Mike Wier with a Hucho Taimen, the largest trout on earth, he caught in Khovsgul Provence of Northern Mongolia. Wier spends his time making movies about his two passions in life - fly fishing and snowboarding. Photo by: Courtesy to the Ledger Dispatch Wier has been a professional snowboarder for almost a decade. Photo by: Courtesy to the Ledger Dispatch

Growing up, Mikey Wier always heard the call of the wild. Rugged landscapes, fresh air, the cool rush of losing himself in the untamed spaces of the world: these were the best points of life. Now, with the film "Soul Fish" beginning production, audiences will soon learn how Amador County's only professional snowboarder found himself stalking the dim reaches of outer Mongolia, chasing a monster called the Hucho Taimen - a.k.a., the largest trout on earth.

When Wier graduated from Amador High School in 1995, he knew that he was headed for a life less ordinary. "I was always enamored by the mountains, things like clear mountain streams," he recalled. "So I moved to Lake Tahoe and became a snowboard instructor."

One day, Wier was flying through the blistering air on his snowboard when a stranger took notice of him. "He was a representative for Austen Snowboards," Wier said. "He offered me a great endorsement deal with his company."

Wier became a fully sponsored snowboarder. He quickly made a national pro-team, landing a contract to appear in snowboarding videos. "I was a real fan of how exciting snowboarding videos were," Wier explained, "partly because snowboarding can be a creative medium. You can pick a line down the mountain and it's like an empty canvas. It's artistic - you can express yourself in the way you ride."

Wier's electrifying snow-stunts were gracing magazine covers across the country, but he still had time to kill. A life-long fly-fisherman, Wier started working as a fishing guide in the Sierras during the months when he couldn't snowboard. "I liked helping people connect with nature," Wier said looking back. "For clients who really understood that side of it, fly-fishing became a passion."

The two main passions in Wier's own life suddenly intersected in 2001. "I just started thinking about everything I admired about snowboarding videos and how there wasn't any quality entertainment like that for people who loved to fish. All the fly-fishing videos I'd seen were dry, instructional and pretty boring. People watched them once for technical knowledge and then the films were obsolete because they're tedious to sit through. I said, 'There needs to be fly-fishing movies that have real adventure, something more entertainment-oriented, like a sports highlight reel.'"

That was the beginning of Wier's business, "Fish Eye Videos." In his first movie, "Fish Eye 1," Wier went gallivanting through the Sierras, filming the same cutting-edge intensity and raucous fun he'd learned to market in his snowboarding videos. Wier sold the movie to his clients around Lake Tahoe and it eventually gained a fan base. By the time Wier completed his second video, he realized that he was creating a new niche in the outdoor sporting industry.

A 2003 fishing trip to Africa convinced Wier it was time to bring his film-making to the next level. "Because of the popularity of my local videos, I thought I could do something overseas that would appeal to an even broader audience," said Wier, who proceeded to spend the next four months filming himself and some friends traveling across Patagonia. The result was "The Trout Bum Diaries," which became a smash hit and the most popular fly-fishing movie since Robert Redford's "A River Runs Through It."

But Wier had much bigger plans - global plans. "The new movie I'm working on, 'Soul Fish,' will be the ultimate adventure of fly-fishing," Wier said. "I'm taking my viewers on a visual odyssey throughout the world." This epic journey brought Wier to the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, Christmas Island in the south Pacific, the post-Katrina bayous of New Orleans, the Florida Keys and the northern steps of Mongolia.

"Mongolia was like a trip back in time," Wier said. "It's so underdeveloped that it's like seeing the American frontier 300 years ago."

While tramping through this harsh, forgotten landscape, Wier came face to face with the Hucho Taimen, a trout species that gets up to 200 pounds and six feet long. "They're incredible creatures," Wier said. "Each one has a life, a soul and a personality. It's sobering."

Wier's affinity for the Hucho Taimen is something he shares with all wildlife: "I only do catch-and-release fishing, both in my movies and as a tour guide. There's an incredible diversity of life in these remote places, which is being threatened now, and over-fishing in general is going to be a factor that affects the world in the coming decades. The mission statement for my business is to inspire, entertain and educate - inspire people to go outdoors and interact with nature, entertain them with some great scenery and fish jumping to good music and to educate them about wildlife conservation."

Wier smiled and added, "I also hope they'll realize that being outside by a beautiful waterfall is a good way to spend the day."