Meet the two-man show filming a conservation series between country music tour stops
When 18-year-old Ben Dunning first pointed his camera at Colby Acuff onstage, he didn’t know he was capturing the start of something much bigger. Years later, the two friends are touring the country not just to share music, but to spotlight the unsung heroes of conservation—guides, anglers and hunters who dedicate their lives to preserving the lands and waters they love. Their YouTube series, Fin & Feather, weaves together story, song and wilderness to remind us that protecting wild spaces isn’t just a cause—it’s a calling.
Dunning and Acuff met at the University of Idaho when Dunning was a freshman and Acuff was a senior. Dunning, an aspiring videographer, had just gotten his first decent camera and heard Acuff, then an aspiring singer-songwriter, was playing a gig at a local coffee shop. Eager to try his hand at filming live music, Dunning approached him and asked if he could shoot his show for free.
“Colby said, ‘Well, how would you do it for 50 bucks?’ And at that point, that was the highest-paying job that I had landed with my camera,” recalls Dunning.
Years later, Acuff graduated from college and, also a lifelong angler, became a fly-fishing guide to supplement his dreams of becoming a country musician. In 2023, his music career finally took off: he signed with Sony Music Nashville, debuted at the iconic Grand Ole Opry, and toured the U.S. with some of country music’s most popular artists. And who did he call to shoot his concerts? Ben Dunning, who had been busy carving a successful path of his own in action-sports cinematography.
Where story meets stewardship
Fast forward to a late-night conversation at an Airbnb in Vancouver, where the two friends were discussing career dreams after a show. “Colby asked me what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” says Dunning. He responded with a simple answer: “I want to be a filmmaker.” Specifically, he wanted to make films that left behind a legacy while invoking emotion. Not Instagram Reels set to trending audio, but poignant, creative films that would outlive him.
“And Colby looked at me and said—I’ll never forget it—‘Dude, you are already a filmmaker,’” recalls Dunning. And then: “‘Now, let’s make a film.’”
And that’s how Fin & Feather was born. The two got to work on a passion project that would highlight their shared adoration for the outdoors. In between playing and filming shows on Acuff’s 2025 tour, the duo would head outside to fish, hunt and spotlight local guides who are doing the work to protect wild places. Each 10-minute episode is filmed wherever the tour bus stops, creating a raw, moving portrait of the American outdoors.
But this isn’t your typical high-octane, hot-blooded “fish porn.” Both Acuff and Dunning emphasize that the series isn’t about catching trophy fish—it’s about highlighting the real stories of our lands and waters and the people who know them intimately. It’s about the connection to America’s wild places and inspiring a responsible, regenerative relationship with the resource.
“This is not a big fish show,” says Acuff. “[Most creators] are like, ‘I put a big fish in the boat and I get a lot of views.’ But it just can’t be about that.”
Instead, the first half of each episode focuses on the individuals behind the adventure, while the second half immerses viewers in action-packed fishing and hunting footage, highlighting the importance of conserving these special places for future generations. And it’s filmed and edited entirely by Dunning. There’s no glitzy production crew, no crew of chase boats, no big-budget screenplay. Nothing is scripted (aside from the standardized set of interview questions they ask their guides). The duo simply shows up, interviews the local outfitters about their experience, and then hits the boat or the duck blind together.
“I want the guides and the outfitters that we’re featuring—the experts on the place that we’re at—to be the main characters,” says Acuff. “I want them to tell their story of their resource.”
The real trophy: a healthy resource
The first episode of Fin & Feather dropped on YouTube in late June, kicking off a rolling cadence of new episodes shot throughout the season. The premiere takes place on Arkansas’s iconic White River, where Acuff joins local guides to chase trout and dig into conservation concerns facing the river today, like water management, fishing pressure and catch-and-keep regulations. It’s loaded with videos of stunning, hard-fighting browns and rainbows that would make any serious angler dream about booking a trip. But more beautiful than these fish is the message, one that transcends all videos in the series, regardless of the species: stewardship matters, especially as sports like fly fishing continue to grow in popularity.
To Acuff, this means not just getting out there for the biggest catch, but really learning the sport, like knowing how to properly handle fish so that they swim back strong, or understanding how river conditions impact trout health.
“If you want the knowledge, the stewardship will come very easily,” he says. “There’s a romance to it. There’s an art to being a steward, and a lot of it comes with some kind of self-awareness and some discipline.”
Dunning agrees and hopes the series will act as a steward in and of itself: “If we can bring in a population of people that care deeply about the resource, then we’re actually doing it a favor,” he adds. “If [Fin & Feather] can help people adjust their ‘why’… I think it can make a really big difference.”
Through Fin & Feather, the duo has built a platform for stewardship, one that invites us all to care a little deeper and give a little more back to the places we love. In a world obsessed with the next big catch, they remind us that the real legacy isn’t the fish—it’s the way we choose to protect the waters they call home.