Capt. Greg Dini: From Minor League Baseball to Full-Time Fishing Guide

Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 330 with Capt. Greg Dini.

Capt. Greg Dini: I think, you know, no matter whether it's redfish, whether it's tarpon, bonefish, whatever the species is, they're creatures of habit for the most part. And if, say, you're redfishing in Florida, incorporate some of those things that help you look for redfish in Florida and other locations. But I think the biggest mistake people make is they go to a spot, and if I've got three spots and those spots aren't working, well, my day is done. You've got to realize that most fisheries aren't just spot fisheries.

Capt. Greg Dini: You've got to understand the conditions that each one of those individual spots will thrive off of. I'm Captain Greg Dini, and welcome to the Tom Rowland Podcast.

Welcome and Where Greg Is Today

Tom Rowland: Greg, what's going on, man? How are you doing?

Capt. Greg Dini: Doing pretty good, Tom. Appreciate you having me, man.

Tom Rowland: Right on. Where are you today?

Capt. Greg Dini: I'm in Apalachicola, Florida. Just got off the water from a day of tarpon fishing, and I'm back at the condo looking over the bay. Yeah, man, it's been a good summer so far.

Tom Rowland: Very good. You got afternoon thunderstorms up there?

Capt. Greg Dini: No. I just got back in town. I spent a couple days back at home in New Orleans, and it sounded like they had a bunch of rain when I was gone. But right now, it's beautiful. Sunshine out. It's just been getting hot in the afternoon, so the fish haven't been swimming as good in the afternoon as they have the first half of the day.

Tom Rowland: Gotcha. So you kind of move around a little bit, right? You're fishing Louisiana, you're fishing Florida, fishing Apalachicola and down. How does your year break up?

Capt. Greg Dini: Right now, I run a full-time guide service out of New Orleans. I'm there pretty much from August through March, and then I do the Keys April and May. And then I get here actually in June after I get done with the Gold Cup. I fish here in June in Apalachicola through pretty much July, and then I head back home and repeat the process. So that's essentially my schedule right now. I'm all over the place and trying to find a little bit better schedule to spend some more time with the family. But right now, that's what's driving the business, and I've got to stick with it.

From Orlando and College Baseball to Guiding

Tom Rowland: I gotcha. So no one launches into the business and just starts fishing in all those different places and doing it effectively. So how did that happen for you? What was the evolution of your wide range?

Capt. Greg Dini: The evolution of it all pretty much started, I grew up in Orlando. Grew up tarpon fishing from the Keys up to Boca Grande, Tampa. Did a little bit in Homosassa, so I grew up doing the tarpon thing. And I was fortunate enough to play college sports growing up, so I played college baseball, went to Miami, had a high scholarship, played there for two years, and then transferred to Tulane. Tulane brought me to New Orleans, which is where I started redfishing. And I got the opportunity to go play minor league baseball for four years. When I was done doing that, I moved back to New Orleans to finish up my degree, and that's when I started guiding in New Orleans. Got my captain's license, started guiding through the fly shop for a couple years, and that's how it all started, doing the full-time thing there in New Orleans for the redfish. And obviously, growing up doing the tarpon thing, the closest place to tarpon fish was the Panhandle. Started doing it pretty much there, and then started working down in the Keys earlier in the spring.

Tom Rowland: What was it like to say goodbye to baseball?

Capt. Greg Dini: You know what? It was easy to say goodbye to minor league baseball.

Tom Rowland: Is that not fun? I mean, is that like the movies? You see all these movies about the minor leagues. It's just like a mishmash of either people that are trying to make it up or people that are on their way down, and it's kind of this no man's land. What was it like for you?

Capt. Greg Dini: Minor league baseball to me was work. It's long bus rides, very little pay, but you're still playing the game you love. So that's what kind of keeps you in it. And when you get to that level, I feel like every player's got the opportunity to be a big leaguer. It's just catching the right breaks, being with the right organization. I got myself in a position where I was with the Angels, and we had a great catching core in our organization, which is the position that I played. And I got to a point in my career where I either had to get with another organization or I had to move on. And I decided to move on. I was getting ready to get married that fall, and that's how I left the game. But I still stay involved. My son is now eight years old, and he's starting to get into baseball, playing a little bit of travel ball. So I'm being dad-coach a little bit, but allowing a lot of the other dads to do it. Because I know one way to play the game, and I think at an early age, you gotta let your kids just have fun and be dad for them, and that's kind of where I'm at right now.

Coaching Your Own Kids and Keeping Sports Fun

Tom Rowland: That's kind of a hard lesson to learn as a parent. Like when to step in on something that you really know something about. For me, it was wrestling. My kids, they needed a wrestling coach, and it was time to step in and kind of be that coach. But it's hard to coach your kids. It's hard to push because you can easily push them away from the one thing that you're trying to introduce them to.

Capt. Greg Dini: Exactly. My wife gets on me all the time. She's like, I think you should get more involved. Colton needs you there. He wants you to coach him. And I'm like, look, I know one way to play, and that's how I would coach. And at this age, he just needs to have the right coaches in place that will teach him the proper way to play the game. I don't feel like it's my position to do that right now. Maybe when he gets older, but like you said, I don't wanna push him away from the game that he loves, that I love, and ruin it for him. I'll kind of let him pave his own path, and maybe later in his career, I'll get more involved.

Tom Rowland: Man, that's wise. I'm telling you. How many kids do you have?

Capt. Greg Dini: I got three. So I got my son who just turned eight in May, and I got two little girls, five and three. So we've got a full household.

Tom Rowland: Nice. I'm the opposite. I have two boys and then a younger girl. So luckily, I learned a few lessons before my girl comes up.

Capt. Greg Dini: Well, good that we got boys, because that's a lifetime worth of hall passes for the dad.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, for the most part. I got to go to Christmas Island with my boys when I graduated high school. That was where we wanted to go, and that was a nice hall pass for sure.

Capt. Greg Dini: Awesome.

Knowing One Way to Play: Grit and Balance

Tom Rowland: You said twice that you only know one way to play the game, and I'm assuming that that is to play to win. But what do you mean when you say that?

Capt. Greg Dini: It's like you said, it's play to win. You play hard. You do things that you kind of take into everyday life, whether it's sports, your career, good life lessons that you wanna teach your kid. But it's hard-nosed, gritty, getting involved in everything, and doing everything you can to win the game. Not in a cheating standpoint, but just hard-nosed baseball. That's how I was taught, and that's how I played the game. And that's what got me to where I was at in a baseball career.

Tom Rowland: And that's not necessarily always fun.

Capt. Greg Dini: No. I mean, the amount of hours you gotta put into it, as I'm sure you know from a wrestling standpoint, requires a lot of time, a lot of effort. And I think at an early age in your kids' careers, you just want them to be more well-rounded, play multiple sports, not just be into one thing, spending all their time playing one sport. I think it keeps them more well-rounded. Growing up, I did play multiple sports, but once I got to, I think, my sophomore year in high school, that was when I knew baseball's gonna be my thing. And it was a year-round thing at that age. Even from like 10 years old, it was a year-round thing. And I just don't want my son to get burnt out.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Nowadays, they push kids at a very young age that soccer's your sport, baseball's your sport, wrestling's your sport, whatever it is. And I see that the overall athleticism seems to be kind of going down in kids. They're very, very good at something. But if they're very, very good at tennis, maybe they've never done any gymnastics. They can't do a forward roll. They're 17 years old, and they've never done a forward roll in their entire life. I don't think that's necessarily good. It's producing some very good athletes and some very good specialized players, but I don't know.

Capt. Greg Dini: I think the parents get to a point where sometimes they want it more than the kids.

Tom Rowland: Do you think so? Really?

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah. I think they push a lot of kids who could potentially have a lot of potential in the future out of the sports they may be great at, just from overplaying them.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Capt. Greg Dini: Which is unfortunate, but that's what I try to avoid.

Tom Rowland: Oftentimes, those are the parents that didn't quite make it themselves, and they're pushing so hard to live vicariously through their kids.

Capt. Greg Dini: Absolutely.

Tom Rowland: And sometimes it works. Sometimes they get that magic formula of just enough push and just enough working hard that it works great. And you see some kids just really thrive like that, but then you see many more just kind of peter out. Burn out.

Starting a Guide Service in New Orleans

Tom Rowland: So you started guiding when you were at Tulane, is that right?

Capt. Greg Dini: So right when I started fishing in New Orleans when I was at Tulane, I bought a little 12-foot aluminum john boat from, I think, Lowe's.

Tom Rowland: Really?

Capt. Greg Dini: My dad helped me out with an eight-horsepower kicker, and I'd throw that thing in the back of the truck before practice. I'd drag a buddy out there with me, and we'd go fish the marsh. And a lot of times I was late to practice. I'd get in trouble from being late to practice because I was out fishing. But that's how I got started fishing in New Orleans. And then I went off, played pro ball after Tulane for four years, and then I moved back, I think in January 2009, and that's when I started the guide service.

Tom Rowland: Did you know kind of as you were saying goodbye to baseball that guiding was your next step, or did that just come to you?

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah, it kind of fell into my lap. I actually had a coaching job lined up after pro ball to come back and coach at Tulane. And when I was finishing up my degree, I decided to get my captain's license and start guiding part-time because I couldn't get the coaching job until I finished my degree. So I got my captain's license, started guiding part-time through the fly shop, and it literally took off from there. So it wasn't coaching. It was just gonna be my other passion, which is fishing. I grew up fishing my entire life on the coast of Florida, and it's been great.

Tom Rowland: So when things take off for somebody like that, there's usually more to it. When you started guiding in that area, were you fly fishing right away or just any kind of fishing? What were you doing?

Capt. Greg Dini: I would take any kind of fishing. Mostly, it was all sight fishing, what I started off doing. Working part-time through a fly shop, it started off mostly fly. I had a lot of friends growing up that were in the industry, that had contacts with a lot of people that would help out from a marketing standpoint, and I got those guys to come over, do some stories on the fishery, film with some guys to do some marketing content. And I got my marketing degree from Tulane, so that helped me out tremendously getting into my career. And just the drive. Between that and the passion of what I do, I think that's what kind of got me started and got me on the right path.

Tom Rowland: Do you think a lot of that drive comes from your athletic background? Did you apply a lot of the same principles?

Capt. Greg Dini: I 100% agree. I've always been taught if you're gonna go in, go in 100, 150%, and that's what I did. Did the website, did the marketing, got the boat, spent all the time on the water like you should do before you start taking clients out, and just learned the fishery as best I could. And I've been learning ever since. You learn every day. That's what always keeps it interesting.

Patience, Relationships, and the Guide's Mindset

Tom Rowland: So when I was doing my homework on you, I looked up your website and read it. And there was a paragraph on there that said that you had been yelled at by guides around the world and that you were gonna make sure that that never happened on the bow of your boat, which I found kind of interesting.

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah. So we certainly try to do that. Obviously, being a competitive athlete, sometimes guides earlier in their career want it more for the angler than the angler wants it. And I think as a guide, you quickly realize that you've got to adjust to the person on the front of your boat. Some guys respond well to the guide being stern with them, and some guys don't. And you as the guide need to realize who that is on the front of your boat. And I tell you what, having three kids has certainly taught me a lot more patience over the last eight years. It's been great from a guiding standpoint to have that patience and understand that not everyone's out there every day. Not everyone gets to see what we see every day. They don't understand the pace like we do. They don't see the fish always as well as we do. But being a catcher and having everything in front of me on the baseball field is very similar to being the guide on the back of the boat. You've got everything in front of you. And essentially, you've got to teach that angler into the fish or coach that angler into the fish, which for me a lot of times is great. And that's the part that I enjoy about it.

Tom Rowland: It's funny because you just almost did it for me, but I had a couple of questions there written down for you. One of them was, how do you use fishing and parenting, or how do you see the similarities or differences? And that was a perfect segue because you brought it in. And one is patience. Being a parent is going to teach you a lot of patience, but being a fishing guide also is teaching tremendous amounts of patience and discipline in your emotions. There's so many guys, and some of the best ones, want it so bad for the angler, and then they get emotional, and it just comes out in a way that it doesn't sit well with the angler. And you can see that pair break up. But it all comes from a good place. And then as a parent, there's so many situations where it's the same. But which one do you think that you rely on more? Do you think you rely on your guiding and applying that as a parent? Or do you think that you're learning more as a parent and then applying that on the boat?

Capt. Greg Dini: That's a great question. I think it's a combination of the two. I don't think it's one or the other. I think they coincide together. Obviously, you've got to excel in your guiding skills and incorporate what you learn as a parent equally into your day-to-day guiding routine and how you handle clients. I think your guiding on the front end gets you to where you are. But over time and understanding patience with your anglers, I think that gets you to that next level of your guiding career and creates a lot of those long-lasting relationships that a lot of the better guides have. And when you've created those long-lasting relationships, that's when things really start to gel on the boat between the angler and the guide. And I think that's kind of gotten me to that next level.

Tom Rowland: There are definitely levels like that. At first, you're a guide struggling for whatever trip you can get. You're happy to have it. And then later on, it's almost like you're saying no to people more so than you're saying yes because you have your stable of guides. And in my guide career, it started to become every year there were less people. More days, less people. And that is exactly when things really start happening, because now the people that you're fishing with, they understand, okay, we're together because I know that you're doing the very best you possibly can for me, and I'm gonna do the very best I possibly can for you. And there are gonna be some days where it doesn't happen. And there's gonna be days when we're gonna explore instead of going out and just hammering them. But that's a good pair.

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah. My guys at this point, they love it, because we may have a great morning, and I'll say, hey, let's go look at something new that I've never looked at. And when you do figure something out together, they feel like they're part of it, which guys love.

Reading Conditions Over Spots

Tom Rowland: Do you think that when you do that and you go out and find something new that you've never looked at on that first day, how many times has that been the best you've ever seen that spot?

Capt. Greg Dini: I've seen it like that, but I've also gone and looked for new stuff where it's like, you know at some point this should work. And I think a lot of guys will do that, and maybe it doesn't happen the first time. But if you've got that intuition that you're looking at something similar to something else that does work, don't just give it one chance. Give it multiple opportunities to work. But I would say that sometimes that first time that you do go to look at it, it's like, damn, this thing, it's exactly what it should be. It's jamming. And then from there, it's like, let's be meticulous and figure out exactly why and exactly when the spot works best.

Tom Rowland: And so when you're talking to newer guides and anglers that are maybe moving into a new area, you're seeing those places, and they are very similar to another place, but it's just not all coming together for you. What would you suggest for people, like to come there on a slightly different tide, on a slightly different wind direction? You gotta just keep checking it all the time. If it looks like it's gonna happen, it probably will sometime. But you just gotta keep putting in the hours.

Capt. Greg Dini: I think no matter whether it's redfish, whether it's tarpon, bonefish, whatever the species is, they're creatures of habit for the most part. And if you're redfishing in Florida, incorporate some of those things that help you look for redfish in Florida and other locations. For the most part, they're gonna be somewhat similar. Understanding patterns of tarpon and understanding that they swim edges and in certain situations they move in and out with tides depending on where they're at. But I think the biggest mistake people make is they go to a spot, and if I've got three spots and those spots aren't working, well, my day is done. And you've got to realize that most fisheries aren't just spot fisheries. You've got to understand the conditions that each one of those individual spots will thrive off of, and have plan A, B, C, D, E, F, G. That way, if the first couple spots aren't working, you've got multiple opportunities to have a successful day. But it's not so much spot. It's understanding the conditions that make that spot work.

Keeping Notes vs. Fishing by Feel

Tom Rowland: At this stage of your career, are you still keeping any sort of a written journal, or do you just kind of keep it in your head? How do you organize all that information that you just went through?

Capt. Greg Dini: I wish I would keep a journal. That's one mistake that I have probably made. And I may end up doing it at some point, but I feel like if you stay too much by the book, that can deter you from doing new things and trying to figure out new areas. So I don't wanna be just so by the book, even though that could help you. In the future, I feel like I can keep those things in my head and go back to them when I need them, but I don't wanna be so by the book that I'm routine-oriented every single day.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, I hear you there. And I always felt like it was so important to kind of go by feel, but also to keep some notes of something, because you're fishing in so many different places for so many different fish, and you're obviously doing a really good job at it. You're learning, like you said, every single day. And sooner or later, some of that information and some of those things are escaping. Like you take it for granted. Oh yeah, that happens over there, but I hadn't thought about that spot. You ever get out there and you're just like, oh, wow, I hadn't been here in years. Remember when we used to do this and we used to come here? And then you go there, and sure enough, that's happening again. But for whatever reason, you just got off of that pattern, off of that routine, and now you haven't done it for years, and you go back and there it is. It's still happening.

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah. I do think there's definitely stuff that we forget as guides just because we see so much day in and day out, and our minds are constantly working. What's the next best thing that we can figure out? And I do think it's smart to keep notes, and that's something that I probably will do in the future. But like I said, I'm always trying to find the next new best thing, new best spot, new best area, and I just didn't want to be so by the book.

Tom Rowland: I find it to be very hard. You're fishing all day. You've got a family. Where does this time for journaling come in? And then what is the critical data? That's what I got down to. It's like, what's the critical data? And I used to take those old Florida Sportsman tide books that had the wave of the tide. And I would just, it was about this stage of the tide, and I just put a little mark there, and I put bonefish, whatever the key was. And I could kind of remember that. But it was like somebody told me one time, Simon Becker told me, all you gotta know is what time you saw the fish on what day, and then you can go back and look at the tide book. So the critical information is what time and where you were. And then you can go back and recreate that by looking at the tides and all that stuff, and you can figure out exactly what it is. And so that's where I started going, is what is the minimum amount of data that I could write down that would allow for me to take some sort of a note on this or recreate this in some way, shape, or form? But it's discipline, man. I was never disciplined enough. Even that amount of time, with a family and full schedules and getting ready for the next day and washing the boat, I should be writing it down.

Capt. Greg Dini: It's tough. But you gotta juggle your schedule, just like juggling classes, going to school, and playing sports. It's always a constant battle. But if you're driven and you're passionate about it, you find a way.

Balancing Guiding, Photography, and Videography

Tom Rowland: So one of the things I find interesting about you and your career and where you are as a guide and angler is that you're an angler, you're a guide, you're a photographer, you're a videographer, you're an outfitter, and I just kind of wonder how you balance all of those things. Each one of those is a different discipline in my opinion.

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah. I would say it's all gonna start with your career, as far as you've got to be passionate about what you're doing day in and day out from a career standpoint, how you're gonna pay your bills and take care of your family and support your family. I think that's goal number one when it comes to that grouping of items. I think once you get to that level in your career, being able to expand on what you wanna do with your career, i.e. photography, videography, how you wanna express the way you see a day of fishing through a camera screen or through a lens. I think that shows people who may not be able to be on the boat with you every day how you see it through your eyes, how you're creative with it. And it also helps from a marketing standpoint. If you can be well-rounded from a guiding standpoint, from a photography standpoint, getting in and doing some motion content, I think that's kind of the direction that a lot of these new guides are going. And as someone that's been in it for more than ten years now, I think you gotta try and stay ahead of the curve. And I've had some guys in front of me that have built their careers off that. And you use them as people that help pave the way, you being one of them. I grew up watching the Jamie Howard Chasing Silver films and got very interested in those things. And that's kind of what sparked my passion for what I do. I look up to people like yourself and friends like David Mangum who've been doing it for a long time. We do a lot of the same stuff with photography and videography, and it's just a great way to express your day on the water. And I enjoy it.

Tom Rowland: Well, it tells your story just like you say. Sometimes you can talk to somebody on the phone, and it's hard to get across what is happening out there that gets you so excited. And then if you've got this video of those giant redfish like you do coming and eating those flies and chasing after them real slow and then missing them and then getting them again, that is really incredible footage. But one of the things that is interesting to me, and I ask a lot of people this, is if you're gonna be a fisherman, you're gonna be on the bow. There's one mindset for that. If you're gonna be a guide, there's a mindset for that. You're not about catching the fish. Me catching a fish has nothing to do with today. It's all about me communicating with this person on the front of the boat and showing them the best possible time that I can. So that's your mindset going in. How do you see that mindset changing when you decide that today's the day you're gonna get this motion content, or today's the day when you're gonna get the photography? Or do you try to do that all at the same time? I mean, it is possible.

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah. Well, you have to. In some instances, what I try to do is I try to make it a point to bring my camera on the boat every single day. And if you don't, a lot of times you miss the best stuff. So it doesn't really matter who you've got on the front of the boat. A lot of times, I'll try to set it up to where I've got a guy that's been on the boat with me plenty of times before, and he understands that that's part of what I like to do. And there's been plenty of instances where we've had a thousand redfish out in front of the boat, and I'll say, hey, they're not going anywhere. Give me a couple minutes, just let me film them. Let me film them in their element. You're gonna get your fish. You're gonna get your shots. Let's do some cool stuff. And a lot of times, I forward a lot of that content on to them. That way, they can show their kids or their family or their buddies. Same thing with photos. Guy hooks up on a tarpon. Most of the time, the first thing I'm doing is I'm going into my bag and I'm grabbing my camera, and I wanna document it. I wanna capture it for them, for myself, from a marketing standpoint. I provide a lot of content to a lot of the companies that I'm involved with. And it's just a great way to show that vision through your eyes.

Shooting Tarpon and Getting Creative With Light

Tom Rowland: Absolutely. So when you're thinking about getting some tarpon footage, it's tarpon season right now. I used to have the camera slung over my shoulder, poling on one side, camera on the other. And it's a good way to fall off and ruin all of your equipment at the same time. But sometimes it actually works, and you can get a good photo with the push-pole between your legs. What lens do you like for that? If you're gonna be standing on the tower, you're gonna be lucky to get a good shot, but it can happen.

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah. I would say my go-to tarpon lens is a 70 to 200. Something that's got decent mid-range in the 70 millimeter, but can also get out and touch the fish a little bit further out. Most of my photos aren't from the poling platform though. I'll pole to the fish. We'll hook up. You know, tarpon fishing, you hook up, get on the motor, you chase them down, get on the fish. And most of the good shots are middle to late in the fight when that fish is jumping close to the boat. You're running the boat, running up to the bow behind the angler trying to get the good shot. That's how a lot of that stuff is done. There are some situations where I am trying to shoot motion, where I've gotta put the boat on anchor, and I'm trying to get that real close-up eat or jump or whatever. But most of that stuff's middle to end of the fight, telling your guy, hey, pull on the fish hard. Try and get him up in the water column. Try to get him to jump. That's where a lot of that stuff's taken.

Tom Rowland: And as you get better and better at both guiding and photography and videography, now you're trying to get it to happen in a certain spot at a certain time when the light's a certain way. Did you ever think when you were first starting? When I first started guiding, I was lucky to hook anything. Just hook anything. Never even to think about, like, I want that fish to jump right here. That was way too complicated for me. But over the years, you get to where the camera guys in our operation are like, yeah, we can't really shoot them into the sun like that, so you're gonna have to catch them the other way. And it's like, the other way? We're lucky to catch anything, man. Okay. So now we're gonna pull up. I got you. We're gonna pole all the way around. Maybe we can do it. I don't know. Maybe they'll be there. Maybe they won't. But over the years, you can kind of figure out that there are ways that you can do that. Have you really learned a lot about guiding through your photography and videography? Things that are possible and ways that you can get up on these fish?

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah. I mean, in reference to technology helping you guide, is that what you mean?

Tom Rowland: Well, I'm just saying, you want the light to be perfect, right? And so now you have to catch a fish in a certain trajectory where before, you're just like, let's just try to catch one any way we can. And now we're putting even further restrictions on ourselves by saying, well, we really need him to jump down-light.

Capt. Greg Dini: I tell you what, I used to be like that early in my photography career, but now it doesn't matter to me exactly what direction the fish jumps, because I think a lot of times, when the fish jumps between you and the sun, it gives you the opportunity to be creative with some lighting and with some post-editing stuff that we do on the computer. I think a lot of people want the backlit shot where the tarpon is lit up and everything's pretty. And there's a lot of people that have gotten that shot. But there's a lot of people that haven't gotten the shot with the tarpon right in the sun and the sun in your face. And I just think that it allows you to be creative and be different than everybody else if you're not just constantly worrying about, I've gotta get the sun behind me. So that's kind of helped me out from an editing and a photography standpoint. Not worrying about that as much and allowing me to be more creative.

Tom Rowland: Now as your career in photography and videography kind of takes off and matures, are there opportunities for you to just go out and do nothing but that? Do you set aside some time to just try to do that, like maybe with David Mangum or somebody?

Capt. Greg Dini: I would love to. I shot some stuff with David. I would like to do more. We are involved with a lot of the same companies, and it's a good segue into a different part of your career that you could excel in and make some money doing. Because right now, content is king with a lot of these companies, as you know. They're starving for it. And when you can create that content for some of these big companies without them having to go out and hire big companies to get the photography, it just adds more value to what you're doing in your daily routine. So yeah, I would love to do more of it. And if there's anyone out there that's listening to this podcast that wants to get me more involved, I'm ready to go.

Tom Rowland: Oh, you do good work. You guys have definitely got some really good stuff. Is there any part of all of that stuff that gets you more excited at this point in your career than others?

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah. I think photography does spice it up a little bit. It allows you to get outside of just your daily guiding routine. It allows you, like I said, to express your creativity and do some other things that you maybe wouldn't get to do in just a normal daily charter. So I enjoy it tremendously.

Bucket-List Fish and Destinations

Tom Rowland: So you've been able to do a lot of different kinds of fishing up in Louisiana and Florida and everywhere else. Do you have any sort of a bucket list of fish or any sort of a trip that you would wanna take that you haven't been able to yet?

Capt. Greg Dini: I wanna do Cuba, even though I've caught all the species there for the most part, except for I think they've got triggerfish, whether you can sight-fish. I haven't done that. I really wanna do the Gabon, the big African tarpon. That's definitely a bucket list trip, to try and catch one of those 250-plus-pound tarpon. And then I wanna do something where I could catch one of those giant trevally. I've never done that. So those are my three big bucket list trips right now that I've not had the opportunity to do as of yet.

Tom Rowland: That's super cool. I wanna do the arapaima. I keep saying that's the one, man, for me. I just don't have any experience with that jungle fishing. I mean, peacock bass in Florida, but not the jungle. I'd like to go to the jungle. That just seems cool to me. It seems like there'd be other species there. The trevally and all that, I've caught trevally and been to places where they have them, but I haven't ever been to one of those places. There's this guy I follow on Instagram, Fish Rarotonga, I think. Do you know about that account?

Capt. Greg Dini: I have not followed him.

Tom Rowland: You gotta check it out, because we have tarpon at the dock eating our dolphin skins and stuff like that. They have giant trevally eating things like that at the fish cleaning tables. There's like a hundred of them. And so if it's that good by the fish cleaning tables, certainly you'd be able to find a couple out there that would eat a cast.

Capt. Greg Dini: I'll have to check them out.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, that's a cool account, man. That Fish Rarotonga, I think. And I don't even know where that is, but I'm willing to book a ticket sight unseen. I don't even know where it is on the map, but if they'll sell me a ticket, I would get on the plane and go. It sounds really cool. That is a tough fish, man, the trevally. I go back and forth with the trevally. I think that it might be the toughest fish out there, and I also think that it might be the most overrated fish out there. Because we go to a place like Christmas Island, and I have never caught a big one there. I've been there twice, and you're catching them about the same size as jack crevalle. And they fight about as hard as the jack crevalle. But I think that from my friends that have caught really big ones, they're like, yeah, but it changes when it gets to 80 pounds. It's not an 80-pound jack crevalle. It's a different animal, and that thing is beastly.

Capt. Greg Dini: A monster.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I would like to do that too. I haven't been there. I understand that Bikini Atoll is pretty good, but I think that might be contaminated with radioactivity. They keep opening it every now and then and then closing it, but I don't know. I'd like to do that. But I think the jungle, that airplane trip, man, that seems cool.

Capt. Greg Dini: I mean, from everyone that I've talked to that's done it, it's very similar to tarpon fishing. They roll. They bubble. You throw at them. They eat. They jump. They're big. It definitely has some appeal for sure.

Winning Tournaments as an Outsider in the Keys

Tom Rowland: Yeah, I'm gonna do that one of these days. As far as the tarpon go, in the last ten years, you were able to fish up in Apalachicola in that area and probably other areas too. But then also, you're able to come down to the Keys and win tournaments. That's pretty impressive. I only know of a few other guides over the history of all of these different tournaments that come from different areas and compete in the Keys and do well. There are a handful that have done that, Homosassa guides, or Keys guides that would go to Homosassa and do well. But I found that interesting. And that's something that seems like it stays on your calendar all year. That Gold Cup. What other ones do you fish?

Capt. Greg Dini: Last year, this is the first year we got into the Gold Cup. I fished the same angler in all of them. We've been doing the Golden Fly, I think, for seven years now. It was our second or third year in the Hawley, first year in the Gold Cup. And then Silver Kings had a tournament a couple years, and did pretty well on some of those. But I think it just goes back to having a feel and understanding the fish, no matter where you're fishing them. If you understand the fish and you can incorporate those behaviors into each location, I think it's just gonna help you tremendously. And that's what I go by when I go there. I did grow up fishing in the Keys quite a bit, but never spent the amount of time that I do there now, and same thing in Apalachicola. And I enjoy the challenge. I competed at the highest level for the most part in athletics growing up, and I enjoy going against the best anglers and guides that the Keys and then the world have to offer, and comparing yourself against them and just kind of seeing where you pan out.

Tom Rowland: So was that your idea to fish the first one, or was it your customer's idea?

Capt. Greg Dini: So we both kind of mutually agreed on it. He's a competitive guy. He grew up in Minnesota playing hockey and did a lot of that growing up. So he's a competitive guy himself. And I actually knew the director of the Golden Fly the first year we got in. You probably know him, Steve Ward. And he offered me the invite, and I told my guy Evan from Minneapolis, hey, you wanna do it? He jumped all over it. And once we got into that one, I think the first year after that, he applied to the Gold Cup, and we were on the waiting list for quite a bit of time to get in. And we got in the Hawley, I think, two, three years ago. So it's fun, man. And I think when you're down there, even though you're not a local, even though I grew up fishing down there, they've got their local group and their core group of guys that are there. And I think if you just go in and do your own thing and work your tail off, gradually you gain a little bit of respect here and there. And now we kind of feel like we're part of the group. So it's worked out well.

Respecting a New Fishery

Tom Rowland: And how does that play when you see other guides coming up to your area in like Apalachicola? Is that the same kind of deal?

Capt. Greg Dini: First of all, I wish Apalachicola was my area. I'm kind of an implant here too, but I would not be the first one to say that even though I've been fishing here for ten years, there's guys that have been here a long time before me. And when you come into a new area, no matter who you are, where you're going, you just gotta respect the guys that have been there before you. Understand that they've spent a lot of time learning the area and learning the routines and where the fish swim. And you kind of gotta pick your way around them and learn your own spots, where in the future, maybe when they do see that, they may lean on you for a little bit of that information and be reciprocal. So it all goes hand in hand. You just kind of do your own thing, gain your respect, and wiggle your way in, versus going into a new area stomping in there with your shoulders back and saying, look at me, I'm this big new guy. I think a lot of people do that. And right off the bat, they just don't gain the respect that they will gain over time. And I think all the guys that are there resent that.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, of course. I don't think that's a good way to step into a new area at all.

Capt. Greg Dini: Regardless of who it is and where you're fishing, no matter where you go, put your time in and understand the area and represent the fishery to its fullest potential, as opposed to just showing up day two, never been here before, now I'm gonna start running trips. I just don't think that's the right way to do it.

How Technology Has Changed Guiding

Tom Rowland: How have you seen guiding change in the areas that you fish regularly since you've been guiding?

Capt. Greg Dini: More boats, technology has certainly shortened the curve, flattened the curve, so to speak, for a lot of these guys. GPS mapping chips have kind of helped with navigation. I think you're associated with Florida Marine Tracks, in Glenn, or have been in the past. I actually grew up on the same street with Glenn growing up. Just mapping chips like that and then showing people the routes on where to go, it's very good. The technology is really good, but it also shortens that curve for new guys coming in, showing them the ways that maybe they wouldn't have normally run, off the beaten path, where now they're seeing other boats fishing. They may not have seen that boat fishing ten years ago because they may not have ever driven that route, right? But it's great technology. It's there for everyone to use, and I think that's probably the biggest change, is how new guys are using that technology to gain knowledge.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And what about, like, Google Earth and all of that? I see that as, I mean, for me, we used to have, I don't even know where we got them, but they were like eight-by-ten photos of the Marquesas, aerial photos. And I guess they came from an airplane. Maybe they came from a satellite. I don't know. We had like one, and it was like an eight-by-ten. And man, we used to sit there and study that thing and look at it, and it was incredible. Like you could see what's behind those trees, and you could see what's over here. Now you can see the whole world like that.

Capt. Greg Dini: You can almost see the entire world on your GPS. It's nuts.

Tom Rowland: I know. And you can see what it would look like at high tide, what it would look like at low tide. I guess at some point there's more information than someone that is not ready for it can assimilate or absorb at the time. When you're super hungry for it and you find that one aerial photo and you start looking at every mangrove shoot on the whole shoreline, oh, I see, it dips in right there. That's why they're right there. That's the spot. Oh, now it all makes sense. But when all that's super available to you right off the get-go, maybe it's not the same.

Capt. Greg Dini: You still gotta understand, even if it's there, you still gotta understand why and when, and that stuff's not on the information. That technology doesn't have your knowledge and your man-hours that you're putting in every day, which is, I think, still that difference. What separates the good guides from the guides that are gonna phase out at some point or another.

Guiding Through COVID

Tom Rowland: Yeah, certainly. What do you think about this situation that we've gone through with COVID and stuff? Do you see that having an effect on a lot of guides? Many, many guides were having a really hard time.

Capt. Greg Dini: I sure hope not. I feel for the guides that depend on a lot of single-day daily trips coming through resorts, that sort of stuff. I think those guys are the guys that are gonna get hurt the most, because they don't have the relationship with the clients. And you hope that the guys that put the time in that bridge those relationships and have those relationships with their clients won't struggle as much. You hope no one struggles, but I think those guys will struggle a little bit less, because their clients that have been with them over the years understand that this is our livelihood. That's how we're trying to feed our family, and they're gonna still support that if they can. And they'll travel, and they'll do everything they can to do it. I just think regardless of the situation, we all still need to abide by the rules and take care of one another. And I think we'll get through this like everything else. We just gotta keep pushing, and we'll get through it as a community.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, I believe so. And we're getting closer and closer, I guess, to a vaccine of some sort that should be coming down the line sooner or later. When this thing first started, I always kind of associate it with when the NBA shut down. That to me was the day where I was like, uh-oh.

Capt. Greg Dini: Well, I mean, we all knew exactly where we were too. I think it was Rudy Gobert got tested positive.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And then somebody said, yeah, they canceled the whole season. I'm like, what? No. No way. I had to go home and read it for myself. And then it's like, oh, wow, maybe this is different than I thought.

Capt. Greg Dini: It's kind of like, do you remember where you were exactly on 9/11?

Tom Rowland: Yeah, exactly.

Capt. Greg Dini: I remember exactly where I was. It's kind of like the same deal.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, 9/11. Exactly. That is, I won't ever forget either one of those. My wife called me on 9/11, and she's like, you gotta come home. Buildings are on fire and everything's happening, and I didn't understand what was going on. I was like, okay, well, I'm on my way. And then I get home, and it's like, oh, wow. That's incredible. I'll never forget it.

Family Vacations Without Fishing Rods

Tom Rowland: So how long do you fish up north?

Capt. Greg Dini: So I'll be here for the next two weeks. I'll be here for, I think, the third week in July, and then I head home, take a couple weeks off, usually do a vacation with the family, and then I crank right back up in August.

Tom Rowland: What does a vacation with the family look like for you?

Capt. Greg Dini: No fishing rods.

Tom Rowland: No fishing rods. Where is the sun? Because a lot of fishing guides wanna crawl in a cave, and all of a sudden their family wants to go to the beach. It's like, oh, man. Really?

Capt. Greg Dini: Well, it usually involves the beach because the kids enjoy the beach. We will try to go North Florida, Destin, Watercolor, maybe back down to the Keys. I'd like to do some different stuff. But yeah, it's like you wanna be out of the sun, out of the heat, and the family wants to get you right back in there.

Tom Rowland: I know. Out of the sun. That's a big one for me. It's like, really, man, the beach? That's like taking you out of the fire and throwing you right back in.

Capt. Greg Dini: It's better than Disney, though, man. Let me tell you that much.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I guess, is Disney back gone full steam?

Capt. Greg Dini: I'm not even sure. I doubt it. I doubt it.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, that's a hard one for them. So what would you do on your vacation? Is there something else that you like to do? Do you like to get in the water?

Capt. Greg Dini: Paddleboard. Paddleboard, ski, anything. Anything with the kids. Kneeboard, go look for sand dollars, seashell hunt, whatever the kids enjoy doing. And I just try to make up for lost time.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. It's nice when you have an activity like that, like seashell hunting, something like that. And you're like, man, I don't have to worry about, I hope it is windy. That'll be awesome. Like anything. I don't have to worry about wind. I don't have to worry about the tide. Well, maybe the tide for seashell hunting, and you kind of take a little glance at it. You're like, yeah, it's gonna be high at noon. We'll be fine. But I like things like that. On one recent trip with my wife, she took me, she said, well, we're gonna go cut lavender. And I was like, okay, whatever you wanna do. And so we drive up to this place, and there's this lavender field. And it looked a lot bigger in the pictures that we saw. It wasn't actually that big. And so they give you a pair of scissors, and they tell you you can go over there and cut it. And they show you which ones are culinary lavender and which ones are the ones that you're supposed to dry out and put in the bathroom or something. And I was just amazed. I was like, that's it. You just, there it is. It's not going anywhere. I'm used to stuff like running from you and trying to hide. This isn't hunting. This isn't fishing. This is like you just walk over there and cut some, and that's gonna be good. And she's like, oh, it was the most wonderful day. That was so great. And I'm like, man, that was so easy. That was unbelievably easy coming from fishing and everything.

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah. Happy wife, happy life.

Tom Rowland: Need more activities like that. Like no tide, no wind. It could be raining. You could still be lavender cutting.

Raising Kids, Guiding, and the Next Generation

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah. So as your boys get older, what activities do you enjoy doing with them? Do they enjoy being on a boat?

Tom Rowland: Well, both of them are out in Montana. So I started taking the family out to Yellowstone when the kids were really young because that's a place that's meant a lot to me. That's where I got my first job, really, and my first kind of taste of this alternate lifestyle of guiding or living out in some place like that. So I lived in Yellowstone National Park one summer, and I just always wanted to go back with my family. So when my kids were really young, we started taking a trip out there maybe every other year. Well, the boys kind of got that in their blood. They were like, yeah, we like Yellowstone. We like Montana and Wyoming. And it's kind of like, whatever you don't have, that's kind of what you want. So it's like, you're fishing off the dock on the canal, catching snappers and tarpon and bonefish and everything, and what they really wanna do is go hunting. My oldest son, he likes to elk hunt, and he loves shooting his bow. And my younger son's a little bit more of a fisherman, but both of them kind of gravitated out to Montana. So they're out there. They love hiking and climbing mountains and backpacking and fishing, and I just bought them a little drift boat. It's a real beater. This thing's been sitting in somebody's yard for like seven years. I think it's full of water. Probably the heaviest drift boat ever to go down the Yellowstone River.

Capt. Greg Dini: Gotta make them earn it.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. They're gonna earn it. And they're learning all those things and having a really good time. My oldest son kind of dabbled in the guiding world a little bit and started to guide elk hunts, and he liked that. But what is his passion? It's this balance that we touch on a little bit, and I talk to other guides about a lot. It's like, do you wanna be the guy on the front of the boat, or do you wanna be the guy on the back of the boat? Because if you wanna be the guy on the front of the boat, you shouldn't be on the back of the boat. That's not a good combination. And so I had that conversation with my oldest son, and elk archery season is very short. It's a very short time, and it's a real magic time out there where those elk are bugling. It's kind of like tarpon season. There's like two weeks where this is gonna be the best it's gonna be. And he just kind of decided, I think I wanna be the one with a bow in my hand. I don't know that this is what I wanna be doing, and I can't argue with him. It's like there's two or three weeks that it's really, really great. So he likes to do that, which of course puts him squarely in grizzly bear country. My other son likes to, he did a NOLS trip out in Alaska, and he's very confident in the wilderness, and he can do all kinds of stuff. But it puts him squarely in grizzly bear country too. So they mostly try not to get eaten by grizzly bears, is what those guys are doing. And my daughter, she's being a high school girl, and she likes fishing. We're getting ready to go fishing for a couple weeks down in the Keys, and she's great. She's just living her life, and I'm trying my best to be the best dad I can possibly be.

Capt. Greg Dini: Little girls are definitely meant for their daddies. No doubt about that.

Tom Rowland: I know. Do you see a difference between raising girls and raising your boys?

Capt. Greg Dini: 100%.

Tom Rowland: Do you? What are they?

Capt. Greg Dini: I mean, my son is a total mama's boy. When he's having a problem, he goes to mom. It's like those little girls, once they're born, they've got Dad immediately. They're gonna get whatever they want, whenever they want it. But they're not gonna be able to bring the boyfriend home to dad until she's a certain age. That's the one thing.

Tom Rowland: What is that age? You seem like you've already decided.

Capt. Greg Dini: You know, 30, maybe. I think I feel comfortable with that.

Tom Rowland: Boy, that's one right there that I just didn't know what to do. Do you run them off? Because my dad was always the guy that ran them off. Be real super intimidating and run them off. Well, of course, that makes the girl wanna date the bad guy even more. So I understand that psychology, so I'm kind of like, no, I don't wanna run them off. The last thing I wanna do, if there's somebody that's really nice to my daughter, I want them around my daughter, but I want them around me too. I want them to hang out. So like my daughter and her boyfriend, they hang out at the house a lot. And I try to be nice.

Capt. Greg Dini: No, I agree with you. I think if you run the boyfriend off, then you run the daughter off. And you don't want that. You know as a parent, if you raise them right, they're gonna associate themselves with the right people, and that's all you can do.

Tom Rowland: That's what you hope. That's the idea, I think, of perfect parenting, which of course there is no such thing, is raise them so that they make the right choices. Don't make the right choices for them. Raise them so they understand what the right choices are, and then they make those choices for themselves because they want to make that choice. And I've seen glimpses of that with all my kids. And there's moments of being like, yeah, see, it's working. That's awesome. And then, I don't know. Parenting is one of those things that's kind of like fishing. You're never gonna be perfect at it, and you're always learning.

Capt. Greg Dini: Always learning.

Tom Rowland: Always, man. Parenting has been certainly the most challenging thing in my life ever. And fishing, you learn every day. Parenting, you hope you learn every day, because about the day that you feel like you got that wired, something really bad is about to happen. You know what I mean?

Capt. Greg Dini: Absolutely.

Tom Rowland: Same thing with fishing, though, don't you think? As soon as you feel like, oh, we are going to smoke them today, I know exactly where they are, exactly what they're going to do. And you get there and your guy's like, okay, is this where they're supposed to be? And it's like crickets, and you're just poling and poling and poling and poling. It's like, yeah, they were supposed to be back there. I don't know.

Capt. Greg Dini: Yeah.

Tom Rowland: My friends used to say, oh, that spot's so secret that the fish don't even know about it.

Capt. Greg Dini: That's pretty good.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, that was our thing. You got a secret spot? Alright, so secret the fish don't know about it.

Setting Goals and Building a Business in the Industry

Capt. Greg Dini: That's what I was gonna say. If I ask you, this is really the first time we've got to talk with one another. But I wanna kind of pick your brain from a business standpoint. What's, in your opinion, the best way to set goals to be a very well-rounded businessman when it comes to the industry that we're in? Because you've obviously done very well in your career, and I think it'd be something good to understand.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, I think just like fishing, you set a goal as the first-year guide that you wanna win the Gold Cup. Okay. Well, you're not even ready. That's too far out there. It's like, I wanna go to the moon. So I think that it's good to have big, lofty, aggressive goals, like something like that. Like, I wanna win that one prestigious tournament. I'm going to set the trajectory of my career towards that, and I'm gonna do what I think is all the hard work necessary, even though I have no idea what that hard work would be at this point. I'm gonna set that as my intention. Well, along the way, you have to have a lot of smaller goals. And you have to have a lot of smaller goals that are certainly within reach. And as far as the business goes, I don't know where, I think it was kind of, I had this idea that I wanted to gather sponsorship. I didn't even really know why. But I kind of thought, well, I wanna gather sponsorship because it's really expensive to live in the Florida Keys. So if I could get anything at a discount or for free, then it would be much easier for me to pay my bills. That's honestly how it started. Like, I'm buying full-retail rods and reels and fly rods and stuff. Man, I gotta be able to get some kind of discount on that. And so to understand how that worked, and you've obviously been able to do this, but a lot of people don't have any idea how that works. And it's all about delivering value back to who it is that you're working with. And that value comes in one form of currency, and that is their bottom line. Are you selling product for that company? Because if you're not, they have no reason to do business with you. They can build their brand just fine without you. Are you helping them sell their products? And a lot of people think, well, I won a tournament, so I deserve some sponsorship. That's not the way it goes. And just kind of spending time and understanding that as somebody that wants sponsorship is really important. That was probably my first goal, is I wanna understand how this world works. And then when I get in it, I wanna understand how I can do the best job that I possibly can at that game. And that's really what it is. It's a game. You're working with a company so that you can help them sell their products through your lifestyle, basically. And so over the years, that kind of developed into, okay, first it's gonna be the tournaments. And you obviously need some sponsorship to help you to do the tournaments. It started with the Florida Keys tournaments, and then it went to the professional redfish tournaments, and all that travel and stuff is crazy. And then it went to TV after that. And then from TV, that goes into the social media world. And on each one of those steps, there are all these micro-goals and smaller goals of either understanding a new world that you don't know anything about, like how to be a TV producer, or how to sell sponsorship on television, or how to go to New York and sit in front of an ad agency and sell yourself. That's very uncomfortable. And especially when you've been out in the sun for the last fifty days and you look like you've been wearing a scuba mask, and you show up in New York and these people are looking at you like, what is going on here? And so I think that setting goals is really super important, but you've obviously got a very good idea of where it is that you wanna go with your career. So the next step is, what are the steps that I need to take? Do I need to learn more information? Do I need to talk to somebody that's done this before? Do I need to just spend more time on the water? What is it that I need to do? And these days, with Google, you can learn a lot that you couldn't a while back. But I don't know. Did that answer your question at all?

Capt. Greg Dini: Absolutely.

Tom Rowland: And I think it's an evolution of knowledge, as opposed to just kind of setting your goal and then just going for that goal, because you're missing all these other things along the way.

Capt. Greg Dini: Ever evolving.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. You just kind of keep stair-stepping that knowledge.