While some students were using their COVID-19 quarantine to catch up on sleep and the latest TikTok trends, one high school graduate turned his love of fly fishing into a marketable social media platform.
Joseph Evans, a freshman journalism major at the University of Montana, took advantage of the 2020 quarantine period to start creating video and photographic content for other companies. Photos of him fishing and using specific gear are posted on company social media accounts as well as his personal platforms.
In the last year Evans has amassed over 4,600 Instagram followers, started a YouTube channel with over 300 subscribers and created a website documenting his fly-fishing adventures.
“I’m a go-getter,” Evans said. “Being in quarantine with nothing going on, there were times where I didn’t know what to do with my time. That’s when I started to build my name to be something more than just some little Instagram kid.”
Evans said he was constantly outside during quarantine and decided to invest in a nice camera to improve his fishing pictures and start creating better videos. He would bring his camera out with him, then bring his experiences and photographs back inside using social media.
When COVID-19 hit the world and social platforms began booming, he started taking Instagram more seriously. Evans said he took his camera out every time he went fishing to build his content.
He also realized he could use his platform to begin networking and building connections with other businesses.
“I would send emails every night to different companies, seeing if I could work with them because I knew my photos were getting better,” Evans said. “It was really hard to convince a good-size company in such a small industry like fly fishing.”
Yet the hours of fishing, editing and repeating landed him connections with various brands including Kryptek, Korkers Footwear and Cortland Line. He shares his content with businesses in exchange for gear or a small monthly wage.
With COVID-19, he can now easily contact social media marketers to work together without having to reside in the same town in which a company is based.
But there were some challenges that came with building a personal brand in a modern-day public health crisis.
Evans said there was heavy competition from many other social media influencers who were also starting to build their brands during the pandemic. His content was new, but he wanted to prove he was taking this endeavor seriously.
He was outside taking photos, became more active on social media and eventually released his own website where he publishes blog-style writing and more personal information about his fly fishing journey.
“Everyone else was doing the same thing as me,” he said. “I had to be just as good and better than them.”
Evans began fly fishing with his dad when he was 9 years old and said he has always had a love for the outdoors. When he was 17, he realized he wanted to make this hobby his occupation. He credits the progress he has made in such a small industry to the initial COVID-19 shutdown one year ago.
Moving forward, Evans’s goal is to “act like quarantine and COVID-19 is happening all over again at its worst,” he said. “I want to take what I learned in quarantine to a whole ‘nother level.”
To view more of Evans’ content and read his work, check out his website at idafly.com or Instagram @idaaflyy.
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