Boulder – Kelsey Crandall was minding her own business on Pearl Street Mall on Thursday afternoon when she was suddenly whisked off to an all-expense-paid, deep-sea fishing trip to Costa Rica.
This is no fish story, but it will be when she returns Monday evening. Crandall was selected to be a participant on a reality TV series called “Wanna Go Fishing?” that will debut in January on ESPN2. The show’s producers and host arrived in Colorado on Thursday afternoon to find one person who would agree to go on the four-day trip and leave on the spot.
With TV cameras rolling, Crandall, an assistant manager at a retail store, was given five minutes to decide and make arrangements to take off work, then given about 20 more minutes to go home and pack.
“I thought it was a joke,” said Crandall, 23, who has fished on only a few occasions. “I was supposed to work, go snowboarding, go to a friend’s birthday party and get a haircut this weekend. But oh, well.”
Instead, she’ll spend two days fishing for sailfish, blue marlin and roosterfish from a chartered 31-foot boat and stay at a resort near Jaco, Costa Rica, while being filmed for the show. That will help make up for a hard week, during which Crandall lost her paycheck and overdrew her checking account.
It took show host Matt Eastman nearly three hours to find a willing subject. He stopped people on the mall and asked a few questions, hoping to find a good fit. The first seven people he asked turned him down, because they didn’t have a passport or because of another commitment. Finally, he encountered Crandall, who had walked out of her store to throw out a cup of tea someone had left behind.
“I thought we would have had someone in a half an hour,” Eastman said.
Crandall, Eastman, producer Rich Christensen and cameraman Michael Butler spent Thursday night at a Denver hotel. They will fly to Costa Rica this morning.
“I didn’t know if I should believe her or not,” said roommate Moran Johnston, 25. “When she called me to pick her up, I thought she was pranking me.”
