the show’s host, Mike Pawlawski, and Wytheville conservationist Richard Formato, as they fish the Holston River’s South Fork.

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Outdoor Channel films show on the South Fork of the Holston River

By DAN KEGLEY/Staff

Sports fans will recognize Mike Pawlawski’s name. The former NFL and Arena League quarterback has worked on ABC, NBC and Fox and the Sports Channel. Now, he hosts the Outdoor Channel’s fly fishing show “Familiar Waters.”
Pawlawski and his production company, Pawlawski Sports Co., came to Smyth County last week to film a segment for the fishing show on the South Fork of the Holston River.
Pawlawski, his associate producer Eric Verkowteren, and three-time Emmy Award winning director of photography Stephen Howell came east last week from California to connect with Richard Formato, a Wytheville small businessman, Floyd County farm owner, fly fisherman and conservationist.
Their first stop was to scout the South Fork for locations before flying out of Mountain Empire Airport to the South Carolina coast to shoot a show on redfish. Flying back, they spent Friday and Saturday shooting on the South Fork.
Formato and Pawlawski became friends after meeting three years ago, Formato said. Formato was writing a fishing column for the Roanoke Times, and had restored a stream on his Floyd farm.
“Mike wanted to come out and talk about that brook trout stream restoration,” Formato said. “The brook trout is Virginia’s state fish.”
Formato practices catch and release, turning his catches immediately back into the waters from which he takes them. His conservation work extends to the boardroom as well, as he sits on the 12-member Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation board of directors. He is also trustee of the Shenandoah National Forest and Skyline Drive.
Formato told Pawlawski about the South Fork, a “naturally producing stream that didn’t need restoration.” [There’s more about the stream on Community, page B1.] “Mike was coming east to do a redfish show on the Carolina salt marsh flats and said maybe we could hook up to go to Smyth County and hook a couple of trout.”
He believed his audience would relate to the South Fork, a premier stream in the east, the region where Pawlawski said trout fishing started. “It’s hard to pass by the western waters [of Virginia] if you’re doing a fly fishing show,” he said. “We have a strong demographic here. We get lots of e-mails to the show from the east.”
Formato said they were fishing the “ghosts of the Civil War.” Friday afternoon’s shoot would have as a backdrop the Holston Mill site, owned by Frank Detweiler, where uniforms were made for the Confederacy.
“Everything here is ancient history compared to Southern California,” Formato said.
The South Fork itself is living history for Formato. “It’s probably in the same shape it was 200 years ago,” he said. “Probably better, without the mill dams.”
Fishing shows have traditionally felt a little like fishing itself, slow-paced, laid back – until the big one takes the bait. Pawlawski’s show has a “rock-and-roll feel to it,” Formato said.
“His show is not the traditional,” Verkowteren said. “It’s high energy, upbeat. We’re story based, so we have an idea what we’re going to do” ahead of shooting.
Unlike other fishing show hosts that got good with a rod and reel and made a TV show out of it, Pawlawski said he comes to it the other way, from the TV side to fly fishing, he said.
Still, like a lot of anglers who made it big, he’s fly fished since he was nine years old, and guided fishing trips while in the NFL.
Pawlawski is the executive producer for his production company that shoots the audio and video for “Familiar Waters,” edits the footage and sends a ready for primetime package to the Outdoor Channel.
Pawlawski controls the sequence in which the shows air, but the Outdoor Channel handles each show’s scheduling. The South Fork episode should air by July, Pawlawski said.
The company bunked Thursday night and ate breakfast Friday morning at Formato’s place at Tilley’s Bridge, between Adwolfe and Thomas Bridge. After breakfast, the crew donned fishing gear, and made ready fly rods and nets for catching trout and video cameras for capturing the action.
Amid the preparations, Formato paused and stepped aside.
“I’m so lucky I get to do this,” he said. “I have to pinch myself.”