Capt. Justin Napior | Back Country Culture, Guiding the 10,000 Islands

Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 336, Capt. Justin Napior...

Capt. Justin Napior: For a couple of years, I had buddies telling me, hey, you should be a guide. And I was like, man, I don't want to turn this into a job. Then it started getting to the point where I was fishing with people, and I was getting to see them catch that first snook, or that first tarpon, or maybe their personal best snook, and it was like a light switch for me. It went from wanting to be the guy fishing and catching all the fish to really enjoying watching other people do it, and watching the excitement they had when they landed those fish. So then I started getting the idea, the ball starts rolling, and I'm like, maybe I should get my captain's license. Hey, this is Captain Justin Napior. Welcome to the Tom Rowland Podcast.

Tom Rowland: What's up, everybody? Welcome to the podcast today. Today's guest has been suggested to me by a number of people who have enjoyed fishing with him, enjoyed his story, and thought he would be an outstanding guest, and they were right. Captain Justin Napior guides in the Ten Thousand Islands area, and he loves fishing for tarpon and snook with artificial lures. We talked about a lot of different things, how to get into the guiding business, how he got his captain's license, how he got started kind of on a whim, and how he's making this a full-time profession. I really enjoyed this conversation with my friend, Justin Napior. Justin, how are you, man?

Capt. Justin Napior: I'm great, Tom. Thanks for having me today. I really appreciate it.

Tom Rowland: Good deal. I appreciate you being on. How's fishing been?

Capt. Justin Napior: Fishing's been killer. I'm over here in the Naples, Marco Island, Ten Thousand Islands area, and it's been hot, but it's been on fire. They're really good.

Tom Rowland: What have you been catching, snook and redfish and tarpon?

Capt. Justin Napior: I specialize in snook and tarpon mostly, so that's pretty much what I target all year round. I do catch a little bit of everything, snook, tarpon, redfish, trout, but I try to specialize in the bigger snook and the tarpon fishing, artificial and live bait.

Tom Rowland: Really? Do you have some fly fishermen too, or mostly artificial and live bait?

Capt. Justin Napior: Mostly artificial and live bait.

Tom Rowland: Cool. And what about those two fish, why do you like them the most? Why are those the ones that you gravitate to almost immediately? You're like, snook and tarpon, man, that's it.

From Bass Fishing to Snook and Tarpon

Capt. Justin Napior: Snook and tarpon, oh man. It goes back pretty far. When I was a kid, bass fishing was where it was at for me. I watched Bill Dance Outdoors growing up, and I'd go behind my grandparents' house and fish for largemouth bass, always topwater. Love the topwater bite. So one day I'm fishing with my buddy, I'm probably seven to ten years old, and the sun's going down. I knew I had to be home soon, so I made that classic one last cast. I sling my baitcaster out there with this yellow topwater popper, and I'm working that thing. It's maybe six or seven feet out in front of me, and I had one more pop left. I pop it, and this fish just hammers the topwater. I look at my buddy, and we look at each other, and we're like, this has got to be the biggest bass ever. It comes out of the water, gills flared out, head shaking, and my buddy goes, dude, that's a big snook. And I'm like, what's a snook? I'm a bass fisherman. And he's like, that's a really big snook. I've got fifteen, maybe twenty pound mono, and I get the fish in and we land it. Luckily my grandparents' good friend lived right behind us, and he was a photographer, so he's got a picture of it. I was maybe seven to ten years old, holding this snook, and I don't remember exactly how big it was, but I'd guess around thirty inches, twenty-eight maybe, because I was used to catching three to five pound bass. So this was like a monster. That day was the turning point for me. I was like, bass are fun, but they're nowhere near as fun as these snook. How do we catch more of these? Luckily, his dad saltwater fished a bit, so he taught us at seven or ten years old how to throw cast nets. We're throwing six foot cast nets on Mayan cichlids and sending those out on floats and catching bigger bass. We're catching six to eight pound largemouths. Then we figured out the snook were hanging around the dock pilings, so we'd float that bait all the way back underneath the pilings, and we started dialing in the snook. From there it's just been an obsession, just snook. There was actually tarpon in that lake too. We figured out how to kayak out to the middle of the lake, drop our baits, come back in, and just sit there and wait, and we're jumping fifty, sixty pound tarpon in this big lake as kids. Those were the life changer for me with fishing. I was like, I love these fish, I need to target these more. From there it was a lot of jon boat adventures with my buddies, trolling motor, a battery, going against the current, running out of battery, using the landing net to paddle back, just crazy kid adventures. Then, to get to where I'm at today, fast forward a decent amount of years, and it started with me and the guys at Salt Strong, Joe and Luke.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, I love those guys.

Getting Started as a Guide

Capt. Justin Napior: Salt Strong comes along, a buddy of mine adds me to that site, and Joe and Luke start doing this online fishing tournament. Basically, you post your pic from the weekend, and it was a voting system. People go on there and vote for your fish. I was always posting decent snook and tarpon, usually good sized snook, and after a few months of being on there I became the snook guy. Everyone's like, oh, Justin's gonna post this snook, and I was like, oh, I get lucky. Everyone gets lucky. Then that turned into people sending me a message saying, hey, I'm gonna be in your area on business, could I hop on the boat with you? And I'm like, yeah, heck yeah, let's go. Then I'd put them on maybe their personal best snook or maybe their first tarpon. That slowly turned into people saying, hey, why don't you become a guide? And for years my response was always, I don't wanna turn fishing into a job. I like the fun aspect of it.

Tom Rowland: So at this point, what are you doing for a living?

Capt. Justin Napior: Auto repair. I did auto repair from the time I was seventeen years old up until pretty much my adulthood. I've always been a big muscle car fan, so I grew up working on cars and fishing. And as I got older, I also rode professional BMX back in the day, so I'm an adrenaline junkie. That's where the fishing kind of comes in with my style, the sight fishing and the thrill of the hunt, because it gives me that adrenaline rush that I want. That's why I gravitated toward fishing. I got a little older and figured I had to lay off the BMX stuff, I couldn't afford to hurt myself, so I got really back into fishing, working out, and trying to be healthier. Then I just did auto repair. Sorry, I got off track a little there.

Tom Rowland: No, you were saying you didn't want to turn fishing into your job.

Capt. Justin Napior: Right, didn't want to turn fishing into a job. So for a couple of years I had buddies telling me, hey, you should be a guide, and I was like, nah, I don't wanna turn it into a job. Then it got to the point where I was fishing with people and getting to see them catch that first snook or first tarpon, or maybe their personal best snook, and it was like a light switch for me. It went from wanting to be the guy catching all the fish to really enjoying watching other people do it and watching the excitement they had landing those fish. So then I started getting the idea, the ball starts rolling, and I'm like, maybe I should get my captain's license. At this time I had a 1994 Hewes Bay Fisher, which is a great boat, loved that thing. My daughter was about two years old. It was eighteen feet. Luckily for me, my wife and both my little girls love being on the water and fishing, so my wife back then was like, hey, we should try to get a bigger boat. I said I wasn't against that idea, so the ball's rolling about getting my captain's license too. I figured if I get my license and do one or two trips a month, our boat's paid for. She thought that was a good idea, so I got my license and started working on that. I owned a newer boat, so I was pricing out a new outboard, trolling motor, and I really wanted a Power-Pole back then.

Tom Rowland: So what size boat did you have in mind? You're going from an eighteen foot boat to what?

Capt. Justin Napior: I went from the eighteen foot skiff to a bay boat, and I went with a small one, like a twenty foot bay boat, which is still small for a bay boat.

Tom Rowland: So making that decision, you wanted more live wells. Was that a big factor?

Capt. Justin Napior: Yes. I wanted to focus more on the live bait stuff because that was the guarantee for me to put my people on fish, plus more room for my daughter to run around, do beach days, be able to go offshore and grab bait if I needed to, or do some near shore fishing. I was like, bay boats can be perfect, reliability, I want a four-stroke. So I went and got the bay boat, and that opened up a lot for me because I was able to make those further runs with better fuel economy and get the bait in the morning because it could handle a little more chop.

Tom Rowland: And so let's talk about getting your captain's license, because that's interesting. A lot of people who listen to this podcast are thinking about being a guide or exploring the opportunity of quitting their job. There's a lot of things that have changed between when I got my captain's license and today. There's a tremendous amount of opportunities online. Tell me what you know about getting the captain's license, how you did it, and maybe other ways to do it as well.

Getting a Captain's License

Capt. Justin Napior: The way I did it, I was working full time, Monday through Friday, eight to five, and I had my daughter, so I didn't have a lot of free time. I couldn't do the evening class, I didn't want to be in a class at ten o'clock at night. I was getting up at five in the morning every day to do my workout and then going to work, so staying out till ten at school, I knew I wouldn't be able to focus. There's a class out of Key West that's all online. You pay for the course, you study, and you take it on your own time.

Tom Rowland: Who runs that?

Capt. Justin Napior: I believe it's called something like Best of the Best of Key West. I don't remember exactly.

Tom Rowland: You remember a name, Flynn Smith?

Capt. Justin Napior: That sounds familiar, that might be it. He was definitely an OG for sure, he was super cool. When he answered the phone, he referred to you as captain right away. He'd say, alright, captain, let's go. He was a really cool guy. So basically I had to study, study, study, and whenever you're ready for the test, you drive down to the Keys and take it. That was best for me because of my schedule. I'd be on my lunch break studying, and Saturday morning before the kids got up, I'd study until I was ready to take it. I overstudied. When I went down there I was fully confident, and I passed on the first try, and I was psyched from there.

Tom Rowland: How did you know that you were ready? I mean, when you're studying, it takes me back to college, when there's a deadline you're gonna go take the test whether you're ready or not. But if it's completely up to you and this is super important to you, it seems like you'd overprepare. But other people might underestimate the test because the test is hard. It's not about how to be a bay boat guide, it's about being the captain of a boat you're probably never going to run in most situations. It's comprehensive knowledge of things that you and I, in a skiff or a bay boat or a thirty-six footer, are never going to encounter, like a boiler room fire. So how did you know you were ready to take it?

Capt. Justin Napior: I got to the point where I'd make a little test for myself and go through it without looking at the book, and I was nailing every question. I had the plotting down too, tested myself on that. I had my wife make little flashcards and quiz me, and I was nailing it. So I was like, okay, I gotta make the phone call and schedule my test. I called and said I wanted to take it on a certain day, and once I had that day locked in, I made sure I was completely dialed. By the time my wife was testing me, I was nailing everything, nailing the plotting, and I knew it was fresh in my brain, so I had to go take it and get it done. My wife actually got her license as well, last year.

Tom Rowland: And what does she plan on doing with it?

Capt. Justin Napior: She wants to get into yacht sales. She wants to look good on paper and know how to run the boats. She already knows how to run boats, but now she looks legit on paper as a captain.

Tom Rowland: That's great. In your area there's a tremendous amount of boats and yachts for sale, that's probably a great business to be in.

Capt. Justin Napior: It's pretty much here, and Fort Lauderdale's obviously huge too. Those are the two main areas in Florida.

Tom Rowland: So many boats, every house has got two or three boats behind it.

Capt. Justin Napior: Right, and I've got a couple of buddies in the boating industry, and with everything going on right now, people are buying boats like crazy because it's the best way to get away from everyone.

Tom Rowland: I know, isn't that funny? It seemed like right at the beginning everybody was locking up, no spending, because nobody knew what to do, and then all of a sudden boat sales just took off and skyrocketed. I love it.

Capt. Justin Napior: That's good, it makes our industry, people are buying boats. I've gotten a couple from my buddy Josh, he's recommended people who are just buying their first boat. They want to get into fishing, they don't know what they're doing, so he says hire Justin, take them out, show them around, show them how to drive their boat a little better, and show them how to fish the area. There's a lot to learn.

Choosing the Right Boat

Tom Rowland: That's an interesting subject, maybe we can talk about it for a few minutes. You get somebody who doesn't know much about boating, they have money, they want a boat, maybe they have a family. Somebody told me one time a piece of information that I've kept, and I tell it to everybody: every boat is a compromise. You're never going to find a boat that'll float in four inches of water to go fish for tailing redfish and also be able to cross the Gulf Stream on the worst day. You're gonna have to compromise something. So when you're talking to these people, how do you coach them into what boat they should be getting?

Capt. Justin Napior: A lot of the guys want the cruiser and just dabble in fishing. A lot of the guys sent to me are more like, hey, I just wanna cruise with my family or my wife, and dabble in fishing. So I tell them, no reason to get super serious, get a midsize bay boat, you can do a little of everything, go offshore a little, do the inshore stuff. If it drafts ten or twelve inches, you're fine. I always say, throw a trolling motor and a Power-Pole on there, because Power-Poling, or hanging out at Keewaydin, is a big thing in our area, that's the beach hangout. A lot of people slide up on the beach, put your Power-Pole down, your boat just sits there, and you can hang out. If you're planning on doing that, a Power-Pole is gonna be your best friend, it makes anchoring up a breeze, and it makes fishing a breeze too. So I always tell them, midsize bay boat, definitely invest in the trolling motor, definitely invest in the Power-Pole. For the guys who don't wanna spend that kind of money on both, I'll say go with the trolling motor, because you can do the GPS spot-lock stuff, so it kind of does one and the same. But my trolling motor has probably quadrupled the hours that my engine has on it. I'm a big trolling motor fan, I troll a lot.

Fishing the Ten Thousand Islands and Everglades Backcountry

Tom Rowland: In that Ten Thousand Islands area, you have an endless amount of shorelines. It's not called the Ten Thousand Islands for no reason. Do you think there really are ten thousand islands there?

Capt. Justin Napior: It's gotta be. I read somewhere once that you can fish down there your entire life and not cover every shoreline, and it made me kind of bummed out. I was like, man, I could literally win the lottery tomorrow, be independently wealthy, and go fish down there every day, and there would still be shorelines I couldn't cover because I'm gonna get old and die. I'm just like, I gotta get out there more, I gotta explore more. I love exploring.

Tom Rowland: It's easy to get lost there, and in other areas too. Do you see that happen?

Capt. Justin Napior: I've seen it a little bit with jet skis and kayaks without GPS. The GPS technology is unreal nowadays, if you have a good GPS on your boat it's tough to get turned around, you can easily find your way back. But as a kid I spent time in that area in canoes, and without GPS it's easy to think, oh, that mangrove line looks just like that one, which one do we come in?

Tom Rowland: Yeah, the first time I ever went into an area like that, you come through a creek and think, this will be easy, I'll just look for the same creek on the way back. Then you get a little off, turn around, and it's like, where's that creek? If you know enough you say, wait, hold on, we're about to get ourselves in trouble here, we better stop and get some kind of bearing, because once you get out of a direct line to where you can see it, that whole shoreline looks unbroken, like there's not a creek there at all. That's how you can easily get turned around, you do that twice, go through one creek, hit another, and now it's like, where am I?

Capt. Justin Napior: It's funny you mention creeks. What I really try to specialize in, and really sell my clients, is not just a fishing trip but a fishing adventure. I like to get into these backcountry creeks and bays in my skiff, tight creeks, six or seven feet wide. I like catching tarpon in there. I'll go all the way up, explore, and figure out where the fish are sitting. When I get guys who can throw artificial really well, that's where I'll take them, because it is an adventure. No matter who you are, whether you live up north or down here, it's an adventure getting back in those Everglades backbays and creeks. That's what I like to do.

Tom Rowland: You have some that open up into a little lake, right?

Capt. Justin Napior: Exactly, which can be great in summer and winter. If it gets rainy season, like right now, they really are on fire. You gotta have a boat to get you back there, that's where the compromise about boats comes in. I'm lucky my wife likes boats, because I actually have two, my bay boat that I've had for five years, and I just got a skiff again last year. That's been a game changer for me, having the skiff back in my life. I missed it so much, that thing's unreal.

Tom Rowland: So in your area, a lot of people may not have fished the Ten Thousand Islands, but there are several different boat ramps where you can trailer a little skiff, and you don't have to run across big water to get to a lot of it, you can use the car and trailer to move from place to place and fish a tiny boat in some of those spots. Right?

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, it's nice because there are multiple boat ramps. You can launch out of Goodland, which if you're from here is kind of the beginning of the Ten Thousand Islands, even though technically they start in the Naples, Marco Island area. If you're local, we just call it, from Goodland down, you're basically in the Ten Thousand Islands. So you can launch out of Goodland, out of Port of the Islands, which puts you right on the edge of Everglades National Park, or you can launch out of Chokoloskee or Everglades City, and then you're smack dab in the middle of the Everglades.

Tom Rowland: So cool, I love that.

Capt. Justin Napior: I love it down there. If you don't know the backwater, that's the best way to do it. You can actually get from Goodland to Chokoloskee without running in the Gulf if you know the waters. But you gotta know the waters, because there are a lot of unmarked bays, no channel, no marking of anything, you just gotta know the routes.

Tom Rowland: So this fishing that's getting you really excited right now, going back into these creeks and finding these little lakes, when you get back in there are you finding tarpon and snook in clear water, or what does it look like?

Capt. Justin Napior: More tannic, more of an iced tea color, sometimes a little murkier than that. Just this past Saturday I had a trip I'd rescheduled, and I love being able to poke around by myself. I went out on the skiff looking to find some juvenile tarpon and jump a nice one, and all of a sudden underneath my boat these black drum just blow off underneath me. I was like, where did you guys come from? Knowing black drum, I figured they'd stay put, so I continued tarpon fishing, got another tarpon, got a decent snook, and then I had my fly rod with me. I'd caught plenty of drum on spin, and I wanted to catch one on the fly, so I snipped my tarpon fly off, tied on a little crab fly I got locally from my guys over here, pulled back up, crept in, and sure enough there were twenty of them just laid out happy as can be. I slung that fly in there, gave it long slow drags, and all of a sudden I felt it stop and set the hook. It was probably thirteen or fourteen pounds.

Tom Rowland: Nice.

Capt. Justin Napior: Really fun. I caught two on fly, one on spin, and figured I'd leave them alone since they were just hanging out there, it was a good little spot. So within a very small area I caught three nice drum, caught one tarpon, jumped one tarpon, and caught about a twenty-eight inch snook, all on artificial. That's a really fun day, and I didn't see another boat all day until Saturday.

Tom Rowland: Wow. So in that area, that's pretty common, it's very easy to get away from crowds?

Capt. Justin Napior: It is, you can get away from people pretty easily, which is good fishing. I share those techniques with people often when they ask for advice down there. I say, fish the outside points, a lot of people stay on the outside if it's not windy and fish the ones with good hard bottom, they hold fish, your snook, your redfish, your trout, everything. A lot of guys stick to that, so the backwater is usually pretty open. The only guys fishing the backwater are either guides or locals who know the area and have been fishing down there a long time. So it's very easy to get away from people in that particular area.

Building a Guiding Business Through Social Media

Tom Rowland: So you're a guy that's known for offering help to a lot of other anglers. How did that start for you? Why do you give information so freely?

Capt. Justin Napior: That started a lot with Salt Strong as well. I was posting those fish on there, pretty good sized fish, and all of a sudden people were asking for my opinion on things, saying, hey, what lure was that, or how were you working that lure? Me being a nice guy, not a jerk at all, I'd say, yeah, I was using this lure on this hook, I'd snap a picture and tell them, give it a twitch-twitch with a pause, really focus on that pause. Then all of a sudden I'd get someone messaging me back saying, hey, I just caught my first snook or my first tarpon with what you told me. That was really rewarding, I was taken aback by that, I thought it was really cool. So I enjoy helping people, I don't think it's a bad thing. I know some of these old timer guides are very much learn-yourself, figure-it-out, but my wife always says, you get more bees with honey. So I feel like being the nice guy and helping people has gotten me where I am now, and where I'm going, which I don't know where that is, but I'm just enjoying the road right now. I like helping people, it just makes me feel good, that's it.

Tom Rowland: And did that translate into you deciding that guiding was something you wanted to do?

Capt. Justin Napior: It definitely helped, because it was all around the same time people were asking to come fish with me and asking my opinion on lures or advice. I started giving it, and it was like, I could do this on my boat, I'd take people with me. I've done numerous trips where people reached out and said, hey, I wanna book a trip, I'm not interested in live bait, I wanna work on artificial. So I actually did one-on-one coaching on my boat, showing them how to work the lure, how to read the fish's body language. When you make that cast and the fish is chasing the lure, a lot of people just want to stop it and let it eat. Well, I always say, you don't want to stop the lure. Imagine if you're being chased by a lion, are you just gonna stop and say, eat me? No, you're gonna keep running. So you gotta keep working that lure, and judge the speed by how the fish is reacting. Once you learn that, it's game on.

Tom Rowland: What do you think, that in particular seems to be the difference between a good angler and a great angler, even between somebody who can be called an angler and somebody who's oblivious to that, who throws it over there and expects the fish to just eat it. Where do you think that comes in, in someone's education as a fisherman, to where they start to understand the fish and what they need the lure to look like?

Capt. Justin Napior: Honestly, I think a lot of it just boils down to time on the water. The more time you spend fishing and watching the fish, you start to figure it out. I've had days, in the wintertime this past year we get the negative tides, and this winter was the first time I had my skiff back. I went to an area I really like, it was super negative tide, and I was poling around watching redfish feeding and tailing with their backs out of the water, watching snook cruising. I probably went a good hour without even making a cast, just watching their movements and seeing how they reacted. Then finally I was like, okay, I wanna catch a redfish, and by watching them I made one cast. I could tell they wanted something kind of running away, so I used a paddle tail and just steadily reeled it without even twitching it, and that redfish bolted and hammered it. It was cool, I like watching, I do it a lot, I'll just watch the fish and see what they're doing.

Tom Rowland: It's incredibly educational, because sometimes you can see exactly what they're doing, setting up an ambush. There was a really cool video on Instagram today, I don't know if you follow this guy, Sportfish Galleries, Adrian Gray.

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, I love it, still.

Tom Rowland: Did you see that video he had today? Maybe it got picked up on another account, but it was his video, of a snook hiding behind a rock, and there were all these baitfish coming around. This snook is behind the rock, and then just at the right time it goes up and kills these baitfish, but then comes right back in and sets up again. You watch that video and think, that is super cool, because you're always thinking, well, there's probably a snook around that rock or whatever, but this showed how the baitfish were coming around, and most of them weren't in harm's way, but then a couple would come a little further out, and that snook is just sitting there waiting.

Capt. Justin Napior: Waiting, yep.

Tom Rowland: And then all of a sudden it's like, that's it, right there, bam. When you see that you start to think, if I was fishing there, that's what I need to do, and that's where you've got clients on board and you're like, cast to that rock, cast again, and again, and again. Then one time, it's not even perceptible, but it's coming back a half inch different than where it was last time, or maybe the wind blew the line over a little and it's pulling the lure around just a little bit differently, and all of a sudden, wham. It's been waiting all day for that. It doesn't mean that just because it's in the area you're gonna get the bite.

Capt. Justin Napior: It's gotta be the zone.

Tom Rowland: And just by looking at the area, some guides and anglers are really good and they look at it and say, this is how it's gonna go, but oftentimes it takes multiple casts, because it seems right, you have the ability to see there's a good spot, there's going to be a fish there, but is it two inches this way or two inches that way? So maybe you make multiple casts and then bam, it happens. That video was perfect for that, I even commented on it.

Capt. Justin Napior: I didn't see that one, but it reminds me of my tarpon fishing. I try to stay on tarpon all year. Right now the big ones are easy to find, they're out front, in schools, along the beaches and kind of in the backwater. But I like to stay on them all year, and I specifically like the fifty pound and under, the juvenile stuff, it's a lot of fun, it's not gonna kill your back. My average client can jump a handful or catch a couple, and it's really fun, so I try to stay on those guys all year.

Tom Rowland: With all the cold fronts, is there some temperature or situation where you're just not able to find those fish?

Capt. Justin Napior: It gets a little tough, I'd say January, February. It's a little tough, but they're still in those creeks. I've spent a lot of time studying tarpon behavior to figure out that they don't just disappear, they just move to a certain place, and you can figure out where. For me, in the wintertime it seems like they like that dark backwater, because it's so dark that when the sun shines on it, it warms up quicker. That's where they hang out, and that's where you find your bigger snook in the wintertime as well. So I've spent a lot of time doing that, and developing techniques to get them to eat.

Techniques for Tarpon and Snook

Tom Rowland: Let's talk about that.

Capt. Justin Napior: The couple of techniques I've been working on the past couple of years that are tried and true for me now, because I've done it so much, is when I see a tarpon roll, I cast right on his head. The reason for that, in my theory, is when that tarpon rolls and comes up and starts going back down, I'll time my jig head to my water depth. Let's say it's three feet, I'll use a one-eighth ounce jig, a super light jig that's gonna land soft. In my head I'm thinking that tarpon comes up, rolls, I cast that jig, it hits, and as that tarpon's going down and that jig's falling, it's gonna be his idea to see that and hammer it. It's not like a force thing, like he's coming at me, let me cast right at him or bring the lure right to him, because that's not natural. That technique, if they don't hit it as it's falling, usually the first twitch and they're hammering it. That technique has caught me a lot of fish, and jumped a lot of fish. It's been a really good technique.

Tom Rowland: I like what you said there, that it's his idea. That's how we fish the big tarpon on the ocean side too. You gotta cast so far in front of those fish that they don't see the fly land in the water, and then you bring it in a way that the fish discovers the fly. You're not showing the fish the fly, you're putting the fly in a situation where the fish discovers it. It's just swimming along and goes, oh, what's that?

Capt. Justin Napior: Exactly, make it his idea.

Tom Rowland: Why is it coming at me? There's a big difference. You know, I'm not a big cat guy, but I've had a cat in the past, and that cat is easy to play with when it's a kitten, you can take a piece of string and it'll come right over and play with it. But when that cat gets to be about eleven years old and eleven pounds, and you throw something at it, it just looks at you like, you gotta be kidding me. But if you can see it, like I used to do with this cat, you could see it go eat its lunch and come back around the couch, and you're like, okay, I'll get this cat to play with me right now, because it's gonna come around this couch like it always does. I'll move the string so slowly, and it's gonna be his idea to pounce on it. So you set up this ambush, and it's the same thing that happens with fish, the same understanding, if you wanna catch the big one, they're like that old cat. They're not just gonna jump on anything, it's gotta be something really interesting, something in a lot of cases they didn't expect, like it wasn't there a second ago, where did that come from, that's gotta be the stupidest little minnow in the world. You gotta set that ambush up.

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, I wouldn't recommend my technique in the Keys though, that probably wouldn't work out too well. But back in that dark, dirty water, it works.

Tom Rowland: I'm sure it would, though. We have water like that too, up in, well, you're probably getting down to the Shark River, and we're getting up to the Shark River, so our water fisheries kind of intersect a little bit, there's a lot of similar stuff. Even in the super clear water of the Lower Keys, there are situations where you're getting that tannic water where the tide is going out and pushing that tannic water out of the mangroves, and it looks like iced tea, and the fish are in there pretty good.

Capt. Justin Napior: I've experienced that down there, fishing in the Ala Marauder.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And so what about the snook? How do you see the differences between fishing for tarpon and fishing for snook?

Capt. Justin Napior: When I go for the big snook I like my live bait, it's just a way to guarantee my clients good fish. I fish spots where I know they're hanging out, and I like big baits for that. I can go to places where I know my big snook are sitting, and I'll throw a big pilchard, or this time of year I actually like threadfins. A lot of guys hate threadfins because they don't stay lively, but if you know exactly where the fish are, you don't need them to be lively, you only need maybe three casts and then you let that bait do its thing and boom, that's it. So that's what I like for those spots. Then in the backwater, a lot of lures. Sometimes if I'm fishing dark water I'll break that old rule, dark water dark lure, I'll throw a bright white paddle tail back there and they'll fire up and hammer it, and sometimes they want a dark color, it just depends, so I'll usually have both tied up. One thing I don't do, that I learned from a good guy in my area who gave me this recommendation, he said he never takes live bait to his backwater spots. If those fish are chewing on lures really well and you start bringing pilchards back there every day, you're gonna ruin them, they're gonna hone in on those pilchards, it's all they're gonna want, you're gonna make them really finicky. Right now they're not finicky, you can throw a paddle tail at them and they've never seen the thing before. I took that advice and it made complete sense, I love that, that's genius. I was gonna go throw my net, get some pilchards, and bring them to the backwater, and I'm glad I didn't do it, because that makes complete sense, don't bring them back there, they're not eating pilchards back there, so bringing them would almost spoil them.

Tom Rowland: Right, they sure would like to, though.

Capt. Justin Napior: Oh, I'm sure it would be insane fishing, but after a while I think they'd tune in on that, and then when the bait's hard to get, now what? Actually, speaking of that, when I first started guiding, I was the bait. I had to have that live bait, I wanted my clients to have a good time, I had to get that live bait. But it was just about two years ago I finally broke out of that and was able to have great days, catch quality fish, without using live bait. That took the bait grind off me. Obviously, that's number one, if I can go out, throw the net, get my pilchards, that's great, I'm guaranteed my clients are gonna have a good time. But if you can't do that, which happens at certain times of the year, you gotta have that plan B. For me it's been really dialing in jigs and shrimp, it doesn't matter the skill level, you don't have to be good at fishing lures, I can get you good fish just using a simple jig and shrimp, which is a tried and true technique in our area. A lot of guys fish it all year round. So that was a really great turning point for my guiding career, when I broke out of that live bait bubble and was able to produce fish outside of it.

Dealing with Bait Shortages

Tom Rowland: Have you been having trouble getting any live shrimp right now in your area?

Capt. Justin Napior: Yes.

Tom Rowland: There were none in the Keys just recently, it's been very, very tough to get live shrimp. You gotta be first there, and then it doesn't last very long, and the shrimp truck isn't really coming regularly. I don't know why that is necessarily.

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, I don't know what's going on either. I know in the summertime it's normal for them to get small, but yeah, there's been a shortage of shrimp, and then they're extremely small to where they're almost pointless. So I just do frozen shrimp on a jig if I have to, and that works just as good.

Tom Rowland: So your frozen shrimp, are you just buying those, or are you catching shrimp?

Capt. Justin Napior: I'm just buying them.

Tom Rowland: There were some guys in the Keys where the shrimp got really tough, and they were going out and netting them at night, freezing them themselves, being real careful about packing and vacuum sealing them for the times in the summer when it got really tough. They were testing so much better than the other ones, I don't know if those get mishandled or smashed or how long they sit before they freeze, but these guys were probably still alive when they were vacuum packing them, and then freezing them, and they'd only put six or eight in a bag, and they were dynamite. They really stayed on the hook, they looked great.

Capt. Justin Napior: That's good.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, bonefish were eating them, it was great. I mean, it takes a lot of work, but if we continue to get these shrimp shortages, that's certainly something that works very well.

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, I'll do that sometimes with ladyfish. If I'm on a trip and we're catching ladyfish, which is a bycatch no matter what you're doing, I'll catch a couple, throw them in the livewell, take them home, and freeze them just in case one of those days pops up where the shrimp's tough, the bait's tough, maybe it's blowing twenty miles an hour out of the west and it's terrible. I'll throw some chunks in a couple of spots and usually produce some nice fish. Usually if it's a redfish or a snook, it's gonna be an upper-slot or over-slot fish, a decent fish.

Tom Rowland: So there's probably some people out there who don't quite understand, why don't you explain how you're taking a frozen ladyfish, finding the area you want to use them in, and how you're using those chunks?

Capt. Justin Napior: So what I'll do is go to an area where I know fish are holding, because I know they're there, and I'll take, basically, a chunk about the size you'd get taking your pointer finger and thumb and putting them together. I'll put it on maybe a 3/0 hook, start with no weight depending on where it is, cast it over there, and just let it sit and wait. Usually, if it gets picked up by a fish, it's a good sized fish that picks it up, they like those chunks of ladyfish. That's basically how I fish them.

Tom Rowland: That's a technique where you do not have to see the fish. It helps if you've caught fish there before, but if you find a shoreline that looks really good and throw that near the shoreline, I like to try to get it almost under the bushes.

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, exactly, under the trees.

Tom Rowland: Right. But how long are you letting it sit there before you decide it's unproductive?

Capt. Justin Napior: The whole spot, I probably want to give about twenty minutes. If you don't get one good run in twenty or thirty minutes, you're probably not gonna get any in there, or if I get three catfish in between, we're just gonna move somewhere else and try. That's another thing, when you go into the mangroves you gotta stay away from the catfish, if someone casts six or eight feet off the mangroves, that's catfish territory, you want to be in those trees. Thirty minutes probably, because that style of fishing isn't my favorite personally. I've used it in tournaments because it produces big fish, and I've used it to put some fish on the board for clients when the bait was terrible. But if I don't get one within twenty or thirty minutes, I'm probably gonna go back to a shrimp and jig, or change technique, or change spots altogether.

Tom Rowland: But for a lot of people who don't have a lot of spots, knowing a technique like that can be incredibly good, because when it's really blowing, you guys don't have the problem we do, since you have so many shorelines that can be sheltered. In the Lower Keys we have a lot of islands, but not, well, they don't call it the Ten Thousand Islands for nothing.

Capt. Justin Napior: Ten thousand.

Tom Rowland: Islands for nothing, you get a lot of islands. So for people with limited spots, knowing a technique like that, using ladyfish or cut-up pinfish or mullet, that can be a day-saver, big time, on a windy day.

Capt. Justin Napior: Oh yeah.

Tom Rowland: What kind of bottom, when you're looking at that earlier, you said you were looking for points with hard bottom, is that something you'd be looking for with that technique too?

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, that technique works there too, because that's where those fish are staging up and feeding. You throw a nice chunk bait in there, and it's an easy meal for them to suck up and take off with. That would for sure work.

Tom Rowland: Up there you're gonna catch redfish and snook, and are you gonna catch tarpon like that too?

Capt. Justin Napior: You'll catch tarpon like that, you'll catch big trout like that as well, you catch all of them. You could grand slam on chunk bait, really.

Goliath Grouper and Bonus Catches

Tom Rowland: What about Goliath grouper, do you see those under the bushes?

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, they like to hang out in the high current areas, high current, high structure, some baitfish flowing through there, holes basically, six, eight, ten foot deep holes, you can get them out of there.

Tom Rowland: Do you like fishing for them?

Capt. Justin Napior: They're fun, I think they're underrated, those backwater ones.

Tom Rowland: I really love them.

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, they trick me every time. When I'm throwing lures and I'm looking for redfish, I don't know if it's just me, but every time one thumps my lure it feels like a redfish, that heavy thump, and then all of a sudden it's something that's not acting like a red, something weird, and then that big grouper comes up. Those backwater ones are fun, I've got clients that catch those and get a kick out of it.

Tom Rowland: I always thought I kind of happened upon that fishery by accident, because it's blowing thirty and your client says, well, I don't wanna sit in the hotel room, I don't care if we catch anything, I'd rather go. So it's like, okay, we're going, what are we gonna do? Because it's not gonna be bonefish, permit, or tarpon, I can tell you that, it's literally blowing thirty. We're gonna have to go up against the bushes, so it's like, well, do you wanna go snapper fishing? Sure, I'll go snapper fishing. You get up on some of those shorelines, you see something moving under there, and then I started catching these little baby Goliath grouper. People were having such a good time with it, because most of those people were bass fishermen, like you were telling me your story about being a bass fisherman and catching a snook way bigger than any bass you ever caught, that's how these people were with the Goliath grouper. They were like, I don't know why you guys don't fish for these things, this is the biggest bass I've ever caught. You catch a twelve pound Goliath grouper, which isn't a big one at all, and it's a huge largemouth bass, and really fun. So I started fishing for them, and then I was incredibly disappointed around 2010 when we had that big cold front.

Capt. Justin Napior: That freeze.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, it really knocked them back. But just lately, we did a show purposefully going after the small Goliath groupers, and it's kind of funny, that ended up being one of the most popular shows we ever did, and it was a happenstance show. We'd already caught bonefish, permit, and tarpon, so what are we gonna do now, and I said, I guess we could go catch these Goliath groupers under the bushes. My buddy Rich was like, what are you talking about? I said, let's go over here and do it, and we got this amazing footage, the water was super clear, we had a GoPro down there, I think this might even have been before GoPros, we had a camera in a housing. We got great footage, catching these fish, and had so much response to that show. I think it's a very underrated fish.

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, they're a lot of fun, people just haven't caught them, and it's exciting, you hook a decent one. I've had a couple twenty, thirty pounders that popped a jerkbait, and they're like, what the heck is this?

Tom Rowland: Yeah, you pull it up and.

Capt. Justin Napior: If you could figure out how to fish artificials for those things and catch them regularly, as often as you could on bait, that'd be great. I've been getting them, actually, most of the ones I've caught recently have been on artificial, on a black and pink paddle tail.

Tom Rowland: Nice. Yeah, I don't think they like, they like crabs.

Capt. Justin Napior: Oh yeah, man. I took my wife fishing recently, she wanted to catch a permit, she'd never caught one. It was the Friday before Fourth of July weekend, we both had the day off, so I said, alright, let's go try this, we'll get half a dozen crabs and try it. Took her and my two daughters, family day, we hit some of the offshore stuff and floated crabs back. She hooks a monster, and I'm like, uh oh, that's pulling kind of weird, I think it was a big Goliath, and they broke her off. Then she floats another one back and catches like a thirty-eight inch snook, which I've never had a snook eat a crab personally, but it hammered it. Then she caught a thirty, and we had one good permit run, but I was worried about the Goliath, so I told her to put a lot of pressure on it, and she pulled the hook. I'd rather have it pull the hook than have the Goliath eat it. So, oh well, she was happy with her bycatch.

Tom Rowland: That's an area with a tremendous amount of permit and Goliath on some of those wrecks and structure offshore, right?

Capt. Justin Napior: Big snook as well, and big reds in the wintertime.

Tom Rowland: Really? That's cool, I've never pushed up there in the wintertime, I just try to avoid long runs in the wintertime.

Capt. Justin Napior: That's a run for you, yeah, and if that wind picks up, that's gonna be a fun ride back.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, it can be. But I'll have to check out those big redfish out there in the wintertime.

Capt. Justin Napior: For sure. They get on those wrecks too, paddle tails, artificial shrimp, bait if you can get it, pilchards down on the bottom on a split shot. It's mostly snook and Goliath, but you do get the reds, when they start their migration you'll randomly come across schools of them hanging out on some of those wrecks and reefs. Basically bycatch.

Building a Reputation and Handling Competition

Tom Rowland: Alright, so as a guide who's kind of getting started, you get your captain's license as a first step, and then how do you start to develop customers? How did you do it?

Capt. Justin Napior: With me, I gotta say, social media was a big part of it. Some guys don't like social media, some of these old charter captains don't like it, but for me I feel there are more pros than cons. As I started to make a small name for myself, I started getting a lot of people from social media, and then it was a lot of word of mouth. Even currently, I'm still strictly social media and word of mouth, and it's been working really well. Now, some of the nosy guys, and every area has their handful of guys that are just not happy, and I've had people ask me straight to my face, how are you getting trips? And I'm like, social media and word of mouth, man, I'm not stealing any work from you, I just do my own thing, I fish because it's fun, and I don't want any part of the drama. My two cents on that is, if guys in your area are giving you crap, it's probably because, one, they're maybe not that good at fishing and they're intimidated by you, or two, they're not that great with their people skills, and as a whole they're not a good guide, and they're intimidated by you. Because I can tell you the guides that are good at what they do don't care what you're doing. Jeff Lugucki is a perfect example, he's awesome, a local guide in my area, and Jeff doesn't give a crap what I'm doing. He doesn't care that I've been guiding the same areas for a couple of years, because he doesn't care, he's good at what he does. The guys who do care, I just think they're intimidated by you personally.

Tom Rowland: Well, maybe they could be intimidated, or maybe they're just frustrated that it seems like they're doing all the right things but the trips just aren't coming their way. But maybe there needs to be a little introspection about why the trips aren't coming your way. Did you get mad at some previous customers? Do you show up late? What is it, is it your professionalism, your attitude, your conversational skills? Are you looking at this as a fishing tournament, or as an entertainment business?

Capt. Justin Napior: Exactly. With fishing, what I've learned, and I learn every year, I strive every year to become better. With fishing and people skills, and my people skills are fairly good, I'm good with people, and I think that's what gets my clients to come back. I show them a good time, they catch fish, and this guy was a lot of fun, he didn't care that I got caught in the trees four times, call it four hundred. He didn't care, and I have a funny thing for that, when someone gets caught in the trees, a lot of times they're embarrassed, they're like, oh man, I'm so sorry, and I say, don't be sorry, it's part of the game. I always say, if you're not getting stuck in the trees, you're not trying hard enough. Depending on how their attitude is, if they're laughing with me, I'll say, it's fine, we'll just send the county a bill for trimming the trees, and they usually get a kick out of that, they laugh. So a lot of what I've learned is the fish are a bonus. When people go fishing with you, they're going on an adventure with you, they're on vacation, they're taking a day off work, they just wanna have fun. They don't wanna be yelled at, they don't wanna hear why did you blow that shot, why did you miss that fish, they just wanna have fun. If you can make it as fun as possible, joke around, and catch some fish too, I think that's what brings them back. That's what I try to do, sell them an adventure, you're gonna have a good time with me and we're just gonna have fun. I'm not gonna yell at you, if you miss a fish, that's wood, that's part of fishing. Some guys get really into it, and I understand that, there are days I've had people blow shots at really nice fish, and as a guide I want them to catch that fish, so I'm bummed out, but I'm not gonna yell at them, I'll just say, let's try again, or let's go try another fish, we'll carry on, we'll make it happen whatever way we need to.

Reading Clients and Managing Expectations

Tom Rowland: Well, that's really the difference between somebody playing the long game, thinking, I'm trying to make this my career, and, sure, I want that person to catch that fish worse than they do, so much worse than they do.

Capt. Justin Napior: Been there.

Tom Rowland: Is it going to help for me to yell at this person? Is this person going to want to come back if I get upset? No, it's not. The only thing I can do in this situation is be the coolest guy that I can possibly be. Put my ego aside, sure, I would have loved to have posted that picture to social media, I would have loved to have told the guys at the dock we caught the biggest fish of the year, but that's all ego driven, you want that for some reason. But it's like the guy who's wondering how you're getting trips, well, maybe they're catching consistently, they catch better fish than you, but the guy has to get yelled at all day to catch that giant fish, and it's like, I don't even want this, I'd rather not catch anything than go out and get yelled at, I could get yelled at at home and it would work out the same. This is not what I'm doing out here. But I think it's kind of interesting that you have that perspective so easily, and maybe it's because it wasn't very long ago that you were a working person yourself, and the last thing you wanna do is go out and get yelled at, you're trying to have a good time.

Capt. Justin Napior: Trying to relax, exactly. Another thing, a trip I did just last year, I'll never forget it, it was an eye-opener to me. I was very focused on the fish, always have been, that was number one. I took a guy and his buddy, one guy was very good with artificial, his buddy wasn't good at fishing at all, which is fine, I can do all skill levels. So the first guy caught a couple snook, and his buddy jumped a tarpon, that technique I told you about, the tarpon rolled, I said cast right over there, he cast right on it, twitched it, and the tarpon hammered it, but he doesn't fish very much so he missed the hookset, the tarpon jumped and flung the lure. I thought that was pretty cool, so I said, let's move, it seemed like these guys had kind of chilled out, so let's carry on. As we're idling out, they're just chatting, and the buddy goes, man, it's so peaceful out here, I could not catch a fish the rest of the day and I'd be perfectly happy. That was a moment for me, I was like, man, this guy is just happy to be out here, the fish are just a bonus to him. It really took the pressure off, I was like, they already caught some fish, and we went on to catch more, but it was cool that it's easy to get wrapped up in the fish and forget that some people are just really happy to be out in your area, seeing where you're from, the fish are a bonus. I thought that was cool.

Tom Rowland: Right. Good guides, like you mentioned Jeff, obviously a very good guide with an amazingly good reputation. A lot of guides in the Keys, they're not just good fishermen, but people who have this stellar reputation and their clients couldn't imagine fishing with somebody else. It's not always because, but a lot of times it's because they know things other than fishing. They know when to keep their mouth shut, like when that guy is saying, wow, it's just so peaceful right here, I could just sit here for an hour, and then all of a sudden you put the Power-Pole down right there, turn the motor off, and say, cool, let's eat some lunch. He's like, really, right here, we could just sit here? Sure, man, no problem, whatever you wanna do, it's your day. And then instead of telling thirty-five jokes at lunch, you just be quiet, and you look over at the guy, and it's like, this is the first time in six months that this guy's been quiet, he's probably the CEO of some company, people asking him questions every second, answering text messages, and look at him, he doesn't have his phone, he's completely peaceful. Then later, a big moment for me is coming back to the dock and them saying, you know what, that lunch just rejuvenated me. Never mind that he caught four tarpon and a permit and a bonefish, he doesn't talk about that, he says, that lunch was amazing, and you know why? Because I didn't say anything, that's what he wanted, to be really super quiet. It's like having the ability to understand that, I think, is a superpower some guys have, that just understand this is not necessarily about catching the big fish. Now, I may have that same person as my angler for a tournament, and it's gonna be a different deal, that's about fishing in a tournament, and that's what that guy wants to do. But today, he's chill, and he wants to relax and have fun.

Capt. Justin Napior: You did a podcast with Benny Blanco, and he said that too, basically about reading your clients and asking them. I started applying that technique, when I get someone who inquires about a charter, my first question is, what are you interested in? What do you wanna do? Are you interested in just going out, live bait, catching whatever, or do you wanna fish backcountry snook and tarpon? What do you want to do? Because that's the number one question you should be asking as a guide getting into this, you need to know what your people want. I might be on an over-slot snook bite, and they might wanna catch snappers, and I might put them on all these snook, and they're like, well, we caught some cool snook, but that's not what we wanted to catch. So it's really about being able to read your customer and know what the client wants.

Tom Rowland: Well, I have a story I've told a couple of times before about that. Sometimes you think you know what your customer wants. I always thought one of the reasons I had any success was because of my telephone skills prior to the trip, I would ask people the same kind of questions you're asking, like what is it you wanna do, because I wanna have the right tackle, I wanna make sure I have whatever's required, I wanna make sure that if you're gonna show up with four people, you're not gonna be disappointed because my boat only holds two, I wanna know all the details. And I'm not afraid to push that trip off onto somebody who's better prepared for it, you wanna take kids fishing, that's not gonna be on a skiff, I'm not prepared for that. So I would ask a lot of questions, and one time I asked a bunch of questions, and the guy said, well, I wanna go bonefishing. I said, great, and he knew some of the language, sounded like he knew what he was doing. So he shows up, we go bonefishing, and I'm working my tail off back there poling, pointing them out, we're finding them, and he gets a lot of shots, for the Keys, maybe twenty shots in a morning of fishing.

Capt. Justin Napior: Jeez, on a half day.

Tom Rowland: Right, this is great, and so he goes, man, I'm getting kind of hungry, so we start floating along, let's take a break, and we float over near a mangrove island with a ditch, and he looks down and goes, what are those? I said, oh, those are snappers. He goes, can I catch those? I said, sure, he's got a shrimp on his rod, puts it in the water, catches one, puts another shrimp on, catches another, and he says, why haven't we been catching these? I said, well, you told me you wanted to go bonefishing. He goes, well, aren't we bonefishing? And I said, well, those are snappers. And he goes, oh, I thought bonefishing was just being on a boat like this, I thought this was a bonefish boat. All of a sudden it's like, oh, I guess I didn't ask enough questions, like, do you know that a bonefish is actually a real fish? He wanted to go out in a small boat and catch fish, on a spear, apparently. So we sat there, and I was like, okay, well, I guess I don't need to be poling into the wind anymore, and he sat there and caught as many snappers as we had shrimp, and he was perfectly happy. That one trip taught me a lot about asking questions and making sure you understand, because that guy was as happy as he could be, and I don't think he even saw one bonefish that I'd seen earlier in the day. I'm not even sure his glasses were polarized, I'm not sure he was seeing them, and it wasn't fun, that's not what he wanted to do.

Referrals and Working with Other Guides

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, and then that's good. So on that same note, being able to give away, if you have a six-person charter, which you can't do, you give them away. That's the thing too, I really specialize in the thrill of the hunt, I want the bigger fish, the picture that hangs on the refrigerator. Over the past couple of years I've been really strictly catch and release, and for a while I caught crap for that, a lot of guys said, how are you gonna catch and release only, some people wanna eat fish. I understand that, I like fish, and I do target certain species certain times of year that you can take home, but that's not what I'm about. So it works out fine because I can stick to what I want to stick to, and the trips where people just want to fill a cooler, which I don't do, I can refer to my buddies, guides who've gotten close to me over the years and know what I'm about. I'll say, hey, give him a call, he'll do that for you. So I can keep that client happy, and they can go with someone else who wants to do that style of fishing. This has worked out well for me over the past few years, people usually know what I'm about, and that's what they wanna do. Now I've gotten a few referred to me who were like, hey, we wanna fill the cooler, and I say, I don't personally do that style of fishing, I'm more into snook and tarpon, do you wanna do that, I can help you, if not I'll refer you to someone around you who can definitely put you on fish to fill your cooler.

Tom Rowland: It could also, you don't wanna necessarily hurt anybody's feelings, because that guy could come back to you.

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, exactly.

Tom Rowland: I'm not really set up for that, I'm in a little boat, I don't have a big livewell, I do catch and release, this guy's perfectly set up for it. If you decide you wanna come back and hunt some big snook, that's what I'm doing right now, that's what turns my crank, and that's cool, and people appreciate a referral over to someone if it's handled correctly. You can blow that opportunity too, you can be real ugly on the phone about it, but you can also be super nice, send them to the right person, they have a great trip, they continue to fish with that guy, and they also fish with you.

Capt. Justin Napior: Yep, great, everybody's, I've had that happen, I've sent people to a guy to do their cooler trip, and they said, hey, when I called you, you said you were really into snook and tarpon, I'd love to catch one. They'll come back and fish with me later and say that was a lot of fun, and it goes back and forth, it works out.

Tom Rowland: Everybody's happy. So when people are looking for a charter, what do you think are the most important questions to ask a prospective guide?

Advice for Booking the Right Guide

Capt. Justin Napior: Definitely, what are you interested in, once you get past the, like, the customer calling a guide, do you have Thursday open, that's not necessarily the right question. If that's not the right guide, how do you know? If you were a customer, what kind of questions would you be asking to make sure you got the trip you wanted? So if I was calling you, Tom, hey Tom, I want a trip, I'd say, first of all, I have to figure out what I want to catch. Let's say I've always wanted to catch a bonefish, let's pretend, I'm gonna say, how's the bonefish bite right now, are you confident you can put me on some bonefish today? And if they say, yeah, I'm pretty confident we can make that happen, I think that's an important question, figure out what you want to catch, and then ask whatever guide you're gonna call, what are the chances of me catching this particular fish, can we do it, or is it a maybe, and what's your backup, what's the plan B if those fish aren't cooperating? Then you give them what you have in mind, and if they're into it, boom, that's it. I think it's just making sure they catch what they're interested in catching.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, and also the tackle too, if you got a guy who all he wants to do is fly fish and you don't have any fly rods, that's not something you do, there's gonna be somebody better prepared for that, and you can probably put them exactly with the right person.

Capt. Justin Napior: Yeah, I don't personally do a lot of fly stuff, I really love fly fishing, but I am no professional fly angler, so I don't feel confident taking someone on a fly-only trip, only because I can't coach them, if they can't make the cast and it's not working, I can verbally say, try to lead them more, but I might not have the skills to say exactly what they're doing wrong with the actual physical cast. So I don't do fly only, though I've had plenty of guys who say, if they're chewing really well, can I throw a fly, and I say, sure, I'll throw a fly rod on the boat if the bite's there and you can make the cast, of course. It's been fun, but I would personally never do a fly-only trip, because my fly fishing abilities are limited, I'd rather push people to the plenty of guys around here who do fly only, and I'd be happy to send them that way.

Tom Rowland: Well, that's the way to do it, not to be so desperate that you have to take any trip that comes through, and really try to get the client with the right guide for him or her. And then the type of fishing you want to do will come your way too, that guy will get a guy who says, all I wanna do is throw lures at big tarpon, and he'll say, I know just the guy for you.

Capt. Justin Napior: Exactly, I wish the guides who aren't the most cooperative could see that, one hand feeds the other. I might be getting trips I don't necessarily want to do, and I'll be happy to refer them to you. I've got a buddy with a bigger boat who can fit six people, so a lot of my cooler-filler trips I'll refer to him, and he does inshore too, but doesn't specialize in snook and tarpon like I do. When he gets someone who wants snook and tarpon, he'll say, go with this guy, he'll put you on them, and I'll say, go with this guy, he'll put you on the groupers and snappers and all that. So one hand feeds the other, we can all work off each other if we just communicate and are civil.

Tom Rowland: Right, well, let's hope so. So let's, my final question to you, is if you had a blue sky plan for the next five years, where would you like to see your guide service, or what would you like to be doing for the next, fast forward to five years, how would you like to see it?

Looking Ahead

Capt. Justin Napior: Okay, fast forward to five years. My goal right now, like I said earlier, is just becoming the best I can be, and I would like to be one of those names. When you think of Southwest Florida, I'm hoping in the next five years I'll be one of those names that pops into your head, maybe top five, maybe top three, who knows. I wanna be one of those guides you think of when you think of Naples, Marco Island, Ten Thousand Islands. And then from there I just follow the road. I've always been interested in the TV side of things, I wouldn't be opposed to shows or all that stuff, that's always intrigued me. I actually listened to your podcast with Peter Miller.

Tom Rowland: Yeah.

Capt. Justin Napior: Who I've also met, he's a really cool dude, I like him a lot. You were saying how there's so much behind-the-scenes stuff that people don't see, that's tough, and I'd love to learn the inner workings of a TV show, I think that's pretty cool. So basically, yeah, just becoming the best guy I can be, I'd like to be a name in this area, and then maybe do some TV stuff, it'd be really fun over the next five years.

Tom Rowland: Right on, cool. Well, you're off to a very good start, you've got a great reputation, you were recommended to me for the podcast a number of times, so thank you for spending the time with us today. If people wanted to go fishing with you, or follow you on social media, how would they do that?

Where to Find Justin

Capt. Justin Napior: On social media, I'm captain.justinnapior, spelled out, J-U-S-T-I-N N-A-P-I-O-R, that's my Instagram. And then I'm Justin Napior on Facebook. My website is backcountryculture.com.

Tom Rowland: Backcountryculture.com, right on. Okay Justin, well thanks man, I appreciate it, and good luck to you. This will be out shortly, so I appreciate your time, and good luck with those backcountry tarpon.

Capt. Justin Napior: Awesome, thank you very much, Tom, appreciate you having me. Alright, we'll see you.