Capt. Paul Ross: Solo SuperSlam and Guiding While in School

Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 549, featuring Captain Paul Ross...

Paul Ross is a second-generation Florida Keys backcountry guide who is also finishing an entrepreneurship degree in college, driving up for classes mid-week and running charters the rest of the time. In this conversation he talks about balancing school and guiding, what he has learned about hospitality and running a business, and the day he pulled off a solo Super Slam on fly.

Balancing College and Guiding

Tom Rowland: Alright, Paul, what's up, man? I'm real happy to have you on here. I've been wanting to talk to you for a while. How's fishing?

Paul Ross: It's good. I've been up at school a lot, trying to knock that out so I can fish this next coming week.

Tom Rowland: So tell me about that. What's the process of going to school and being a fishing guide?

Paul Ross: Burn a lot of gas on both ends. A lot of miles. I'll drive up on a Tuesday morning, go to class Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, then come home that night and fish Friday through Monday. It's good, though. I'd rather be doing that than being stuck up there.

Tom Rowland: And what are you studying?

Paul Ross: Entrepreneurship, just to kind of enhance my skills for being an efficient guy. It was a new major right when I started. I was going to do business management and switched over to entrepreneurship. My advisor told me it would be worth a try. They teach you how to start a business, and a lot of it's oriented toward creating a product, being creative and finding ways to innovate. There's a lot of different aspects to it, like marketing, how to market a business online through Facebook ads and Google. I've still got some stuff to learn, but it's pretty diverse in the ways they teach you to run a business and make it better.

Tom Rowland: Have you been able to apply any of that to your guiding business already?

Paul Ross: I'm working on building my own website the way I want it. I think the biggest thing is it's taught me to think outside the box, to do things a little differently than other people are doing them.

Growing Up in an Offshore Fishing Family

Tom Rowland: You come from an interesting perspective. You're second generation, so you've been around the guiding business your whole life and seen what your dad's been doing. Honestly, even in the last ten years it's a completely different world -- social media, websites, podcasts, videos, YouTube. The way I started, the way your dad built his business, is somewhat applicable, but not exactly. It's not like you can do exactly what you saw him do.

Paul Ross: It's been so different for me because I grew up doing the offshore stuff with him. When I took a liking to the inshore stuff, it was a big change. You're more isolated -- you're not talking on the radio, you don't really want to talk to anybody. At least I try not to talk to as many people as I can. It seems more isolated and you're kind of on your own. I've been lucky enough to have some buddies who helped me out by sending business, but it seems like you have to find your own path. It was good to grow up around the offshore side too, because you learn a lot of people skills dealing with six people instead of one or two. There are a lot more center consoles running around now. The fleet is definitely changing, and the style of fishing is moving so fast.

Tom Rowland: There have been some major innovations in outboard and boat technology. A big boat when I started guiding was a 28-foot Whitewater. Now that doesn't even raise an eyebrow -- people are guiding out of 42-footers. It's changed the game. Much more fuel capacity, much more range, more speed.

Paul Ross: People are running hundreds of miles now.

Tom Rowland: With that offshore background, and that's what your dad has done so successfully for so long, what was the draw to inshore fishing for you?

Paul Ross: I think it was the mystery of it. We'd go into the backcountry occasionally and fish some, but I'd always hear about it. I grew up fishing around my grandma's dock a lot for bonefish and little tarpon, so I had an idea of it, but as soon as I got a skiff and could go back there, it opened up a whole new world. I think the hunt, being by yourself and not looking at other boats all day, is the coolest part of it.

Tom Rowland: You're obviously doing a really good job with it. We had a great time fishing with you for the show, even though we didn't have the best weather. That's the test of a guide, especially filming a TV show, which isn't ideal -- you're towing another boat around, and you get a shot pretty quickly, but everyone's telling you, no, you can't catch that fish yet, you have to wait, even though that's the only fish you've seen in hours.

Paul Ross: Yeah, you're sitting there teasing them.

Tom Rowland: It's a different deal shooting a TV show -- everything moves incredibly slowly. But you did a great job with that. I found your whole story interesting, going to college and guiding throughout. When did you start guiding, before college?

Paul Ross: Right out of high school, when I was 18. Then I went to college the next fall. I always kind of planned on doing it this way, but I didn't know how it would unfold. It took a year or so to figure out how to balance it -- going from high school, where you can kind of snake your way through everything, to college, where it's time to actually do the work. It took some adapting, but I've got it figured out now.

Why He Went Back to Finish School

Tom Rowland: There's tremendous respect due for finishing, because you'd already built a reputation good enough to book a full schedule. So you're weighing, do I go to school, or do I just take this job full time? What was the incentive to go back?

Paul Ross: I didn't really want to do it at first. My parents and a lot of other people encouraged me and told me it would be worth it in the long run, because you never know where you end up. It was hard until I could talk myself into it -- you can only do things because people are telling you to do it for so long. Around my spring semester, freshman year, I told myself I'd already gone a year, so why would I waste it? Let's just go the rest of the way and get through it. I've learned a lot now that I've actually found interest in it. The first two years were a little boring because you're just getting your general education out of the way, but now that it's applying to the major, I'm learning valuable information.

Tom Rowland: When they talk about innovating a product and doing things better, can you picture your own guide service as that product?

Paul Ross: Yeah. I've actually taken some hospitality classes as electives, and those have honestly been some of the more useful classes I've taken the last couple of years. It reminds you that you're providing a service, rather than getting angry at the guy for not making the right cast. You have to remind yourself of the service you're providing. That thought got instilled in my mind, and I feel like I've been a better guide because of that class.

Tom Rowland: There are a lot of days where the fishing and the weather don't allow for the best fishing, and the best fishing guides I know are really good entertainers as well. There are plenty of people who never enter a tournament, who aren't competitive at all, but have a book of business that would never go fishing with anyone else because they love that person so much -- there's a little showmanship to it, a little entertaining, making sure everybody's having a good time. Some guides miss that. They can be the best guide, catch the most fish, but nobody wants to fish with them because they're screaming at their clients.

Paul Ross: I hear the horror stories all the time. It sticks in people's heads -- they'll come back and tell the stories sometimes. I try to learn from other people's mistakes and take what I can from hearing those kinds of things.

Life as a Working Student

Tom Rowland: How much more school do you have?

Paul Ross: Two more semesters to finish up. I'm pretty much done with my major, just have some electives left. It's been tough balancing work and school, so I've been taking four classes a semester, which set me back a couple of semesters. I'm just catching up now. As soon as I'm done, I'm going to go full time and book as many days as I can.

Tom Rowland: You're in a great position. So many kids come out of school with debt. You're coming out having worked the whole time.

Paul Ross: I feel very lucky.

Tom Rowland: What are your plans once you go full time?

Paul Ross: Just carrying on what I've built the last couple of years with the people I've fished with, and hopefully meeting a lot of new people too. I've got a lot of days built up over the summer months, so now it's working on the wintertime stuff, whenever those people can come down. This year's been tough because everybody's dates rolled over, so I've had kind of a cram schedule and haven't been able to take in as many new people as the year before. But I'm excited to have more time for newer clientele once I'm done.

Tournament Fishing and Building a Team

Tom Rowland: You've also got a pretty extensive tournament resume -- there's a big check and a giant dolphin on the wall behind you. How do tournaments play into your future plans, and how important do you think that is for a guide starting out?

Paul Ross: I think it helps for sure. Win or lose, you get to meet a lot of new people, a lot of really good anglers. I've met a lot of cool people at those events, and if you do well, it obviously spreads. It depends on your style of fishing and what your book looks like, but it's pretty important in my head -- it's all I think about. If I find something good on any given day, I keep it in mind for the next tournament. I've got some buddies who aren't as into it and do really well, and some buddies who are really into it and do really well too, so I guess it just depends on your intensity with it.

Tom Rowland: Tournament fishing isn't something you go halfway into. Maybe there was a time you could dabble in a tournament or two a year, but the landscape has gotten so competitive that a lot of people are keeping those tournaments in mind all year long. Somebody who just decides to dabble probably isn't going to do as well as they might think.

Paul Ross: Right, and I think the important part is building a team as guide and angler. If you don't have that team, I don't think it's as easy. I have a harder time enjoying my time in a tournament if I'm not in sync with the guy on the bow -- if he's thinking about when he's going to get the next shot instead of his own skills, that kind of tweaks you out as a guide. But if you've fished together a lot, you're only worried about finding the next fish because you know the guy on the bow is going to get it done.

Tom Rowland: You probably know Florida Keys tournament history as well as anybody, growing up around it. What guide-angler teams stand out to you as the ones who are hard to beat?

Paul Ross: Lately it's been Richard Black and Rob Breeze, or Richard and Bo Kohr -- Richard's an amazing guy, and that's a team where you're not surprised when they come back with a full score sheet. Jared Rascob did really well a couple of years back, and even though he doesn't fish as many tournaments now, if he fishes one, he's going to win. You pretty much know going in who you have to worry about, but sometimes people surprise you.

Tom Rowland: Do you ever see a great angler and a great guide get put together and not do as well as you might have thought?

Paul Ross: I can't think of a specific example, but a lot of people think it's guaranteed when a great angler and a great guide team up, when in the end, it's just fishing -- if you don't get the opportunities you need, it's not going to work out.

Tom Rowland: Two guides fishing together doesn't always mean they're going to win, either. Two alphas on the boat might not be the best team. What do you think the recipe is for the best team?

Paul Ross: Fishing a lot with somebody who's a good angler. I've got some guys I fish with quite a bit, and the first couple of days might be rough -- you might not be as productive at first. But anybody who fishes tournaments or guides would know that the guy on your bow at 8 o'clock or 100 feet is going to be different after the first six days you fish together. The more you fish with somebody, the more your gauge of the clock and distance narrows down, and that makes a big difference, because you only get a fraction of a second from the time you see a fish to when the bait needs to be in front of it.

Tom Rowland: You need to react in half a second. When you're on the same page like that, I had anglers where I wouldn't even have to call out a full clock position -- I'd just say "left" or "eleven o'clock," and we'd be on the same page. They just knew where I was looking, and they knew I wasn't going to call something out with a lot of anxiety at 8 o'clock if the fish was actually somewhere else. With some people you click right away and you're looking in the same spots, and with others it's more of a struggle -- is it my communication, or his understanding of what I'm saying, which probably boils down to communication anyway. Some teams are just going to be better than others.

Paul Ross: A hundred percent. It seems like it takes a couple of years to figure out who you're going to blend with. That's why I want to fish with as many people as possible, to feel around and eventually find someone you can be in sync with.

Tom Rowland: And then something changes in their life -- maybe a divorce, maybe their kids leave for college -- and all of a sudden they can't fish as much, or tournaments aren't as important to them anymore, and that chapter closes and you have to find a new one.

Paul Ross: That's what's cool about it, I guess. You don't know what's going to happen.

Favorite Instagram Moments

Tom Rowland: The last couple of posts on your Instagram are pretty incredible. You don't post a lot, but it's one of my favorite accounts. One of them is a Goliath grouper eating a top-water bait.

Paul Ross: Yeah, I try to post some odd stuff like that every now and then. I think my most-viewed post is a barracuda eating a plug we were trolling.

Tom Rowland: That's an incredible video, and I actually saved it, because I talk about barracuda fishing a lot, and it's a perfect example of what a barracuda wants -- you start twitching the lure and he comes up and just puts his nose on it, and won't eat it. Then you make another cast, rip it through, and he eats it.

Paul Ross: It was clear what that fish wanted. My girlfriend took that video -- she was eating lunch on the cooler while I was fishing. It wasn't even meant to be that cool of a video, it just ended up being that way.

Tom Rowland: You couldn't have done it any better. But the one I wanted to talk about is the Goliath grouper, where you're pitching a shrimp into the mangroves.

Paul Ross: He had eaten two or three of our shrimp already, so that's when I pulled out the phone. He was a little fired up.

Tom Rowland: That's such a cool video. If people aren't following you, go look up Paul Ross on Instagram. I also want to ask about the bluefin tuna -- was that the first one you ever caught?

Catching a Bluefin Tuna in Cape Cod

Paul Ross: Yeah, I'd never caught one. That was the first time I'd gone up north. My dad's buddy, Brett Wilson, runs a boat out of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We had planned the trip the year before, but it didn't work out because of COVID, so we went up this year instead. The coolest part was catching bait the first day -- we thought we'd be catching tinker mackerel, but we were catching eight-, ten-pound bluefish off the beach for bait. The bluefish were like 36 inches long. We fished some mackerel and dead bait too, but the tuna ate a bluefish. It didn't fight the first twenty minutes -- we thought it was a shark, just dead weight, not pulling, not gaining, just sitting there. We never saw it eat. It came up maybe thirty minutes in, and it turned out it was hooked in the mouth but wrapped up under a pectoral fin, so we did circles around the boat for another hour and a half after that.

Tom Rowland: What did you think about the bluefin, with all the fishing you've done?

Paul Ross: That was the coolest thing ever. It wasn't even like a fish, it was like an animal -- like harvesting a cow. I don't do much hunting, but that was closer to harvesting a wild animal on land than catching a fish. It was so disproportionate to anything I'd seen. It was a slow couple of days overall, but we were lucky to get that bite, and it's definitely the most amazing thing I've ever seen on the water. We're planning to go back up. It was only about a hundred feet of water, maybe two miles from shore -- you could see the dock where we were fishing.

The Solo Super Slam on Fly

Tom Rowland: That's pretty cool. But then this latest post, the Super Slam on fly by yourself -- I want to know about that, because I don't know that you could do anything more difficult.

Paul Ross: There was a little bit of luck involved. I didn't mean to do it. It was a Friday or something -- I came home from class late, didn't leave the dock till about 10 o'clock, and just went out by myself. I wasn't even sure there was a tournament going on, I think I was just looking for new stuff. I slowed down in the first area and caught a permit on a crab -- I don't ever really fly fish for permit, but I figured I'd tie a permit fly on since I had one. The crabs were so big I had a better chance with the little fly. I tied the permit fly on, went back in, missed a shot, then found one just floating and made a terrible cast that plopped near its tail. I let the fly sink, stripped tight when it turned, and hooked up. I caught that permit and didn't think much of it besides being happy, but figured I'd go see if I could catch a tarpon. I ran in, poled maybe a hundred feet, saw tarpon laying there, and caught one. Then I thought, now I've got to go bonefishing. I was way up in Key Largo, and about forty-five minutes in there was a big mud of bonefish, so I caught one of those. It was maybe 1:30 or 2:00, and I didn't have anything else going on, so I decided to run to Flamingo -- the only other person who'd supposedly done a Super Slam solo on fly before that was Jared Rascob, with an angler, maybe five years earlier. There were a bunch of schools of redfish around Flamingo, pretty easy to shut down and start pushing a big wake, so I caught one of those. The snook was always the hard part for me on a Super Slam, because it's usually late in the day. The water was high, so I had to work a shoreline, put a split shot on the fly, and blind-cast it for probably a hundred and fifty casts before I hooked up. I finished around 4:30 -- the redfish and the snook were maybe thirty or forty minutes apart.

Tom Rowland: It's incredible for a number of reasons -- we're so fortunate to have this fishery so close together.

Paul Ross: I wouldn't want to fish anywhere else because of that. You can catch a sailfish or a tuna in the morning and run back to go bonefishing, or go snook and redfishing instead. You can't do that anywhere else in the world.

Tom Rowland: To get a Super Slam with a guide and an angler is pretty awesome, and I know you've done that a number of times. How many?

Paul Ross: Not on fly -- I've caught maybe half a dozen mixed, a couple on spin, a couple on fly. That was the only one I've ever done entirely on fly.

Tom Rowland: What about a regular slam -- permit, bonefish, and tarpon?

Paul Ross: Twenty-something, but there are guys hunting way more than that.

Tom Rowland: Sure, but you're a very young man -- there's only so much time. Mark Krowka has hundreds.

Paul Ross: Over 800 or something. I know. Yeah, but he's also quite a bit older than me.

Tom Rowland: But you're building an impressive number. On this one, the Super Slam -- permit, tarpon, bonefish, redfish, and snook -- doing it on fly makes it harder, and doing it by yourself on fly is a totally different thing, in my book, than doing it solo with a spinning rod. I tried to catch a permit on fly by myself for a year, and it was incredibly difficult. You finally get the perfect shot, try to get down off the poling platform, trip over something, make noise, and the fly line ends up under the boat.

Paul Ross: Getting from the poling platform to the bow by yourself is the hardest part. I had a trolling motor that day, and I couldn't have done it without one -- my boat is so light on the bow when you're alone that there's a lot of hull slap. You have to put buckets of water on the bow.

Tom Rowland: That's what we used to do -- fill a cooler with saltwater and put it on the bow. Simon Becker told me that trick. I couldn't get close to fish because I was making too much noise, and putting two hundred pounds of water up there made a huge difference.

Paul Ross: Huge difference, for sure. That day I caught the permit and the bonefish off the trolling motor at a low setting -- I don't think I would have gotten the permit without it. The trolling motor has to be on a low setting, because on a higher setting they can feel the vibration.

Tom Rowland: If you creep up on low, you can get very close. Did you have a bow-mount trolling motor?

Paul Ross: Yeah. But there's still a major obstacle -- if the line gets outside the boat, the trolling motor can chew it up. The remote was wrapped right here, double-wrapped around it.

Tom Rowland: There are so many things that can go wrong in that situation. When I read that post I thought, holy cow, he did this by himself on fly. Did you have a line bucket or anything for the fly line?

Paul Ross: I don't think I had it that day -- with a lot of people I don't really like using one, because I feel like they worry more about putting the line in the bucket than catching the fish in front of them. It was pretty calm, so I think I was just stripping the line into the boat. A lot of times when I'm fishing by myself I'll use a bucket, though, so when I'm poling, the line isn't wrapped around my phone or the cooler.

Tom Rowland: The worst is trying to keep it all up on the poling platform with you, and then it ends up wrapped around the engine.

Paul Ross: Yeah, tarpon fishing especially -- if you're anchored up by yourself, that's a nightmare without a bucket.

Tom Rowland: And landing a fish like that by yourself, when it's already hard to do with a professional guide behind you, positioning the boat and telling you exactly what to do -- doing it alone, even on a spinning rod, is very difficult. Your bait dies, you've got to get down off the tower, put fresh bait on, and you're drifting the whole time. Then to put a fly rod into that with sixty feet of line loose in the boat -- I thought what you did was one of the best angling accomplishments I've ever heard about.

Paul Ross: There are a lot of days I go out and don't catch anything. It just happened. It's funny, when you see it all unfold it doesn't seem like anything at the time, it doesn't seem as crazy, but it's probably the best thing I'll ever do personally as an angler, besides the bluefin, maybe.

Tom Rowland: Might go out and do a double Slam one day.

Paul Ross: You never know.

Tom Rowland: When you put in the days like that -- my son killed his first elk with a bow this year after trying for five years. When it was unfolding I was with him, and I could tell this was going to happen this year, but when you haven't done it before it's hard to see it coming. It kept taking me back to when I came to the Keys and was getting my captain's license, spent a year on the water, and just decided I wanted to catch a permit by myself on fly. I put a lot of time into it, and it was horribly unsuccessful and frustrating -- I'd get the best shot and then it would wrap around the steering wheel with nobody there to help. Then finally it happened, and when it did, there was nothing to it -- it happened exactly like everybody said it would, exactly like I hoped, but I'd never seen it happen before. That's kind of what you're describing with the Super Slam -- it just kind of happened, one fish and then the next, but I don't think that ever really happens unless you've put in the time and had all the mishaps that come before it.

Paul Ross: A hundred percent. If that was your only day ever going out there, you'd better play the lottery -- there's no way. You just learn, even going by yourself. I feel like the stress level is absolutely zero when you're alone, because nobody's questioning what's going on, you don't feel like you have to keep them entertained, nobody's walking around the boat making noise. It's only what you want to do, so every time you go, you might learn a better way to be more effective doing it alone -- whether it's the bucket, or checking where your fly line is before getting back up on the platform, or pushing from the bow. But for sure, it's a whole chain of events that leads up to that kind of success.

Finding Time for Yourself

Tom Rowland: Now that you're booking more and more days and developing a reputation, winning tournaments, how do you feel about the lack of days fishing by yourself? When I was starting out I fished alone a lot, then you get booked constantly and realize you haven't fished by yourself in a year or more.

Paul Ross: I do enjoy it. So many of my buddies are busy now -- they've got kids or they're working, so they don't really have the option anyway. I find I have a lot more time to think when I'm by myself, with nothing else to do. I think in the future I'm going to try to take more time off, like a lot of my older buddies who've been doing this ten years longer than me have told me to do. Maybe start with one day a week off, whether that's for fun stuff, fishing, or something else. You also need time to clean the boat -- the more days in a row I fish, the quicker the boat wash gets at the end of the day, so that needs to be addressed on a day off too.

Marketing a Guide Business Then and Now

Tom Rowland: There's also working on the business side -- when you're in the middle of tarpon season with the next hundred and twenty days booked in a row, it's hard to think about what you need to do for next winter. I certainly wasn't thinking about it when I started, because we didn't have the marketing opportunities you're learning about in school. Our marketing was winning a fishing tournament, or being the last boat back at the ramp so people saw your truck there all the time and figured you were fishing a lot. It was almost the opposite of what you'd expect -- the more you fished and the less you answered your phone, the more in demand you were.

Paul Ross: I'm bad about that. If I'm fishing a bunch of days in a row in the spring or summer, the last thing I want to do at 6:30 or 7:30 at night is text a paragraph back about what somebody wants to do in December. I do it, but I get behind sometimes -- I'll go a day without responding, then have to go back and text the ten other people who messaged me and try to knock it all out.

Tom Rowland: But it's super important, and I'd imagine a lot of what you're learning in those classes applies to building a business and keeping it sustainable. That's where taking a day off a week, or even an hour or two, to work on the business matters. You probably take Venmo and everything else now -- we had to deposit checks at the bank. There was no taking a picture of it on your phone. The checks would be wet and tattered from being on the boat, and you'd have to call to get another one sent.

Paul Ross: Yeah, sitting on the driver's seat or in a cooler, because you're just working so much.

A Great White Shark Encounter

Tom Rowland: Before we get into the difficulty of a regular slam versus a Super Slam for people who don't understand what that's about -- I also saw your dad's video of the great white recently.

Paul Ross: Oh, wasn't that crazy?

Tom Rowland: What did he have to say about it? That might be the best video I've ever seen.

Paul Ross: Not much, honestly. I think if you'd seen it in person it would have felt different than it looked on video, but that's one of the few times I've looked at a great white and thought, wow, that thing's huge. The fish it was after in the video was like a 15-pound kingfish, not a little mullet -- a pretty big bait fish, with something like a 14-ounce jig in its mouth, so it looked like the shark had two hooks in its mouth.

Tom Rowland: And the white actually missed it the first time -- came up and it looked like a half-hearted attempt to get it. That was one of the best videos I've ever seen of that in the Keys, kind of like your barracuda video -- it just happened to be perfect because the light was perfect. I've seen other clips where someone goes live on Facebook and a great white circles the boat, but it's in the glare and you can barely see it. Your dad's video, this thing comes in at the perfect angle in perfect light, just from a cell phone, and you get this incredible footage of it trying to eat that kingfish.

Paul Ross: It looked like a mean, hungry predator. Did he learn anything about it -- was that shark tagged?

Tom Rowland: Do you know anything about it?

Paul Ross: We looked at the shark tracker app, just scrolling through when you're bored to see where different tagged sharks are, and I don't think that one was tagged. It looked full, like it had been eating seals -- it had a giant girth on it. I don't know if it was heading to the Gulf to spawn or whatever, he doesn't know too much about them. He sees a couple a year, and usually they don't bite or even try -- they just keep swimming. But that one wasn't happy, I guess, or maybe just hungry.

Tom Rowland: There were always people who said they thought they saw one, but once they started tagging great whites and it became obvious they're coming through the Keys regularly, everybody understood they're really there. For a while you'd see a big shark and just think, I don't know what that was.

Paul Ross: Just call it Jaws.

Tom Rowland: That thing was in 400 feet of water, right? You could make out buildings on shore from there.

Paul Ross: Yeah, not far from town at all. Who knows how many come in closer than that.

Sharks Inshore and Getting in the Water

Tom Rowland: I don't see many sharks lobstering or diving, but they're around, you just don't see them that much.

Paul Ross: I can't help but think about it. I'm not worried I'll get bit, but whenever I'm in the water I'm kind of looking around.

Tom Rowland: Are you as comfortable in the water as out of it? Some fishermen don't like the water.

Paul Ross: No, I don't like the water. I've got buddies who spearfish wahoo and that kind of stuff -- I'll get in for lobsters, but if there's any muddiness to it, I'm not getting in for a rod or a phone that went overboard. Anything goes in the water, I'm not going after it. I get a push-pole ripped out of my hands probably ten to fifteen times a year, because I'm poling through dirty, murky water full of bull sharks and lemon sharks. Even in clean water, I played with one the other day around the channel banks -- poked it in the nose with the pole and it came up and ate the pole, ripped it right out of my hand. That was about a 150-pound lemon shark.

Tom Rowland: Ever have one hit your trolling motor?

Paul Ross: I've had them charge it, haven't had one rip it off yet.

Tom Rowland: I had a bull shark rip one off the front of my boat one time -- there were bite marks all over it, the blade spinning and hitting him in the face while he was eating it, and it wasn't bothering him at all. People always say just punch a shark in the nose, but I watched one eat a trolling motor on high and not care that it was smashing him in the face repeatedly.

Paul Ross: Probably made him even hungrier -- that thing probably had four turtles and a cormorant in its stomach already. I have a lot of respect for sharks, but some guys are way more into being around them, like my buddies who spearfish and throw pilchards in a chum slick and just wait there with them. I'm not that into it. If we're camping out at East Cape or Middle Cape, I won't even get past my knees in that water.

Tom Rowland: That's a lot different than swimming down a reef where it's perfectly clear.

Paul Ross: It's funny, one of my buddies spearfishes two or three times a week in the summer, but if we're lobstering around the bridges he's just as creeped out as I am. The close-quarters thing, where you can't see very far, is just different.

Tom Rowland: I don't like doing it around the bridges either, but there are a lot of lobster there.

Paul Ross: There are. Gotta do what you gotta do.

Non-Negotiables and Life Outside Fishing

Tom Rowland: I want to bring this to a close, but I appreciate all your time. Outside of fishing, what do you like to do? You obviously don't like getting in the water much.

Paul Ross: No, fishing is about it for me. I never really did many sports growing up. Right now it's just school, and when I'm not doing that, it's thinking about what I'm going to fish for the next day, or forcing myself to tie flies and leaders. That's pretty much it -- fish, and a lot of fishing.

Tom Rowland: I like it. I've started asking people about their non-negotiables recently, because I've gotten some interesting answers, and I might turn it into a regular thing. A non-negotiable is something where, between waking up and your head hitting the pillow that night, you're going to get it done, or you're just never going to do it. Do you have any non-negotiables you think about daily?

Paul Ross: I don't know. When I'm going to bed I always feel like I'm not going to wake up because my alarm won't go off or something. I try to stay in a routine, and I think my biggest thing before bed is thinking about where I'm going to fish the next day, though a lot of that doesn't really come together until you're idling out of the channel and can see what's going on. I'd have to think about that one more.

Tom Rowland: What about on a charter? Are there things you absolutely will or won't do?

Paul Ross: Making people laugh is one of the first things -- trying to get to know them, get them in a good mood. Sometimes the ride out is quiet in the morning, but I try to keep people entertained all day and make them laugh. Most of the time people make me laugh more than I make them laugh, honestly, but it makes the day more enjoyable. Getting people in a good mood is probably one of my main priorities besides figuring out where I'm going to fish. Some people you just can't break, they're kind of lame.

Tom Rowland: Do you think they're lame, or nervous?

Paul Ross: Most people aren't nervous. It's not that I get a lot of lame people, but sometimes it's a business trip and they're just not that interested. Mostly, though, everybody I fish with has been great -- it's been a lot of fun.

Tom Rowland: You're going to have a lot more coming your way. That was one of the questions I got the most when I was starting out -- I bet you fish with a lot of jerks. And I always said no.

Paul Ross: You really don't. I've never had any kind of problem with anyone. Some people you like more than others, but it's surprising. I think the offshore side deals with it more, guys walking back to the dock after a big night out with no sleep. My dad's got all kinds of horror stories from that, bigger boat, bigger groups. I've only been doing this a fraction of the time other people have, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories eventually.

Tom Rowland: The inshore side seems to draw a different crowd. It's more physical too -- there's no air-conditioned salon, no shade. It's not for everybody, and every once in a while somebody books a trip with no idea what they're getting into.

Paul Ross: I think that's the thing, they're just not aware of what they're getting into.

Tom Rowland: I've had people show up and say, "This is the boat?" It's sixteen feet long, and they were expecting the fifty-footer they saw at the dock.

Paul Ross: We had a two-boat group trip a couple of months ago, nine people showed up, and we had to call in a bay boat. It's always funny when stuff like that happens.

Building a Client Base

Tom Rowland: Are you booking most of your own trips?

Paul Ross: I mainly started off with overflow from good buddies of mine who helped me out, and now it's word of mouth from those people -- they had friends who started coming down regularly. I've been lucky to have a lot of people who come down here regularly, so it's a lot of repeat business now. This time of year it's more new people, since different folks come down for Christmas and the holidays.

Closing

Tom Rowland: Alright, man. Paul, I appreciate you doing this with me, and I hope we get to fish together again soon. I enjoyed fishing with you last time.

Paul Ross: Yeah, I really enjoyed it too. Thanks for having me on here.

Tom Rowland: Absolutely, and good luck in school, man. A lot of people asked me when I was going to get a real job when I was your age, then later found out I was making more than they were.

Paul Ross: Yeah, it was a lot of work too.

Tom Rowland: It's a lot of work, but you're going to school and getting paid, and it would be easy to just say you could get paid all the time instead. But as somebody older and hopefully wiser, you're doing exactly the right thing, because you never know what's going to happen, and having that degree in your back pocket is a very good thing I'd recommend to anyone. You're doing awesome, man. It's great to have you on, and I really love fishing with you, so we'll do it again. If people want to go fishing with you or follow you, what should they do?

Paul Ross: I don't have a website up yet, but you can follow me on Instagram, where I've got my number listed, and I'm hoping to get a website going soon. Instagram's the best way to reach me right now.

Tom Rowland: Alright, look up Paul Ross on Instagram -- if you find an account that's mostly fish and not much else, that's how you'll know you found the right one. Paul, man, thanks, I appreciate it. Good luck to you, and we'll talk to you soon.

Paul Ross: Thanks, Tom.