Capt. Paul Tejera: Keys Legend Returns to Tennis at 63

Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 552, with guest Capt. Paul Tejera.

Catching Up After Thirty Years

Tom Rowland: How you been doing, Paul?

Capt. Paul Tejera: I've been doing great. Life is wonderful.

Tom Rowland: It is? I just saw you got your daughter just got married. That's pretty amazing, a big day in your life. I'm not there yet.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yeah, I got her married off to a great guy, and we're all super happy about it.

Tom Rowland: That's awesome. Time flies, doesn't it, man? I swear. I saw your post that your daughter just got married, and I was like, man, it seems like yesterday that we were hanging around a Redbone tournament, before I even thought about having kids. My kids are, I mean, we're empty nesters. I'm not quite to your level yet of having one married off, but both my boys are living in Montana. My daughter's now at college.

Capt. Paul Tejera: They're about the same age.

Tom Rowland: How old's your daughter?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Twenty-four.

Tom Rowland: Okay. So my oldest son's twenty-three, then I got a twenty-one-year-old, and my daughter's eighteen. It happens fast, man. Did you manage to hold it together at the wedding? I can only imagine a big tough guy like you would not be able to hold it together, just like I'm not gonna be able to hold it together.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yeah. No, I thought I was going to, and I was given a speech at the thing, and I was recapping my life with my daughter, and out of nowhere it just got emotional. It was like, man, I didn't know I had that in me. You know? But I did.

Tom Rowland: I know. It's the same for me. Occasionally, when it happened with me, when we were dropping my daughter off at college, my wife was having a hard time with it. I had no problem with it. I'm like, yeah, this is just the next thing, she's just going to college. And then all of a sudden we're about to say goodbye to her, and holy cow, I didn't know it was in there, and it just came flying out. I looked like every other dad in front of the dorm leaving his daughter at school for the last time. It was terrible, man. But that's a big day, man. Our careers have moved and changed and shifted as our lives have, and I love watching you doing all these different things, especially tennis. What's going on with the tennis? You're obviously very good at it.

Coming Back to Tennis After Thirty Years

Capt. Paul Tejera: Well, I played a lot in my twenties. That was my sport after college. I played baseball in college, and then after college I started tennis just to have some competition. I played all through my twenties and got highly ranked in the state of Florida at that time. Then as soon as I moved to The Keys, I dropped the game, and I hadn't played in thirty years.

Tom Rowland: Really? Thirty years.

Capt. Paul Tejera: I came back to the game after having a stint with snowboarding and kiteboarding and, of course, fishing every day, and some surfing. Then I said, you know what, I need something to fuel me, to really get me working out more and doing more again, have a reason to do it. So I got into it right before COVID, actually, and then started competing again. And then I realized, hey, my sixty-three-year-old body is in better shape than other guys' sixty-three-year-old bodies because I don't have the injuries. All these guys that kept playing all along, they all had knee surgeries and different things, and I just came off a shoulder surgery, so I kinda know what that's like, but luckily it was my left side. It's great to see, competing against people my age and then younger.

Tom Rowland: What are the age groups that you compete in?

Capt. Paul Tejera: So this past weekend I played in a fifty tournament, you have to be fifty-five to compete in that one, and I won that one this past week. But then I'm ranked second in the state in the over-eighteens.

Tom Rowland: Wow. Second in the state in the over-eighteens.

Capt. Paul Tejera: And that's in a four-point-o division, which isn't the highest. Five-point-o is the highest, and four-point-o is next.

Tom Rowland: Kinda like a handicap in golf?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Kind of like that. But I figured with my age, I mean, I'm still competing against thirty-year-olds.

Tom Rowland: You're killing it. That's amazing. What was that first day like getting back on the court after thirty years?

Capt. Paul Tejera: I just started by hitting balls with a couple of guys locally, some of the fishing guides, Chuck Schaffstall played tennis, and a couple of the other guides. We just went out and hit balls and had fun, and I started realizing, man, I haven't really forgotten much. It's just a matter of moving my feet. I forgot how to move my feet, but that's about it. Then I just started playing and finding people to compete with.

Tom Rowland: I used to see Todd Bowen play tennis in Key West. He had that van, a very unique van, and he would fish and then go straight to the tennis court every day. That van would be there every day, man. He must have been a good player. But it's something about that competitive fire, you know. Like, you were an athlete, you played baseball. I was a wrestler, and I got away from competition for a while, and then the fishing tournaments for me were like, wow. When I was asking about that first day on the court, or maybe your first tournament, where you get that fire back, like, oh, I've been missing this. I found that out in the first fishing tournament I was ever in, I think it was a Redbone or a slam. I went there, and I had no idea what to expect, and that was in the heyday of those tournaments. There were probably ninety boats in there, and all these people I had heard of, and it was just amazing. I was like, oh my god, this is like a boat race, it's like homecoming, it's like seeing all my heroes, and it's this competition. I just was like, man, I gotta have more of that.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Of course, where you come from, Islamorada is the home of the tournaments.

Tom Rowland: We didn't have very many tournaments in Key West back then. But your tournament career, man, that's, you had quite a career. Do you still fish the tournaments, or do you have any desire to do that?

Capt. Paul Tejera: I quit fishing tournaments last year. Two years ago was my last Gold Cup and all that stuff. I kinda eased away from that because I moved on to other things and wanted some more time, and I'm heading into the tail end of my career as far as fishing, and it's fun to have a little bit more free time.

From Jig Company to Real Estate

Tom Rowland: You're moving into the tail end of your career maybe as far as fishing, but it seems like you've always had other things going on. You had the jig company. You probably still have the jig company?

Capt. Paul Tejera: No. Closed that one too.

Tom Rowland: Really? Well, I have a whole bunch of them that you sent me that I guard with my life. I have a special tackle box of the backbone jigs that I don't let anybody touch.

Capt. Paul Tejera: They still got a reserve stock for you.

Tom Rowland: So what about that jig company? How did that start for you?

Capt. Paul Tejera: I had a need, and there was nothing out there that I wanted, so I decided to design one myself and make the molds. I was already tying flies at that point, so tying them was no problem. I started tying some and showed them to a tackle shop, and one of the tackle shops wanted them, so I found a way to mass produce them in Guatemala, and that's where my factory was. We just went on from there. It was never a big, huge moneymaker, because you gotta be so big in the lure business to make any money, but it definitely satisfied the need of having good lures that were weedless and worked well, and designed like flies.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, they were awesome, man. I love those jigs. And now you're moving into real estate, or you have been for quite a while now, right?

Capt. Paul Tejera: I've been for seven years, and it's been a real easy move over to that because, like you, we all have our clients that trust us and follow us. And all the fishing guides around here trust me and know that I'm not here to take any clients away from them. It's been a real nice move for me, and with this market, it's a really nice move. Everything's worked out super well.

Tom Rowland: There's so many anglers that I can think of over the years that came down, liked it, got the bug, and then bought houses. That's kind of a thing.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yeah, and I gave a lot of that away for many years, and then I just decided, you know what, I know this place as well as anyone, so I might as well take advantage of that.

Tom Rowland: Has your fishing career helped you in other ways in the real estate business?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Sure. One of the downfalls was that I was a fishing guide, so I had to kinda prove to people, hey, now he's a realtor, because not everybody wants to buy a house from their fishing guide.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Capt. Paul Tejera: So it's one of those things where I had to make that transition, but I think by now people have realized I've closed enough deals and done enough.

Tom Rowland: What do you think was the hardest part about that? Convincing people that you were serious about it, or that you could do it, or was it something else?

Capt. Paul Tejera: I think it was that I was gonna be in it for a while and reputable and knowledgeable enough. So the first thing I had to do was learn that contract really good, better than the people who'd been doing it for twenty years. I wanted to make sure there were no questions and nothing I couldn't answer. It comes back to the same old thing, you wanna do everything the best you can, and that's kinda something you and I have always had in common.

Tom Rowland: Does it feel good to have a little reprieve from the sun?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Sure. It's not much, but it's to the point now where at least I can take weekends off and not worry about fishing weekends. I fish my own clientele five days a week during the season, and then the rest of the year I patch up different things, make deals, and just kinda go with whatever's happening that day.

Tom Rowland: That sounds like the perfect mix. I've always thought being a realtor and a fishing guide would be the perfect mix. I even wanted my wife to get her real estate license, because a lot of people don't realize that if you have a hot client who wants to buy a compound in Islamorada, and I pass them off to a realtor, I don't get anything from that. But if someone has a real estate license, you could actually get a commission. I was trying to convince my wife to take the license because it was happening so frequently, my clients were coming down and buying houses in Key West, and I was like, look, we're losing all this money, you don't even have to sell a house, just give the referral.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Be there. It's true, they all trust you, and they're on the boat with you all the time, and they're gonna ask you anyway. They're gonna ask, hey, what do you think about this house here in Key West? Do you think that street's good? Let's get off the water a little bit early today, I want you to go check this place out with me. That's how it started with me. And now sometimes we come back from a fishing day, and the guy says, hey, what about going by that house you showed me? And I go, okay, take the water tour, this is the place, this is why you want this place and not an oceanside place. It really makes a difference.

Tom Rowland: That's awesome. Well, kudos to you for doing that and making that move, because some people don't, and they don't have much when they decide their career is winding down. They waited too long, and it's like, okay, your career's winding down, but now what? Did you save the money that you should have saved? It's hard for us, man, because all good fishing guides are A personalities, they are the captain, we would probably be the worst employees there would ever be.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Especially after doing it a while. Forget it, you'd be a horrible employee.

Tom Rowland: So you gotta figure out something you can do on your own, and it's the same kind of thing, if you're gonna do something, you wanna be really good, put your heart and soul into it. It needs to be something you can really get behind, and that's a perfect thing for you.

The Feeling of Competition

Tom Rowland: You're an interesting dude, man, because when I first met you, it was in those early days of the fishing tournaments, and I was so nervous. Those tournaments gave me a feeling I wanted again, the feeling of competition. But I would go in and I felt like I knew less than anyone there, especially coming up to Islamorada, I had no idea what I was doing up there. Those weekends were so full of anxiety and nervousness, but then when it was over I would look back on it and think, that was awesome, I'm gonna do it again. But leading up to it there would be so much, and then I would meet you up there, and you always had this smile on your face, you never seemed to let it bother you. I even remember today thinking, man, I need to be more like that. How do you get like that? Is it just because you're ten years older than me and had more experience, or is that just you?

Capt. Paul Tejera: That's just me. I'm pretty happy and always smiling, and always see the better side, but you are like that too, you're always the same, always level-headed, I try to be.

Tom Rowland: I try to go. But inside, sometimes I'm super nervous.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yeah, but we became friends right away, and I knew that from the beginning. It was one of those connections where we might not talk to each other for four or five years, and then we can talk to each other like best friends because it's really a mutual respect thing.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, man. I respected the way you were able to just, man, you just seemed like you were having a lot more fun than I was. I was like, man, I gotta figure out how this is gonna be more fun or I'm not gonna be able to do it very long. Your career, I've got it right here, you're one of the few to win all three major tarpon tournaments, the Gold Cup, the Don Hawley, the two All Tackle, the Spring Fly, and you cashed a nice check on the biggest bonefish, twenty-five thousand dollars. And then the other thing I see here is the Best of the West Fly Casting Competition, which is another thing we have in common.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Freaking weird, you won that one too.

Tom Rowland: In Denver. You know why? Because the air's thin out there, dude, and we're used to casting in a hundred percent humidity, and you go out there and all of a sudden it flies.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Not only that, there's no wind inside the auditorium.

Tom Rowland: I know, the trick to that one was having enough backcast space, because some of those, they'd have stuff behind you, and it was really tough. But I only won one, I was going up against some pretty tough competition. Brian O'Keefe, I don't know if he was still doing it when you were doing it, but, man, of everyone I know and have ever seen cast, he is the most beautiful fly caster I've ever seen. A lot of people know him as a great photographer, they don't know he is a really, really good fly caster. He just had this way, it looked like he was barely even trying, while I'm out there sweating and double hauling, and he would just stand there and that thing would fly. The Rajeff brothers were there too.

Capt. Paul Tejera: That the year I won was the year Steve Rajeff didn't make it to the tournament.

Tom Rowland: Gotta capitalize on that one.

Capt. Paul Tejera: But that was my only year ever there, and the funny part was all the other guys were licking their chops because Steve Rajeff wasn't there, like, it's my turn to win this thing. And here comes Paul Tejera from Islamorada, they didn't know him from Adam.

Tom Rowland: Probably never held a five-weight in his life.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Never, never even casted a five-weight before, and beat those guys. It was kind of a fun deal.

Tom Rowland: You do a lot of casting instruction nowadays, right? You're still working with Sandy and his school?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yep. Right now the main core of guys is Sandy Moret and Chico, of course, Steve Huff is usually around, but sometimes not as much now, and then Rob Fordyce and I. That's kinda the main core.

Tom Rowland: Chico's another one that has a beautiful cast, slippery as butter, he just throws it out there, it looks like he's not working very hard at it. That's what you always say about anybody good at anything, it doesn't look like they're working very hard. He has that loop that drops underneath, and I've figured out a way to emulate his cast, but he is a beautiful fly caster.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Oh, he is. I still record him, almost every fly school we do, I still record him and show him. I say, man, you look so smooth, Rico Suave, he's just a cool dude all the way around.

Tom Rowland: He is. He was with Scott Fly Rods back in the early days, and I had an opportunity to fish with him a few times, and he didn't disappoint. You get one of those guys on the boat and you're kinda like, is this gonna disappoint, I've read this guy's books, I've seen his videos, and a guy like Chico gets up there and you're just like, yep, he's just as good as I thought he was gonna be.

What Makes a Great Angler

Tom Rowland: What do you think, as far as an angler goes, having fished with so many different anglers and customers and the who's who, what does it take to be somebody that when they walk away, the guy's like, that's one of the best guys I've ever fished with?

Capt. Paul Tejera: The first person that comes to mind is Andy Mill. He just gets it, and getting it is pretty hard from the front of the boat. When you're on the back of the boat, you tend to really see the whole deal and know what's going on. From the front of the boat, if you've only been in the front, it's kinda tough to watch the whole game go down and anticipate things. But I think what it takes is getting in the back of the boat.

Tom Rowland: That's a really interesting perspective, and honestly I haven't heard many people say that before. But that is very true. Some of the best anglers I know are guides. They may not be the best casters, but they know how to put it where it belongs. And then you take the best tarpon anglers everybody gives credit to, Andy Mills, one of the very best of all time, Fitz Coker another one, one of the very best of all time. He spent plenty of time on the back of the boat, even just taking friends fishing. This boat is not gonna stop on a dime, so you better make that cast sooner because we're going to drift, or the guy's gonna do his best to stop the boat, but there's still gonna be some forward motion. But it's also about being able to see the fish really well, that's what I think, with so many of the best anglers I've had, you point out a fish and they're like, oh yeah, that's it, so fast, and you're like, no, point your rod, are you looking at what I'm looking at, and they're like, yeah, right there, a hundred and forty feet, and you're like, okay, this is gonna be a great day, this guy can see.

Capt. Paul Tejera: What else does an angler like Andy Mill do that other anglers don't do, or have a difficult time doing?

Tom Rowland: I think he just gets entrenched in it. Again, top athlete, world class athlete, he knows how to study and work towards getting better. He's been on the front of the boat, he's been on the back of the boat, he analyzes things, thinks about it, it becomes his job, it becomes his life for a guy like that. So when somebody like that comes around, it's special and different. But there's plenty of anglers who've gotten to a really high level just by really trying to learn the whole thing, not only how to cast, but learning the spots that the guides take them to, whoever their guide may be, fishing the same terrain over and over, and they get to see it, they know when the tide's coming in or out or which direction the fish are gonna come, they don't need to be told all the time. And when they actually study it like a guide studies it, that's when they get to the next level. Most of it is anticipation, like anticipating a fish that's coming across and where the fly needs to be, that whole game is one of those things you just don't make up, you can't buy it, you just gotta see it.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Do you think it's important to do other types of fishing or fish with other guides in other areas, or can somebody make it starting with one guide and staying with that guide the whole time?

Tom Rowland: Depends on the guide.

Capt. Paul Tejera: It does. You know, Richard Black, he fishes everywhere, so if you're fishing with somebody like that, he's gonna put you in all of these different positions. But I would definitely have anglers who'd fish with me and then go experience these different things with other guides, and they'd come back and tell me these stories, and then I'd see them apply what they'd learned somewhere else to this situation, and I'm like, wow, that's pretty good.

Tom Rowland: Well, that's good, especially if they're fishing with really good guides in different places who are helpful and can help them. We tell the guys at the fly school all the time, everybody that comes out of that fly school, we set them up with guides for a couple of days after the school, and they're pretty much newbies, they've never done it before, and we tell them, if it doesn't click with your guide, switch guides, try another guide, because it's gotta click, it's gotta be a good connection where you're gonna learn from this guy, somebody willing to teach you and show you things, because it'll cut the learning curve down.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Right. So that clicking, not only does that mean you're having fun, but you're learning and catching fish. Do you think it's obvious to somebody just getting into the sport what clicking is? What if they haven't fished with many guys, how do you know you're clicking with your guide?

Tom Rowland: It's not obvious sometimes. But what we try to tell them is you've gotta see the guy making an effort, an effort, you know, it might not be a day where you're seeing a lot of fish, but he's making that effort, he's making moves, he's thinking, you can tell when a guide's thinking, you can tell when a guide's a little stumped sometimes. We get stumped all the time, and it's like, well, god, I gotta make this move, and sometimes you'll run ten miles to different water, that kind of stuff, that they're willing to do that and not camp you out on a spot where there's no fish, wasting time.

Capt. Paul Tejera: There's also a bit of entertainment. Simon Becker used to tell me there were certain guides who would scream at their customers, the old Florida Keys nightmare guide, screaming, and you can hear him from two hundred yards away, oh, you dumbass, you shouldn't have done that. And I'd come back and be like, man, I can't believe what I just saw or heard today. And he's like, well, there is a guide for every client, and there is a client for every guide.

Tom Rowland: And I was like, you mean some people like that?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yeah, some people like it, they give each other a hard time, they're ribbing each other, poking fun at each other, yelling at each other.

Tom Rowland: And he's like, that sounds terrible to me too, but some people like it, that guy you're talking about, he's booked all the time. I mean, you can find guys who are really hard on their clients, but their clients kinda like that. Not all of them, but they develop this clientele of, oh, that's kinda how it is, you get out here, he gives you a hard time, calls you a dumbass. But there is a little bit of entertainment that goes into some people, they need a little more joke telling, a little more storytelling, a little more attention, and other people find that horribly annoying, that the guide won't shut up. How do you know which one of those people to be, when you were a young guide going out with someone?

Capt. Paul Tejera: I've never been that guy, I've always been real easygoing. Now the truth is, truth be told, some of my guys know I abused the hell out of them, but these are guys I've had in the boat for twenty years, so after a while you start getting this real comfort level with your guys, and you can tell them, hey, you screwed up, man, that wasn't any good, let's not do that again, or, do you really expect that fish to eat that fly? That's always a great question to ask. But I start off super laid back with everybody, I don't really get into anything.

Tom Rowland: There's a time when you can get too comfortable, like the twenty-year relationships, sometimes you see it happen where they've done great in tournaments together, they're just together all the time, and then they have a breakup.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Like a divorce.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And sometimes the guide refers to it as, I had to fire my client. That's a funny situation to be in, especially as a young man, you're out there fishing with these CEOs, and you're doing this because you love it, but when this guy comes around, you don't love it, and you've got all these other people calling you, and you've got this person you fished with last week, saying, if that other week ever opens up, count me in, and you're like, man, honestly, I'd be having a much better time with that other guy, and I think this guy would have a much better time with somebody else, and so there's that difficult conversation.

Capt. Paul Tejera: I've had that three times in my life.

Tom Rowland: Tell me about it.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Oh, god. I had a guy who was fantastic in his own way, I laugh about it now. He had a very successful business up north and came down, and we were fishing together, and he had already fished with seven of my good friends, seven other guides, legit top-notch guides who knew their stuff, so I kinda knew I was getting into something, since he'd stopped fishing with each one of them. So we got in the boat and fished together for two or three years, and he was difficult to handle, he'd make a cast and I would go, just a sound, like, that wasn't the right cast, and he kinda picked up on that, but when he made a good cast, I'd say, perfect, we'll work that. So what he would do, since he was getting annoyed by me going perfect in the back of the boat, every time he'd make a cast and it would land, he'd say perfect first, so he got back at me for that one. And at the end of it all, he actually broke up with me, he said, hey, I think our relationship has gone a little sour here, and I said, you know what, the only regret I have is that I didn't say it first. So I let him go on his way, and he went on to the next guide and the next guide and then finally retired from the sport. So, yeah, he just didn't get along too well.

Tom Rowland: Well, he probably just was, like we're saying, a fishing guide trying to get out of the fishing guide business would make a horrible employee, he's probably an A-level, super-A personality who dominates his industry and his world, and he comes in and somebody's telling him what to do, and he doesn't really like it, somebody's critiquing him.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Right. Right. Exactly. Absolutely.

Tom Rowland: What are the other two times you've had that conversation?

Capt. Paul Tejera: They weren't as spectacular as that one, they didn't last very long in the boat, so it was kinda meaningless, they'd come on and you could tell you didn't click, and once that click wasn't there, you're kinda like, this is an important time of year for me, I'm not gonna bother with this anymore, so I just let it go.

Tom Rowland: That's a very difficult thing for a young man. I certainly did it the wrong way a couple of times, and maybe the right way a couple of times, and other times it just kinda fizzles out. But when you find the right one, that's the beauty of the whole deal, when you find that one guy, or a whole bunch of them, and then you start to kind of, it's almost like culling in a tournament, you're taking these days and sliding this guy into this one, and you just keep going, and eventually you've only got, like, four or five customers all year long, if you do it right.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yeah, I've got fifteen good ones right now, and they're solid, they fill me up the entire year, it's a good deal right now. And they're the guys who don't care what you do when you get on the boat, it's like, you go do what you think is gonna be good.

Tom Rowland: That's a great position to be in, where they know what they're getting, you know what you're gonna offer, and everybody's on the same page. Like, look, we're gonna go out there, he's gonna give it everything he's got, and I'm gonna give it everything I got, and if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. Because sometimes it doesn't happen, a lot of times it doesn't happen.

Capt. Paul Tejera: That's true.

Tom Rowland: But for the people coming into the sport now, with Instagram and social media, it doesn't appear like it ever doesn't happen. You know what I mean? I follow a thousand people or more, most of them in the fishing world in some way, and it just looks like everybody's having the best day ever, every day.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Every day.

GPS, Technology, and What's Changed

Tom Rowland: What do you think, in the span of your career, whether it's social media or another innovation, has changed fishing the most?

Capt. Paul Tejera: The GPS. And then social media, but the GPS first.

Tom Rowland: For sure. When I was starting, and certainly when you were starting, you're ten years, so you're sixty-three, is that right? You don't look sixty-three, you're looking good.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Thanks, man.

Tom Rowland: I'm fifty-three. When both of us started, the idea of a GPS with a map on it, the military didn't even have that, that was way out there. I remember the first GPS I got, it was a Lowrance, I think it was called an LMS-350A, and it was the shit. All it could do was have a blank screen with a dot on it, and you had, like, four characters you could put on that, so you'd put, like, TP1, TP2, tarp point one. And there was no base map at all, so you'd be like, oh, that doesn't look like it's very far away, there was no navigate-to, you just kinda got there. So you'd navigate normally, but then you'd look down and think, it looks like it's about a hundred feet ahead, it certainly wasn't accurate to a hundred feet. But it would also get you in big trouble, because it would look like you were just right over there, and if you were looking at the thing, it would run you straight to ground. But it has changed a lot, especially for people who are just learning right now, because they're going only on the GPS, much easier than navigating by the stars at night.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Sure, it used to be a big deal. And now people are, for instance, one of the first areas I learned growing up was Hell's Bay and Whitewater Bay.

Tom Rowland: That was the first area you learned?

Capt. Paul Tejera: One of the first areas. Fordyce and I as kids were back there playing around, we had aerial photos that some dude shot from a plane, and we're pulling every inch of that area. Now people are going with their GPS full throttle through all that stuff, in channels, before we didn't have to worry, because you wouldn't even hear an engine, and when you did, you kinda ducked because somebody might be coming by. But now you can't even set up anywhere near a creek because they can run right through you. And that's just having the GPS to know how to get out, it's not getting in, getting in is no problem, it's knowing how to get out.

Tom Rowland: You can certainly get in, getting out is the problem. I remember the first aerial photo I saw of a place like that, and those aerial photos were gold. Back in the day there'd be one hanging on the shop wall, of the Marquesas, and just studying that thing like, oh my god, if you could see like this. I remember looking at an area like Hell's Bay and tracing with my finger, thinking, if you were on the other side of this island, how long would it take to get to the other side, and I'm tracing this, and I'm like, oh my god, that's like a day to get two hundred feet on the other side, and that's how you get lost in there, you take a wrong turn and it takes you back, and you're like, I just need to be right over there, but it's hard to get there, man.

Capt. Paul Tejera: That's true.

Tom Rowland: There's been a lot of changes. Do you think the changes are beneficial? You've been at this so long, you hear people talk about the good old days, how good it used to be. You talk to people like Richard Black, he's killing it, what do you think, was it better when you started, or twenty years ago?

Capt. Paul Tejera: There are certain cases where, of course, downtown bonefishing in Islamorada, that was our fallback, in fact I think I started as a bonefish guide and became a tarpon guide, kind of, because of that change in the fishing, that had to do with cold fronts and different factors, maybe water quality stuff. But right now, fishing in the backcountry is almost as good as it was when I was young, the snook and redfishing is fabulous, there's more snook now than I grew up with, there was more snook again back in 2010 before that freeze, and now they've come back, it's better again, so that fishery is better, and that's one of the things guys like Richard are capitalizing on, and of course he does both things, he goes offshore and kills it, and kills it in the back too. But the good old days, yeah, the good old days had less boats, and that's basically it, I think if you cut the number of boats down, the good old days would be right back again.

Tom Rowland: Well, what about COVID, what about the year of COVID, what did you think about that?

Capt. Paul Tejera: That did it. That was a pure example of it. We were by ourselves, Brewer and I would go fishing, and a couple of the other guides would go fishing, that's all we were doing, and we were kind of existing off the water, there was a time Publix didn't have any meat or fish, and we went out and lobstered and speared fished, and survived off the water, which was pretty cool.

Tom Rowland: Do you think, while that was going on, you had the foresight to be like, this is the good old days, why are we not just enjoying this, because there was so much apprehension and anxiety about COVID, are the anglers gonna come back, are they gonna close the Keys, it would be very easy to just start to subsist off the water and not realize, like, damn, this is fun, this is what we used to do, this is awesome. Were you having fun doing it?

Capt. Paul Tejera: No, I was having absolute fun, no pressure about COVID, not thinking about a thing, just thinking, man, the world up there is crazy, and here we got a little slice of paradise, for a while there we were immune to everything, we were just on our own, there was no COVID here, it was fantastic, everybody was just coexisting peacefully and nice.

Tom Rowland: And then what happened?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Then they opened the doors, and then they screwed everything up again.

Tom Rowland: It's interesting where you had so many different opinions about what should happen. You have the people who are independently wealthy or retired, and they're like, no, man, close it down, keep it shut tight, we don't want anybody here, don't let the cruise ships in, don't let anybody in, keep the road closed, everything. And then you have people subsisting on tourism, and they're like, no, we gotta open it up, you guys are fine, but we're dying over here, it's tough. That was a tough situation for the Keys.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Seemed like it all worked out.

Fitness, Flexibility, and the Fountain of Youth

Capt. Paul Tejera: I wanna brag on you for a minute. I saw a video you did about a month ago, showing a flexibility deal you're doing, where you're on your knees and going back on your back. I thought that was cool as hell.

Tom Rowland: That's the lay-back quad stretch. I started that because, probably just like you, the time on the boat and the wear and tear on the body from guiding, I started getting tighter and tighter, and I was lifting weights and running and rowing and doing all the things I'm supposed to do, but feeling tighter and tighter. Then I hurt my back last Christmas, I've had an on-and-off relationship with back injuries, probably you have too.

Capt. Paul Tejera: A little bit, every now and then, you tweak something, throwing the cast net, lifting an anchor, putting the trailer on the truck, lifting a heavy cooler, and all of a sudden, pow.

Tom Rowland: And it's blowing twenty tomorrow, and guess what, you're going, there's a tournament, something, and you're gonna go hurt.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Never missed a day.

Tom Rowland: So I just decided, I had dabbled in flexibility, tried some yoga before, but nothing really stuck until I found this guy, Joe Hippenstiel. He's got a very simple program, none of it has crazy names, he calls it, like, the lay-back quad stretch, or the cross-leg head-on-the-floor, everything he says is just the simplest thing, there's no reason to call it dancing moon wolf dance. So that particular one, man, I worked on that for six months, I had seven pillows behind my back and a pillow under my knees, and I still couldn't get in that position, and then I just kept doing it and doing it, just like he said, two minutes on, one minute off, two minutes on, one minute off. And then one day I laid back and my knees were way off the ground, and I was like, I can't believe I'm even in this position, and when I finished, I walked around and was like, wow, I'm walking better, I'm sitting better, my back doesn't hurt. And those things made me spend more and more time on it, at first I was spending like two hours a day stretching, but the reason I did that was because when I'd finish I felt so much better. It was very painful.

Capt. Paul Tejera: No, I can imagine, I've tried it since I saw your video, and I get about, maybe if that's a clock, two o'clock.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, well, here's the thing, if you're really tight in that position, what Joe Hippenstiel says, which is absolutely the case, is don't go past a seven in pain, ever, because what happens is everything locks up, your brain is like, no, we can't do that, and it locks up, and you're not gonna get any more flexible there. So that's where you need all the pillows behind you, or the couch, to get a good stretch but not hurt yourself, and then you go one pillow less, and one pillow less over time, to where you're at a seven in pain, gradually. But you have to do it in a way where your muscles are relaxed while you're stretching, and that's what I was doing wrong for years, I'd just try to do one of these positions, and I was so tight your brain's like, nope, don't go any further than that, that's gonna pop something, and it locks up. Whereas if you can just go almost to that place where your leg is straight and you're stretching but not going down very far, that's okay, next week we'll go a little further, and a little further, until all of a sudden you regain this mobility you had as a young man. That is what he told me right away, he's like, this is like the fountain of youth, I promise you if you stick with this you're gonna understand what I'm talking about. And it took about seven months, and then all of a sudden I was like, man, I feel fifteen years younger, this is unbelievable. It's so good for injury prevention too, since I started that I haven't hurt my back again, I haven't had any injuries really, and it's rehabbed, like I had a nagging shoulder thing, and he's got shoulder stretches. But I don't think it's necessarily his program that's so important, it's finding a program and sticking with it, and then maybe you can start to high-grade it later, as you've gotten the discipline to stick with it. But at first you just gotta find something, and most people don't, stretching is the least sexy thing, like lifting weights and running is way cooler and you can get it done in thirty minutes, but stretching takes a long time.

Capt. Paul Tejera: That's right, thirty minutes every day. I get up at 5:30 every morning, I'm in the gym, I have a gym downstairs, I stretch for half an hour and then do whatever workout I'm gonna do that day, try to get in a little cardio, some boxing, something cardio related, that's my workout for the morning, usually done by seven, 7:15.

Tom Rowland: What kind of stretching are you doing, a specific routine?

Capt. Paul Tejera: I'm doing a combination of yoga and, have you seen the primal flows, also called animal flows, it's kind of a men's version of yoga, it's got cool names, positions called the ape and the beast and that sort of thing. I got turned on to it just on YouTube, going through different fitness things, and I do a routine, a flow, every day, and it just keeps you, it's strength and flexibility.

Tom Rowland: Well, it's obviously working for your tennis. When you look back on your career, did you pay much attention to fitness when you were guiding at your highest level?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Always. I remember you used to tell me that you and Rob used to work out.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, all the time, and he's the one that got me on the 5:30 regimen, he started the early stuff, and now sometimes we get up as early as 4:30, if we've got a fishing day that day, we don't let it bother us, it's like, okay, we're going fishing, but we're gonna work out first.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Now why does that happen for you, why do you get up at 4:30 with Rob and work out?

Tom Rowland: Because something always comes up in the afternoon, there's never a day something doesn't come up, these days it's I gotta show a house, or your guy just wants to sit around and have a drink after fishing, and so in order to have that drink, I already worked out this morning, I'm done with that for the day. And it keeps you moving, if you know you're gonna do it every day, I do it seven days a week, I don't take days off, so you know you're gonna do it, you go do it, that's it.

Capt. Paul Tejera: And you did that throughout your whole career?

Tom Rowland: I didn't do the early thing throughout my career, I did the afternoon thing about three to four days a week.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Talk about discipline, we were talking about this the other day, the discipline to get off the water in August and put on the running shoes and go run on the hot freaking pavement after fishing on the surface of the sun all day, that is discipline, rarely exercised in my life, because if you walk into that air conditioning you can totally forget about it.

Tom Rowland: You can't do it, there is no getting out of it. I was talking to Richard Black, he's a runner, he likes to run, and I used to keep my running shoes in the car, and I'd pull up to the house, put the running shoes on, and go running before I ever went in the house, because if I went in that house, all the clothes were coming off and I was gonna lay on the tile floor, and it's over, you're not moving ever. But that's why I like the morning better, it was cooler, you're fresh, but then it's over, you're just done with it. But to get out of the sun and then go back into the sun, you're a tough man if you can do that.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Super tough, that's what I'm doing now with the tennis, after fishing I'm headed out to the courts usually three to four days a week, just to get some training in.

Tom Rowland: Now if you hadn't gotten into the tournaments for tennis, do you think you'd be able to have that kind of discipline, or is it because you have a goal now, you have some goals you wanna hit?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Absolutely, the only way, how else can you set a goal, for me it's competition, it's either competition against yourself or something else, but it's the competition that does it, you get out there and you get your ass beat one time, and you're like, okay, well, I gotta get better, I gotta stick with it, it's gonna get better, and it does.

Tom Rowland: Is the process of getting better at tennis at your age now, do you find any similarities to getting better at fishing, or tournament fishing, or guiding?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Oh, yeah. Except that in fishing I never had a coach, okay, so now I've got a coach that's taking me to the next level, stuff I've never learned about the game, about training, about mental, mainly mental.

The Mental Game

Tom Rowland: I'm interested in that, what is he teaching you?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Oh, man, so many things about thinking about the moment, being in the present, thinking about how your shot is gonna affect the future, we have these Zen talks all the time, he was the number one player in Thailand when he was thirty, and moved to this country and became a tennis coach, and he's done really well, he's seventy-two right now, and he can kick anybody's butt, one of those skinny wiry dudes who just knows the game and knows everything so well, and has the mental down, that's a big part of every sport.

Tom Rowland: It is, it's such a big part of every sport, because once you get to a certain level, everybody can do it. You're talking about the Gold Cup, or any of the tarpon tournaments, not every angler at these tournaments is gonna be able to do it, not every team is gonna be able to do it, but there's gonna be ten at every tournament, or five, there's gonna be the teams, and any one of those boats can do it on any day. And so much, just like NBA basketball or MMA or tennis, anybody can win, they've got the skills to win or they wouldn't be there, now it's mental. And that mental aspect, the older I get, the more fascinated I am, and really this podcast was kinda born out of that, I wanna know what people are thinking and how a slight tweak in the way you're thinking can have a massive difference on your performance, over time. You always hear about the two boats that leave the harbor one degree apart, and they keep going, and next thing you know they're three hundred miles apart, because of that one degree. I always think, not necessarily competing with other people, but competing with myself, if I could just move myself half a degree towards whatever it is I'm striving for, over time that makes such an incredible difference.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yeah. And what about being able to make a decision in a tournament without any repercussions, just making a decision, and if you go there and there's nothing, you're cool with that, you're not getting upset about it, not panicking and saying, well, I gotta find more fish next time, no, it's just a decision, and then you put it away, it's done.

Tom Rowland: Well, that goes back to our conversation of how the angler and the guide are this perfect mix, and the angler is on board too, saying, look, if we go there we might knock it out of the park, and if we go there and there's nothing, hey, we swung for the fence, or we can play it safe and go to this middle ground and catch what everybody else is catching, you might win by half a point or ten points, but which one are we, are we swinging for the fence or playing it safe? That can apply to your tennis too.

Capt. Paul Tejera: That's right.

Tom Rowland: A hundred percent, you can play it safe in tennis and lose, bad, and then you can swing for the fence, and it's all or nothing. I loved Andre Agassi's book, have you read that?

Capt. Paul Tejera: I haven't read that, I will now.

Tom Rowland: It is so good, you'll truly appreciate it now, he struggled with injuries, it would take him forever to get out of bed in the morning, and he would get going and then be operating at the elite level of his entire career when his body was broken the most, it was a mental thing, he just wanted to be there. I'm not doing the book justice, there are so many stories in there, but the way he describes tennis as being the loneliest sport in the world, it's just you out there, even different than wrestling and MMA and other individual sports, because at certain points the crowd's not allowed, you're not allowed to get coaching, your parents aren't allowed to say do this, do that, but they can in every other sport. You don't know, there's just these little claps, and then it goes quiet, and he was talking about how lonely the sport is, and he has a whole chapter on that, I had never thought about that sport being described as lonely. And then it's kinda like being a fishing guide in those tournament situations can be lonely too, especially if you're not in sync with your angler, and it's like, man, I'm gonna do this, and there's gonna be almost no reward if we do great, because this guy's expecting to do great, but he has no idea how badly this could go.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yeah, for sure.

Tom Rowland: But I love the mental aspect.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Well, like you said, you're not a tennis player, but you got something out of that book. And there's a book, The Inner Game of Tennis, which has been used in all the sports, in fact, Tom Brady is a big proponent of it, and you'll see his focus on football games where, when the defense is playing, Tom Brady's on the sideline thinking about his next four plays, visualizing and going there with that, and that helps almost in everything in life, just that whole mental aspect. He's one of many famous coaches who've read this book and gone by it, and I go by it too, it's the best reading I've ever done for the mental game.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, I love that, man. The more I get into it, the more I get into it, I've just had several things happen because I've paid attention to that, and several books I've read over time that have put me on this different path of thinking, and the results are massive. I just look back and think, man, I wish I had known that earlier, but I didn't, and that's fine.

Capt. Paul Tejera: You get to a point in your life where you know that physically you're not gonna get much better, if you're training all the time, you kinda realize, okay, this is about as good as I'm gonna get at this age physically, but mentally you can always change and always get better, so it really helps that way.

Tom Rowland: That's what they say about MMA, or any sport really, you take an old man's mind in a young man's body, that would be a very dangerous combination, because the older athlete has learned all these lessons, but their body starts to fail them. It's almost like greatness in athletics is a combination of learning lessons fast enough to apply them to the young body, you have enough wisdom, you have good coaches around you, or you've learned some things earlier than other people, so you're applying wisdom to a young man's body with no injuries, operating at your peak, where a lot of people can still be very successful at an older age, but it's the mind overcoming the body, they have the injuries, they have these things, they're just working around them with this knowledge they have.

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yes, absolutely. That's pretty awesome, man.

Tom Rowland: I think that is. I love it. Have you read other books on mindset and things?

Capt. Paul Tejera: So many. One of them that comes to mind, Novak Djokovic, the tennis player, wrote a book on his life, and that was pretty impressive, how he overcame a lot of things, diet-wise, I'm now plant-based, and he went plant-based, and all that chemistry that went on with his body, and what happened made him stronger, wiser, sharper. So I kinda learned a lot from his book, and just a lot of motivational and mindset books, I can't think of any others that come to mind right away.

Tom Rowland: It's obviously working, because you're able to apply it to a sport like tennis, and I know that in that eighteen-and-over division, everybody's got the skills, then it's about game management and mental toughness, really, and tennis is a great sport for that.

Nonnegotiables

Tom Rowland: Alright, well, we're coming to a close, I don't wanna take up too much of your time, but I really appreciate you being on. I've been asking this question to some people and getting some interesting responses. There are nonnegotiables in life, things that you're gonna wake up today and get done, or you're never going to do, before your head hits the pillow tonight you've gotten them done, or made sure you did not do that. What are your nonnegotiables in life? Do you have two or three?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yeah, well, the working out thing for sure, non-negotiable, gotta work out every day, gotta keep your body moving, gotta make sure it'll move the next day, and that's important. Number one thing is saying goodnight to my daughter every night, no matter where she is, we always say goodnight one way or another, so that's number one, nonnegotiable. Third one, being in touch with the outdoors, no matter what I'm doing, I'm outside, so I'm rarely inside, I'm inside at the gym, that's about it, and then besides that I'm outside, whether it's surfing, everything goes back to the water, fishing-wise it's always there, so sometimes we don't mention the fishing thing as much because we know we're doing that, everything else is a sideline to that, but definitely something having to do with the water. Those are my three.

Tom Rowland: Nice. I love it. Paul, if anybody wants to get in touch with you, what would they do?

Capt. Paul Tejera: They can call me, or text me.

Tom Rowland: They wanna buy a house? Wait, what's your phone number, you wanna leave it out there?

Capt. Paul Tejera: I don't know, should I? You don't have any crazy people out there?

Tom Rowland: There's tons of crazy people out there, most of them listen to this show. If you wanna find Paul Tejera, he's easy to find.

Capt. Paul Tejera: They can find me on Instagram, and they can DM me, how's that?

Tom Rowland: Right on, there you go. That's awesome, man, well, it's been awesome to catch up with you, I'm so happy for you to be experiencing this tennis success later in life after thirty years of being off the court, that's pretty awesome, man, that really is, and it's just cool to see that you can make that happen at any time, you just gotta get back on it, do it, right?

Capt. Paul Tejera: Yeah, no, well, I got a lot of great things to say about you too, and we don't have enough time, but I love the fitness part, and I love all the things. Even way back when I first saw your first one, it was your hundred burpees.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. It was one of your first videos.

Capt. Paul Tejera: And I saw that and I was like, damn, he's into this, that's good, I like that.

Tom Rowland: I think it was three hundred burpees, it was just me and this other dude doing burpees in the garage, and that was back when YouTube was easy, that video got, like, I don't know, six hundred thousand views, and I never did a single thing, just did it, threw it up there, and I look at it one day and I'm like, who wants to watch somebody do the same thing three hundred times?

Capt. Paul Tejera: I was one of those, I've watched it a couple of times for sure.

Tom Rowland: I mean, seriously, though, but now YouTube has changed, man, you can go out there with a Hollywood movie crew and it's tough to get six hundred thousand views, but back in the day it was easy, man, you put anything up there, you could iron your shirt and there'd be six hundred thousand views, you could do anything. But, yeah, man, well, awesome catching up with you, Paul, and thanks again for being on the show, and we'll stay in touch.

Capt. Paul Tejera: My pleasure, man. Good talking to you.