Travis Cooper, left, Wayne Van Burger and Ty Van Burger pose in their editing room at Beaver Hill Productions outside of Coquille on Wednesday. They are producing a fly fishing television series, “The Joy of Fishing,” taking place in exotic locales like Kamchatka, Russia, and La Paz, Mexico. World Photo by Lou Sennick.

When you’re in the middle of 800,000 acres of mostly uninhabited peninsula wilderness in Eastern Russia, competing with grizzly bears for trout is dangerous business.

But whatever happened, Coquille residents Wayne Van Burger and Travis Cooper were determined to get it on film last summer. In fact, the pair, along with Wayne’s son, Ty, have captured some of the most spectacular angling in the world for their fly fishing series, “The Joy of Fishing.” The show’s a 13-part creation now nearing completion, shot on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia; La Paz, Mexico; Alaska and all over the Pacific Northwest.

It isn’t your average fishing show, though. Bass fishing on ESPN this is not. Rendered in stunning high-definition color, the program is a combination of Van Burger’s fishing and the cinematography of Cooper, a veteran photographer and video engineer whose work has appeared on the likes of the Discovery Channel and PBS.

“You take a world-class fisherman and a seasoned cinematographer,” said Cooper on Wednesday at the Beaver Hill Productions studio outside Coquille. “You put those together and you get a different kind of show.”

The irony is Cooper’s not even a fisherman himself.

“I’m a city boy,” said Cooper. “I never thought that some of my best and brightest work would be on a river filming fish.”

But on a river with fish is exactly where Van Burger wants to be — he’s a fifth-generation Oregonian practically born with a rod in his hand. Van Burger “retired” from Marshfield High School after 35 years of teaching and coaching wrestling, a career that included a National Career Educator of the year honor and an induction into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. His golden years: Fishing in Russia, fishing in Alaska, fishing in Mexico.

“I don’t know if I’d call this a retirement,” said Van Burger. “I’ve moved from one thing that I love to another. It’s just another phase of my life.”

And now “The Joy of Fishing” has become something of a family affair. Wayne Van Burger’s son, Ty, has joined the show as an associate producer and photographer in his own right, traveling to Alaska and Mexico.

“I always want to be involved and help out as much as I can,” he said. “I enjoy fly fishing... Right now I’ll probably be behind (the camera), but I might do more in front later.”

Preview footage of “The Joy of Fishing” shows Van Burger effortlessly hooking steelhead on the North Umpqua, salmon in Alaska, trout in Russia and the bizarre rooster fish in the surf of Mexico. The fishing is fun to watch, but the beautifully rendered scenery and exquisite music is just as compelling.

“The production value of the show is where it’s going to be at, there’s something there for everybody,” said Cooper. “We let them feel and experience the setting and the environment. People watching feel the way we felt, experience the colors, the fish and the people. We want them to be there with us.”

For Van Burger, the satisfaction comes from sharing his, well, joy of fishing with viewers — something that goes beyond what he calls “hook and cook,” fishing shows.

“Why do people fish? They want to go outdoors. They want to see that beauty,” he said. “Everything just melts away at that moment in time. It’s important for people to get that feeling.”

The pair has won a few Telly Awards for the show in recent years, which honor programming outside of what’s covered by the Emmys. Van Burger and Cooper also won a Telly award for another project, “Four Seasons of Steelhead,” which was an official selection for the AEG Media Fly Fishing Film Tour and the Great Falls Fly Fishing Film Festival. They were recently featured in the online magazine Catch, as well.

It’s been a long trip since the two met in 2006, as Van Burger was helping Cooper — the two are neighbors — get to and from his house-turned island during the flooding around Coquille in 2006. Now Van Burger and Cooper are finishing up work on “The Joy of Fishing,” which they hope will air in the spring of 2009 — they’re waiting to have a finished product before shopping it around.

“One of the things we were adamant about is that we maintain creative integrity and control,” said Cooper.

In the meantime, Beaver Hill Productions is taking on various commercial projects to fund things like “The Joy of Fishing,” working for Southwestern Oregon Community College, Freeman Marine, The Mill Casino-Hotel and the local tourism bureau, to name a few. 

While the business side of “The Joy of Fishing” is still being worked out, Van Burger and Cooper believe they have a world-class product that will find a home nationally and internationally.

And, added Van Burger, there’s nothing wrong with getting to travel the world to go fishing, a journey which culminated with Kamchatka Peninsula, an area the size of California with just 400,000 residents and 26,000 miles of river open for angling. Some of it had never been fished before.

“Where can you say you’ve fished in 2008, where nobody’s ever cast a fly into?” said Van Burger, adding that this didn’t feel much like work. “When you have a passion about what you do, it’s really not a job anymore. It’s your life.”