Mike Fisher captained the Nashville Predators to the 2017 Stanley Cup Final, ten years after he reached the Final with Ottawa, and played 1,104 NHL games before retiring for good in 2018. Off the ice he had always been a hunter. After hockey, that pastime became his second career, starting with a joke at deer camp.
What is Mike Fisher doing now?
Mike Fisher went into the hunting business. He is one of the founders of Catchin’ Deers, a Nashville-area brand of humorous hunting apparel and online videos, and the Nashville Post reported in August 2019 that he owned it together with his younger brother Bud, friend Austin Casselman and partners Reid Faught and Ryan Hawkins. That year the brand signed an exclusive deal with Tractor Supply that put its hats, shirts and hoodies in more than 1,200 stores. The company was still going in March 2025, when Bud Fisher talked about it on the Outsider podcast. As of October 2026, no newer public account of Mike’s own role has been published.
| Mike Fisher: then and now | |
|---|---|
| Known for | Predators captain in the 2017 Stanley Cup Final, 2007 Final with Ottawa |
| Position | Center, shoots right |
| Born | 5 June 1980, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada |
| Drafted | 1998, second round, 44th overall, Ottawa Senators |
| NHL career | 18 seasons, 1,104 games, 278 goals, two teams |
| Last NHL season | 2017-18, Nashville Predators |
| Current role | Co-founder of Catchin’ Deers, ownership last reported August 2019 |
| Employer or business | Catchin’ Deers, Franklin, Tennessee area |
The name started as a joke. Casselman showed up at the brothers’ hunting camp asking whether they had “caught any deers”, and the following year they came back wearing foam trucker hats printed with the line. “What started out as six foam trucker hats for our friends has grown into a dynamic business,” Fisher told Wide Open Spaces in 2019. The hunting itself goes back much further. He grew up hunting in Peterborough, took up bowhunting for deer in his late teens and kept slipping into a deer stand on off days during his playing years.
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Rut Daniels, Sam Elliott and the Mike Fisher Celebrity Clay Shoot
The brand sells jokes as much as clothes. Its signature character is Rut Daniels, a fictional bowhunter whose Olympic dreams fell short and who ended up selling bows. By 2019, his clips had passed about 15 million views on social media. One of the brand’s ad campaigns was narrated by actor Sam Elliott, and in 2018 Fisher released a deer-hunting parody of a country hit.
The hunting world also became his way of staying close to the Predators. The first Catchin’ Deers Mike Fisher Celebrity Clay Shoot raised more than $75,000 for Middle Tennessee nonprofits, NHL.com reported in May 2020, and the first two editions together raised $140,000. In March 2026, the Predators handed out a bobblehead of Fisher and his wife, country singer Carrie Underwood, whom he married in 2010, as part of their Music City Hockey Bobblehead Series, the Tennessean reported.
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Mike Fisher’s Predators captaincy and two Stanley Cup Finals
Ottawa drafted Fisher in 1998 from the Sudbury Wolves, and he became a two-way centre who scored 20 or more goals six times. In his early Senators years he played alongside Marian Hossa, who went on to a very different second act. He had 10 points in 20 playoff games in 2007 as Ottawa reached the Final and lost to Anaheim.
Nashville traded for him in February 2011. When Shea Weber was traded to Montreal in the summer of 2016, the Predators gave Fisher the captaincy, and general manager David Poile called him “the perfect fit”. In spring 2017, Nashville reached the Final for the first time in franchise history and lost to Pittsburgh in six games.
Why did Mike Fisher retire twice?
Mike Fisher retired twice because one more shot at the Cup pulled him back. He first announced his retirement on 3 August 2017 in a letter to fans, calling it the hardest decision he had ever made. He had a hunting TV show that autumn, CBC reported. In late January 2018 he announced a comeback, saying the Predators were “built to win”, and played 16 regular-season games and 12 playoff games. Nashville went out in the second round, and on 12 May 2018 he retired for good.
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Mike Fisher’s NHL stats
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | P |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999-00 | Ottawa | 32 | 4 | 5 | 9 |
| 2000-01 | Ottawa | 60 | 7 | 12 | 19 |
| 2001-02 | Ottawa | 58 | 15 | 9 | 24 |
| 2002-03 | Ottawa | 74 | 18 | 20 | 38 |
| 2003-04 | Ottawa | 24 | 4 | 6 | 10 |
| 2005-06 | Ottawa | 68 | 22 | 22 | 44 |
| 2006-07 | Ottawa | 68 | 22 | 26 | 48 |
| 2007-08 | Ottawa | 79 | 23 | 24 | 47 |
| 2008-09 | Ottawa | 78 | 13 | 19 | 32 |
| 2009-10 | Ottawa | 79 | 25 | 28 | 53 |
| 2010-11 | Ottawa | 55 | 14 | 10 | 24 |
| 2010-11 | Nashville | 27 | 5 | 7 | 12 |
| 2011-12 | Nashville | 72 | 24 | 27 | 51 |
| 2012-13 | Nashville | 38 | 10 | 11 | 21 |
| 2013-14 | Nashville | 75 | 20 | 29 | 49 |
| 2014-15 | Nashville | 59 | 19 | 20 | 39 |
| 2015-16 | Nashville | 70 | 13 | 10 | 23 |
| 2016-17 | Nashville | 72 | 18 | 24 | 42 |
| 2017-18 | Nashville | 16 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Total | 1,104 | 278 | 311 | 589 |
Figures are from Hockey-Reference.
Mike Fisher played 146 NHL playoff games, and 40 of them, or 27 percent, came in the two springs that ended in a Stanley Cup Final. He played 20 games in each run, 2007 with Ottawa and 2017 with Nashville. The channels for every Preds game are in our guide to how to watch the Nashville Predators.
Is Mike Fisher Canadian?
Yes, by birth. Mike Fisher was born in Peterborough, Ontario, and Ottawa drafted him out of Canadian junior hockey. He became a United States citizen in March 2019, announcing on Instagram that he was “officially American”, NewsChannel 5 in Nashville reported.
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