Sitting on the back of Ultimate Lady in the Far North sorting out a tangled mess of lures, Matt Watson had a lightbulb moment that saw his life make a U-turn.

“I was crewing on the boat and we had been waiting for a break in the weather to head to the Three Kings. While I was working in a job many would kill for and I was enjoying it immensely, my thoughts wandered to what was happening at home,” Matt says.

He and his wife Kaylene had two children and important milestones for a young family growing up – not to mention wider family birthdays, weddings and other celebrations – were being missed.

“When we put to sea, sometimes it could be for a couple of weeks and then extended at the last minute, so it was difficult to plan ahead.”

Searching for an alternative, Matt’s thoughts kept going back to the Sports Café footage he and a couple of mates had put together that won a video competition.

“The more I thought about it, the firmer it became fixed in my mind ‘I am going not make a fishing show.’”

The seed had been planted and despite the knockers who said it couldn’t be done, the plan slowly turned into a reality and Matt was on the way to taking his life back.

Matt’s good mate Kerren Packer who had been in on the Sports Café gig, introduced him to someone who had a working knowledge of the television scene and had the technical knowledge to get the show on the road. The trouble was, this guy cost money and the money Matt had borrowed to start the show had run out, so it was back to Matt and Kezza to film and produce the whole thing themselves.

“I had never been in front of the camera in this way before, but we made a couple of DVDs that were popular with fishers, and the feedback I got was it was like I wasn’t a presenter, they said it was more like I was talking to a mate, and that’s because I was talking to my mate – he was behind the camera!”

Matt says in the television industry he didn’t have much guidance – it was trial and error – but there was one person, Stabicraft Marine’s founder Paul Adams, who proved both a good friend and business mentor.

Putting any sponsorship arrangements aside, Matt says Paul “had a spark in his eyes, was always looking to improve his product, and his drive to succeed was inspirational.”

One of the things Matt tried hard to deliver was the answer to what happens not only on top of the water but under it.

“To me, that was where a big part of the story was happening, yet no one ever got to see it.”

In the early years, Matt dedicated a great deal of time to finding ways to deliver those answers.

One of the most memorable underwater sequences was of the big snapper captured scoffing a kahawai livebait and then tearing off into the kelp where it busted Matt off. It was a scenario many anglers had experienced, but only from above the water.

“We spent two days floating around in the berley trail to get that footage. I worked on the theory that fish would be attracted to the berley and ultimately the big boys hanging at the back of the trail would see the smaller fish feeding unharmed, and thus the diver didn’t represent danger.”

Eventually, the trophy fish’s curiosity and hunger got the better of him and he made his move on the livebait – all captured on film.

“It is no different than the sound of a crayfisher pulling his pots which are followed by the snapper who know from experience there will be a feed as the old bait is thrown over the side. A similar thing happens in the mussel farms where the noise generated by the harvester and the stuff washed back over the side sounds the dinner gong for the inhabitants.”

Armed with that success Matt went on to trial a range of “#8 wire” gadgets to capture the bite. These included floating cameras, deep drop cameras to get hāpuku feeding, and a range of tow cameras.

“Ultimate Lady’s skipper Tom Francis and I made our first tow cam using the body of a Maglite torch as the housing to which we added a miniature security camera, attached by a long length of video cable. Other options involved Perspex, silicon, drainpipe and a heap of lead as we experimented with keel shape and placement.”

Matt says this was all done on a shoestring budget. Every failure dug deep into their resources as cameras and lights imploded or were destroyed. Undeterred, Matt lived the mantra of ‘if I want to see it, then so do the viewers’. He was making television with ‘me and my mates’ as the target audience, and it was working as the programme rated well.

While the show continued to grow Matt realised there were other audiences other than just the serious anglers out there – hence ‘stunt’ fishing was introduced.

While the ‘Gannet Man’ footage, which saw Matt dive out of a helicopter and onto the back of a marlin, tagging it, won acclaim worldwide, the presenter doesn’t rate it even in his top 50 moments from the show.

What Gannet Man did do was get noticed by American television icon David Letterman who invited Matt onto his show, where the host asked him, “What are you going to do next, catch one (marlin) on a surfboard?”

Matt replied in the affirmative, providing the catalyst for more offthe-wall angling antics.

“I was committed, I had just told millions of viewers worldwide I was going to catch a billfish on a surfboard, so I had to do it.”

Matt was sometimes criticised for ‘too much marlin stuff’, viewers saying while there was some pretty cool footage, gamefishing wasn’t accessible for anyone. He set out to prove them wrong with a common thread running through subsequent stunt fishing episodes, demonstrating that catching a billfish was easily attainable with minimal funds.

“With just a $20 budget for fuel we set out in my little Stabicraft 389 and used half a ballpoint pen armed with a hook to catch skipjack livebait which was run on a handline spooled onto an electric fence reel. The bait was eaten and we eventually tagged and released a striped marlin.”

It was the first time mainstream local media had taken any notice when a lady reporter from a Far North community newspaper rang

Matt to interview him. He knew he had struck an accord with a nonfishing segment of his audience. From there he went on to catch billfish off a jetski, kayak and surfboard, while tagging a bronze whaler shark from the same surfboard, upping his game to take on a great white on a handline.

While all of the above made for great television, none of it rates in Matt’s mind as high as catching a 220kg bluefin tuna out from Westport from a 389 Stabicraft on a handline.

The boat was the first Matt had had full input into, starting by laying the outline out with tape in his Kerikeri office.

“It was a centre console design and while Stabicraft said it was not going to be included in their model range as there was no market for them, they would build one just for him, thus the Matt Watson Special Editon 389 was born.

It hadn’t even been given a sea trial when he picked it up from Christchurch and towed it to Westport where he headed across the bar early in the morning to find the hoki fleet 60NM offshore., Despite running a hoki bait alongside the trawlers for some time, he didn’t get his first bite until around 5pm. He fought the fish on a handline well into the darkness and when he finally got it on the trace, he knew it was his last chance as he was ‘done’.

Taking a triple wrap Matt hung for dear life, only to feel a pinging sensation in his arm. Knowing he couldn’t drop the leader it became a battle of wills with the angler finally nailing the fish which went 220kg.

“Despite the pain in my arm – the muscle had been pulled away from the bone at his elbow – Ihad a grin on my face the whole way back in. It was a capture which I rate high above anything else and the one I am most proud of.”

And for the record, Stabicraft the following year sold 60 of the MWSE 389s!

Another small boat effort was the capture of a black marlin out from Whangaroa.

“I was having a couple of beers in the Marlin Hotel with a few of the locals, who asked me what I had been doing. I told them I had been catching jack mackerel and kahawai in the harbour which I was going to run the following day targeting a black marlin.”

This was met with derision but the next day he was out there, in rough conditions, towing his baits around when he hooked up to a billfish, a black marlin.

“I was determined to do it, even though I’d caught around a thousand marlin in New Zealand waters, not one of them was a black marlin, and I’d just run my mouth off and said I was going to do it on this very day, so I had to back it up.”

To make it more intriguing, local charter operator Dave Arrell was on Double Strike and offered to lend Matt his ‘deckie’ when it came to the end game. Matt took up the offer, not realising the crew was, in fact, a young French backpacker who had never wired a fish in her life, let alone a feisty black marlin!

“This wasn’t the biggest, or the toughest, fish caught over the 20 years of The ITM Fishing Show, but for me, it was my most memorable.”

Pleasing all facets of The ITM Fishing Show’s audience was always going to be a big ask. To cater for the hardcore followers Matt changed his company’s name to Tightlines Media, manifested with a new product Ultimate Fishing TV available online.

“This was where we put all the tips and tricks associated with each show, allowing us to maintain a broader reach via television’s TV3 where The ITM Fishing Show occupied a prime slot. This was done through the popular Hook Me Up series where viewers wrote in with their fishing aspirations where the person sought Matt’s help in achieving their angling dreams.”

He says this aspect provided him with some of the most satisfying moments of the 20 years of filming.

There is another side to Matt Watson that many don’t appreciate and that is his leadership role in recreational fishing. He set up www.freefishheads.co.nz, a website where people who had fish frames and heads could hook up with others who could utilise them. He has also been a frontman for LegaSea on a number of issues around good fish handling practices as well as handing out venting tools used when releasing fish caught in the deep.

“I have always been prepared to share the things I believe in, hence the free fish frames website.”

He has found you can’t preach to people, but rather lead by example – walk the talk. In the early days, he was accused of being a ‘greenie’ because of his stance around releasing a fish and limiting the catch to what you need, not necessarily catching a limit.

“While the knockers can hurt, I used all the positive comments and feedback to combat the negative stuff, and I’m genuinely grateful for all the kind things people have said over the years.”

Over two decades of The ITM Fishing Show, Matt has enjoyed some great sponsorship enabling him to live his passion while returning value to those who have helped him.

Reluctant to nominate anyone specifically – he says everyone has contributed in some way – he acknowledges the unswerving support he has had from his wife Kaylene.

“She was uprooted from her circle of friends and family in Auckland to move to the Far North with me, and we had two kids away from any family support while I was at sea. She backed me when we took a punt and needed to mortgage the house to fund the first series, and has never put the brakes on a fishing trip; in fact, she sends me fishing if I haven’t been for a while.”

To kick off the 20th and final series of The ITM Fishing Show, there will be a documentary screening on TV3 on September 30 where Matt delves into the cutting room floor to show the “backstory of a lot of stuff.”

It takes a look at how many of the stories unfolded with footage Matt couldn’t slot into a standard show time slot.

“Some of the stuff might not be cool today, but that was how we rolled then. I just hope the TV3 executives see fit to leave it in.”

A further ten episodes will follow with just one gap for the elections, and then that will be it.

So, what comes next?

“We are about to update the new ultimatefishing.tv website and app to improve the user experience, and we’ve got loads more free content coming. It will be quite tips and tricks focussed, and I’ve got so many more ideas for adventures and ways to film them – more than I could fit into two lifetimes.”

Stay tuned…

The final season of The ITM Fishing Show will screen at 7pm Saturday night from October 7 – on THREE.

Episodes in Season 20 are filmed across the North and South Islands of New Zealand, as well as an eventful adventure to the Cook Islands, and Matt and the team are still managing to pull off special catches and find new ways to film the action.