Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 1011 is my conversation with filmmaker Jamie Howard, the man behind Chasing Silver, Running the Coast, Location X, Black Salmon, and Bass The Movie. Jamie has spent more than twenty years making fishing films you remember the shots from years later, and he rarely does interviews. We talk about his new Cameras Off podcast, the Tarpon Diaries series inside it, the four-year build of Running the Coast, the famous aerial tarpon shot, and what he witnessed happen to the striped bass fishery.
Listen now: Megaphone · YouTube.
Jamie Howard is the filmmaker and founder of Howard Films. His fishing documentary catalog includes Rising Tide, Chasing Silver, Location X, Bass The Movie, Running the Coast, and Black Salmon. A former advertising creative director, he now hosts the Cameras Off outdoor stories podcast, which includes the Tarpon Diaries series.
Chasing Silver is Jamie Howard's tarpon documentary, first released as a mini-series for television. It is widely remembered for the first real aerial footage of a tarpon school swimming down the beach, filmed from an ultralight aircraft, a shot that defined conversations about the film.
Running the Coast is Jamie Howard's striped bass film, covering the fishery from the Chesapeake Bay to Maine. It took four years of shooting and one year of editing, and Jamie nearly did not finish it, making it one of the most ambitious fishing films ever made.
Cameras Off is Jamie Howard's new outdoor stories podcast, named for the conversations on set that never made it into the films. Season 1 is out, and the show is expanding beyond fishing to include adventure photographers, Red Bull wingsuit flyers, and other unexpected outdoor stories. It is available on Spotify and Apple.
According to the conversation, multiple factors are affecting striped bass, including fishing pressure and what Jamie called black-market activity, pollution in the Chesapeake Bay affecting reproduction, less overall biomass, and a migration shift moving fish farther north toward Maine and Nova Scotia. Jamie filmed Running the Coast right at the end of what he calls the peak.
Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 1011 with Jamie Howard is available on Megaphone, YouTube, and the Tom Rowland Podcast feed, and is about ninety minutes long. The video version is embedded at the top of this page.
Jamie and I have been crossing paths for more than twenty years. He pulled me into Location X back when I was figuring out the film world, and he is still the kind of person who looks at the water like he is seeing it for the first time. That is part of why his films land. He does not give many interviews, and he is in the middle of building Cameras Off, so almost no one has heard him talk about where he is taking the show. I wanted that conversation on tape.
Press play in the player above to hear it.
One year of editing, four years of shooting striped bass from the Chesapeake to Maine, and Jamie almost did not finish. The reason he did is one of the better lessons I have heard for any creative work. He tells the whole story in the episode.
If you have seen Chasing Silver, you know the shot, the first real aerial footage of a tarpon school down the beach. I went back years later and thought I saw something in the frame. Jamie corrected me on what it actually is and why it was hidden. Worth hearing in his own words.
Jamie filmed Running the Coast at the end of the peak, when blitzes and giants ran on a schedule. In the episode he walks through pressure, black-market activity, Chesapeake water quality, and a northward migration shift. If you fish stripers from Montauk to Maine, listen to this section.
Casting a film is harder than it looks, and Jamie's process is unglamorous, a lot of phone calls and following the names that keep coming up. The Andy Mill story, and why Jamie originally did not want him in Chasing Silver, is the one I keep thinking about. Press play in the YouTube player above.
Cameras Off is Jamie's new channel, and the Tarpon Diaries series collects untold saltwater stories from the tarpon world, dropping on Thursdays, with animation rolling out on his Instagram. He explains where the show is going beyond fishing. Worth hearing in full.
Listen to the full conversation: Megaphone · YouTube.
Jamie still looks at the water like he is seeing it for the first time, and that is why his films land the way they do.
The reason I want you to listen to this one is simple. The article gives you the topics. The audio gives you Jamie, his timing, his hedge, the way he laughed when I told him I thought there was a foot in the frame of his most famous shot. None of that translates to text. Press play in the player above, or grab Episode 1011 on Megaphone or watch on YouTube.
Jamie Howard · Howard Films · Chasing Silver · Running the Coast · Location X · Cameras Off Podcast · Tarpon Diaries · Andy Mill · Paul Dixon · Monte Burke · Tom Rowland (host)
The Tom Rowland Podcast brings you long-form conversations with the most accomplished anglers, hunters, conservationists, and outdoor professionals in the game. Listen to every full-length Tom Rowland Podcast interview.
Jamie Howard is a filmmaker and the founder of Howard Films. His fishing documentary catalog includes Rising Tide, Chasing Silver, Location X and its sequel, Bass The Movie, Running the Coast, and Black Salmon. A former advertising creative director with work for British Airways, Adidas, and others across his New York and Los Angeles years, he now hosts the Cameras Off podcast on Spotify and Apple, an outdoor stories channel that includes the Tarpon Diaries series and is widening beyond fishing into adventure photography, wingsuit flying, and other outdoor lives.
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