'Reel Animal' Mike Anderson a media hit

Sometimes, Mike Anderson wishes he could just give it all up and go fishing.

The Apollo Beach guide admits he sometimes feels he's meeting himself coming and going, but it's the price of success.

Anderson mans the microphone for two of the Bay area's most popular fishing radio shows. He also travels all over the state with co-host Billy Nobles to film the "Reel Animals" television show, which airs on WFLA, Channel 8, and on Sun Sports stations from Los Angeles to Atlanta.

In between, he plays "soccer dad," running his youngster to athletic events, and, oh, yeah, he tries to make a living as a fishing guide. During tarpon season, Anderson spends almost 60 consecutive days on the water at Boca Grande, sometimes running two trips a day.

"It gets hectic sometimes," he said, "but really, I just think I'm blessed to have all these opportunities."

Anderson has always been a hard guy to ignore. At 6-feet-6 and 250 pounds, he looks like a recently retired NFL tight end. (He's a rabid Green Bay Packers fan, by the way.) But the key to his media success, he said, has been his interaction with long-time pal Nobles.

"Billy is a born comic. He can make anybody laugh, and I play straight-man for him part of the time," Anderson said. "One Sunday about 10 years back we were at a Bucs game with Brad James, who was the program director for 620 WDAE, and he heard us working each other over, and he suggested it might make a good framework for a fishing radio show. I knew nothing about radio and neither did Billy, but we decided, what the heck, the worst it could do was get our names out there and help our guide business. We were both struggling fishing guides at the time."

A few years later, a Miami producer passing through the Bay area heard their Sunday morning radio show, called them and suggested that a TV show with the same sort of camaraderie might work well.

"Our web guy was Mark Jump at Channel 8, and when he heard about it, he talked them into shooting a pilot," Anderson recalled. "Channel 8 liked it, and away we went."

Another break came due to an unfortunate circumstance that affected thousands of Bay area anglers.

"Mel Berman was going into the hospital for some serious surgery and he asked me to take his 970 WFLA show for the Saturday he would be out," Anderson said. "I heard just the day before that Mel had passed away. That was the hardest moment I've ever had in radio, to sit down at the microphone where Mel had been all those years on that Saturday morning and announce his loss to the community."

Anderson continued as a substitute for a short time and was asked by the WFLA management to take over full time.

"I know you never replace a guy like Captain Mel, but I'm just honored to sit in the seat he held for so long and to keep the show going in that time spot for the anglers," Anderson said.

Now, his life is a seemingly endless series of public appearances, seminars, live shows and TV tapings, and he rarely can step into a convenience store without several fishing fans recognizing him and wanting to say hello.

"One of the things that has made my shows with Billy work is that the give-and-take, the mistakes and the lost fish, it's all a lot like the average angler experiences, and we try to get it all in instead of cutting out the goofs," Anderson said.

"It's just a fun show, and that's what fishing is all about."

Anderson and Nobles usually film two TV shows a month. The shows air at 6:30 a.m. Saturdays on Channel 8, and at various times and days in Sun Sports markets.

"It's a challenge to get out there and catch enough fish to make a show, and a lot of times the weather just blows us out," Anderson said. "But we've been lucky - we've only had three trips in five years where we didn't get a show completed in a trip."

Anderson still depends on his guide business for a major part of his income, he said, and his favorite time of year is the Boca Grande tarpon run that begins right about now and runs into early July.

"It's just a circus down there. You see everybody you know, and the fishing is just off the wall," Anderson said. "It's the best tarpon fishing on the planet, right here on the west coast of Florida."