TV show explores Fall River's great outdoors, from hiking to sailing. Here's how to watch.

FALL RIVER — A hard day at the office for Tom Richardson meant hanging out on the Taunton River catching 36-inch striped bass, then heading to lunch at Pier 52 on the waterfront.

When you run a travel and outdoor leisure TV show, other people's fun time is your work time.

Richardson, who lives in Mattapoisett, is the host and executive producer of Explore New England, a TV series that spotlights outdoor activities and the people enjoy them across the region. He and filmmaker A.J. DaRosa were in Fall River last week enjoying a side of the city many people aren’t familiar with, and creating an episode that will appear in Season 4 of the show.

“Fifty percent of Fall River is water and woods," Richardson said. "People don’t associate that with Fall River."

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Fun on the trails and waters of Fall River

Richardson and DaRosa spent two days gathering footage for the episode and playing in the outdoors. They started with a mountain bike ride through the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve led by John Tomawski of the Southcoast chapter of the New England Mountain Bike Association. The 16,000-acre bioreserve has miles of trails and fire roads that attract riders of multiple skill levels — the popular mountain biking site Trailforks.com has nearly 250 trails marked by riders, from easy rides to technical black-diamond trails.

“He took me up to Copicut Hill, and we biked down that, and I didn’t kill myself, which was great," Richardson joked. He said they also talked about the bioreserve as a hiking destination; its reputation has grown in recent years thanks to partnerships with the Appalachian Mountain Club and the Trustees of Reservations, and the opening of more marked nature trails.

After some biking, Richardson went kayaking on the South Watuppa Pond with city forester Michael Labossiere, speaking with him about the site as a destination for paddlers and fishermen.

“We flew the drone, got some amazing shots of us kayaking right next to the highway," Richardson said. “It’s pretty cool that you can be that close to an urban center and get away from it.”

Earlier on Tuesday, he and DaRosa spent some time on the Taunton River, fishing for stripers — and getting some tips from locals when they struggled to land a few. Over by the Brightman Street Bridge, a few friendly fishermen had a few bass tracked on their depth-sounder and called Richardson and DaRosa over.

“And within 10 minutes of putting the baits in the water, we had our first fish,” Richardson said. “We caught up to 35, 36 inches. Really nice, solid, big stripers that people travel all over the world to go catch. Just right up here.”

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Spotlight on Fall River's sailing program

Explore New England spotlights not just the activities but the local people who make those activities happen. A segment filmed for the show interviewed Chris Nardi, who runs Greater Fall River Re-Creation's sailing instruction program at Heritage State Park.

“When you come to this destination, here’s how you can appreciate it through outdoor activities like mountain biking, fishing, sailing," Richardson said. “Then we focus in on cool stories like … getting city kids out on the water, giving them an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors that are right in their backyard.”

Meeting people like Nardi and those fishermen is part of the fun of producing Explore New England, Richardson said, and sharing their stories. He has a print journalism background, but said his goal in producing the TV show is the same: “Telling a compelling story is what it’s all about.”

When will Fall River's episode of Explore New England air?

Explore New England is producing its fourth season, which will air first on NESN sometime in October. Richardson said the season airs for 26 weeks through March, during which time each episode airs eight times. Explore New England also has channels on Roku and YouTube, where past episodes are available to watch for free.

Segments from episodes are later taken and repurposed with additional unaired footage to create further documentary short films focused around specific activities, Richardson said, so viewers can likely expect to see some Fall River footage used that way, too.

The episodes have an inspirational, feel-good tone meant to motivate people into exploring new places, while making people “aware of the environment and your impacts on it, without being overly political about it,” Richardson said. “To instill in people a sense of the wonder of it and respect for it.”

But the show is also about turning the spotlight on people making a positive difference.

"The people you meet are so cool,” Richardson said. “We do a lot of profiles of the people that we meet who are passionate about the outdoors, who love it, who know it the best. So the show’s really about them. It's not about me.”

Dan Medeiros can be reached at dmedeiros@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Explore New England TV show: Fall River hiking, fishing, kayaking fun