The first time I saw my friend Rick cast a fly rod on a beautiful creek outside Missoula, Montana over twenty years ago, I never thought that hypnotic movement of grace, mimicry and magic would lead me to dropping a line in—of all places—Central Park, in the heart of New York City.

As I walked through the park to meet Brandon Dale, a master fly angler and hunter who is also pursuing advanced degrees in medicine and cancer research, the sky was socked in with heavy clouds, but they soon broke into dramatic sunshine. Brandon led me to a pond, known simply as “The Lake,” where we started fishing for carp. With the New York skyline glowing behind us, we found ourselves laughing nonstop, quoting hip hop lyrics and our favorite books, and screaming with joy as we landed gigantic carp. 

Meeting someone who matched my uncontainable joy on the water was a first. But an even bigger first, I realized, was that after two decades of fly fishing, I had never been out with a guide who was a Person of Color.

Over the years, I’d often been shamed for my exuberance on the water; until recently I believed this was unique to Ranga being Ranga. I’ve always loved fishing so I could feel like a part of something bigger than myself. 

But too often, fishing is hyper-competitive and hyper-critical—especially if, like me, you aren’t a white male. In my experience as a Person of Color, rigid ideas about there being a “right way” to fish have often led me to be on my guard and not fully express myself when I’m on the water.

Filming Flavor On The Fly was one step to changing all that—to discovering that my way of fishing by being wholly present to my surroundings and letting the environment influence my strategies and decisions fully aligns with the core tenets of fly fishing. And more importantly, that I wasn’t alone in how I felt and what I wanted to do.  

Creating the series, which celebrates my twin passions of cooking and fly fishing, took me to Maine, Vermont and New York. I fished for brown and brook trout made wily by surviving in these heavily pressured areas, and targeted species that were new to me, including pike, striped sea bass, smallmouth bass and perch.

Many BIPOC people who fish have been living the empowering concept of “urban fishing” for a long time, finding that even in crowded cities there are fish species that will eat a fly or lure and that it’s not necessary to escape to idyllic scenes glamorized in movies and fishing catalogs. 

Throughout my travels, I shared the stage with an incredible cast of accomplished co-stars who shared my vision to represent the BIPOC and fly angler communities, holding space for the experiences of those like me when it came to fishing, foraging and cooking. 

These included guides like Brandon Dale, but I even got to meet a few of my heroes. I spent a full day with my idol Tom Rosenbauer, giggling while casting on a tiny brook trout creek in the pouring rain and then foraging for wild mushrooms in his backyard; cooking Sri Lankan-style “softie” lobster curry with accomplished chef Cara Stadler in Maine; and grilling freshly caught Atlantic bluefish filets in a hurricane with the renowned food and fly fishing author Peter Kaminsky. All of these experiences were beyond anything I could have imagined the first day I caught a westslope cutthroat trout on a fly rod 20 years ago.

My favorite culinary moment of the trip happened at Lake Champlain catching and cooking perch for the first time. Tapping my Sri Lankan roots and the ubiquitous spicy calamari we would snack on with ice-cold Lion Lager beer, I fried up dozens of the bite-sized filets in a crispy cornmeal batter, topped them with sauteed scallions and habanero peppers from family-owned Pitchfork Farms, and then drizzled them in a Malayan-style chili butter. Chef Jordan Ware, the entire film crew and I dusted the entire plate in 5 minutes flat; the Whistle Pig cocktails lasted just a few minutes longer.

Through all these experiences, I realized that my outlier manner of engaging with the river and the fish, and my exuberance when catching fish, weren’t unique to me, but rather a common experience among other members of the BIPOC community. We shared the simple joy of being outside, being happy, and letting the world know it. When I fished Central Park with Brandon, it was the first time in my life I dropped my guard and all the coping mechanisms I had developed over a lifetime of being shamed by the status quo and felt truly free to just be me. 

My hope with Flavor On The Fly is to showcase the lesser-known fishing opportunities that exist in unexpected places, and to share the food of our cultural heritage and honor our ancestors.

Food is a reflection of our roots, and brings all walks of life together at the table.

Fishing is also a reflection of our roots, and the water also brings all walks of life together. 

So, let’s share those experiences with one another, with equality, love and respect. And laugh to our hearts’ content, bellies full, while doing so.