Just Do It: Nike and Drake Plunge into Fly Fishing

One of the biggest names in hip-hop and pop culture, and the biggest brand in sports apparel, are doing more than just “dipping their toes” into the fly-fishing universe. Nocta—a Nike sub-label owned by Nike and award-winning hip hop and R&B artist Drake—on Oct. 16 dove headfirst into fly-fishing waters with an entire new line of “fly-fishing-inspired urban wear.” The clothing line, designed and worn by Drake (@champagnepapi), bears the Nocta brand as well as the Nike swoosh and includes everything from khaki wading pants to jackets and vests, and hats with bright orange camo sun shields. There are fly-fishing-inspired golf shirts, T-shirts with fishing scenes from the Tetons, and denim long-sleeve insulation pieces.

As part of the product launch, Nike licensed Abel Reels of Montrose, Colorado, to produce collaborative Nocta-branded fly reels. The reels are modeled on the popular Abel Vaya series except with a different frame design with cut-outs that are reminiscent of the Nocta logo. They also have the NOCTA brand in large letters on the frame side, and the Nike swoosh logo on the drag knob. Drake and his fishing friends have some of the Nocta/Abel reels, but Nike licensed Abel to sell just 100 of them direct to consumers. The 5/6-size reels come in two colors: solid green (60 of them) and a stunning gold-green fade (40 of them). The colors match many of the colors in the clothing line. The reels are available only direct-to-consumer through abelreels.com and come with matching Nocta-branded Abel Nippers for $2,500.

"It’s rare that fly fishing gets an opportunity to connect with people outside of our own echo chamber,” said Jeff Wagner, CEO and president of Mayfly Outdoors, the parent company of Abel Reels. “We grow accustomed to talking about fly fishing with only those who fly fish and sometimes we lose sight of the opportunity to grow the fly-fishing community. This project with NOCTA and Nike was over a year in the making and we are excited about gaining exposure for fly fishing overall and hopefully bringing new people into the sport.

“Abel was the perfect canvas for the collab using our exclusive artists to hand paint the Nike logo and bring forward the Drake inspired colors. Drake is obviously a well-known artist globally, and Abel is well-known for our artwork. Coming together made sense; we are thankful we could make this work."

Nocta unveiled its new sportswear line at a 3-day event in Manhattan Oct. 8, 9, and 10 promoted as the Nocta Fly Fishing Experience. The company rented an entire parking lot at 88 Madison Street–just one block outside of the Chinatown neighborhood–and built a temporary forest refuge surrounded by trees and centered by an outdoor casting pond with a massive digital scoreboard. We’ve seen casting ponds at sportsman shows before, but this nighttime event had a light show akin to a NYC night club or a hip hop concert: a live DJ spinning hits from Drake, Nicki Minaj, and others, open bars on both sides of the casting pond, and a casting competition where a live scoreboard tallied accuracy in hitting large 1-point hoops and small 3-point hoops. Almost everyone who participated in the contest had never held a fly rod but were exuberantly cheered and applauded by the throng of hyped-up spectators.

The “host” of the casting competition portion of the event was Eeland Stribling (@blacksteveirwin) who is a fly-fishing guide and stand-up comedian from Denver. The event was open to the public, but the casting event was by invitation only. There was a participant every five minutes through the three-day event, most of them were with New York City-based media or were social media influencers who shared their “fly-fishing experience” via reels and social media stories. Participants were identified on the live scoreboard using their Instagram handles.

How the existing fly-fishing community will respond to this mainstream exposure is unknown. The event was not designed for people who already fly fish–its goal was to expose an entirely new audience to fly fishing.

Drake (Aubrey Drake Graham, born October 24, 1986), who is from Toronto, Canada, was introduced to fly fishing by his longtime friend and business partner Niko Carino (@ovoniko).

In 2020, Drake created NOCTA as a Nike sub-label. The name is a nod to Drake's “nocturnal creative process.”

Drake is one of the top-earning artists in pop history. His highest-certified single is "God's Plan," which was 15X Platinum. He has more songs that made it to the Billboard Hot 100 chart than any other artist in history (338) and has 78 top ten singles, and 13 number one hits. In 2021, Drake became second act to occupy the entire Hot 100's top five in a single week (the only other act to do that was the Beatles in 1964). He has five grammy awards and 29 Billboard Music awards. Drake is one of the top-earning entertainers of this century, is an owner of OVO Sound, and is a “global ambassador” for the Toronto Raptors.