Capt. Scott Brown - Hooked On Family

Cold Open and Tom's Introduction

Scott Brown: So when people ask me, they're like, hey, man. Like, how are you doing? It's like, what's the secret? Because, like, we have quite a few people asking us. And I'm like, hey. Number one, not every kid is the same. You gotta figure it out on your own, buddy. You know? Because just because my three year old's doing it, does that that that does not necessarily mean the way that I brought him up into doing this is gonna be the same for your kid. But I will say this, and I'm sure you know this, you're a product of your environment. So if the only thing that Lindsay and I do in our free time is hunt and fish, what do you think our kids are gonna be doing? We don't press it upon them. You know? I think another fact We never press it upon them.

Lindsay Brown: Factor of that is that, you know, we don't have the family close. So it's not like we can call nana and papa and be like, hey. Can you watch the kids? We're gonna go do this. They I mean, they have no choice but to come with us. We I mean, we've never, like, had a babysitter or anything like that. So it's

Scott Brown: We've had a babysitter twice in our lifetime.

Lindsay Brown: Yeah. So it's like I mean, they we we don't if we wanna go fishing, the kids are coming with us.

Scott Brown: This is Captain Scott Brown.

Lindsay Brown: And Lindsay Brown from Hooked on Family.

Scott Brown: This is the Tom Rowland Podcast.

Tom Rowland: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast today. We got a really fun one for you today. I came across a video of a a little kid casting, and he was casting underneath the mangroves. He catches a snapper, and he's standing on a skiff. And the whole thing just reminded me so much of how I raise my children in the Florida Keys. They were just fishing off the dock all the time, take them out on the boat. They became incredibly good fishermen at a really, really young age. And now I'm watching this on YouTube with another family doing something very similar. Captain Scott Brown is, a really interesting guy. I've enjoyed talking to him. I've been emailing back and forth with him for a little while. And, you know, I wanted to get him and his wife on the podcast, and it just so happened that this time, we had he, his wife, and his kids. They all were on the podcast, so it's kind of a fun one. We talk about growing up in The Keys and growing up fishing and and keeping your kids in a active lifestyle outdoors and what that means and how you do it. And I just love this podcast. It was really fun with my friend, Captain Scott Brown. And you can find more of Captain Scott Brown, by going to hookedonfamily.com. That's the hub of all his operations. He's got editorial and content on everything about fishing with kids outdoors. It's a really good, really good resource. Hooked on Family is his Instagram and he and his wife's Instagram, handle. And you can also go to the website pushitgoodinshore.com. And that's his charter business. If you would like to contact him, maybe maybe actually go fishing with him, and he has a Instagram handle, for his charter service as well at push it good inshore. That's on Instagram. YouTube channel's Hooked on Family, and you can find all kinds of great stuff there. So stand by for this great conversation with Scott and his family. Alright. Coming at you right now.

From Destin to the Keys: Freediving, Spearfishing, and the Dive School

Tom Rowland: Yep. Alright. And we're live. And, how are you guys doing today?

Lindsay Brown: Good.

Scott Brown: I'm pretty good.

Tom Rowland: I'm glad that I

Scott Brown: worked anymore.

Tom Rowland: I'm glad we finally made it happen. Scott Brown and Lindsay down here in the Florida Keys, Hooked on Family. What what's Hooked on Family all about?

Scott Brown: You wanna take that or you want me to take it?

Lindsay Brown: You can take it.

Scott Brown: So Hooked on Family was a a concept that kinda came about way later on after we moved to the Keys. We moved to the Florida Keys in, January. And,

Lindsay Brown: Of this year?

Scott Brown: Or yeah. This year. We're almost to 2,020, I guess. I will just track a time real quick. Time flies for me. But, yeah. We're we originally, moved from Destin, Florida, and, that's where we had Graton, our first kid. And we were heavily into, inshore fishing when we first moved to Destin, Florida. So Destin's renowned for its red fishery and and speckled trout and all that. But we, kinda got out of that. We sold our first Maverick and we got a big center console, and we kinda transitioned to their offshore fishery because that's equally as renowned over there for their their tuna, marlin, wahoo. You have the the oil rigs very close by.

Tom Rowland: So what kind of boat did you get into then?

Scott Brown: We had a 27 foot, Oceanwave Oceanwave. With twin one fifty Hondas, and, we used that for for quite a long time. I was super big into freediving and spearfishing. Yeah. And, that's a a really good place to spearfish over there. It's murky and it's deep, but if you have the diving ability, you can shoot some big It's

Lindsay Brown: not always murky.

Scott Brown: No. It isn't always murky. Sometimes

Tom Rowland: You get

Lindsay Brown: good some good days.

Tom Rowland: So the diving ability Mhmm. That is that's your real job. Right? Right now?

Scott Brown: Kind of. Yeah. It's, my real job is over at the the special operations dive school in Key West, Florida. I am actually active duty military. Most people have no idea. I like to keep that to myself. I I don't really like to promote that side. I like to remain a quiet professional, but, that's mostly just closed circuit and open circuit diving. But I was introduced to freediving as a kid by my dad. I used to we used to come down as a family to Islamorada every year for an entire month since I was eight years old. Yeah. That's where I got into freediving. And then, once we got to Destin, that's the last place that I thought we'd be freediving. And then, we ran into, a a guy, another family who owned a freediving shop over there, Mike Poole.

Lindsay Brown: Poole. Poole.

Scott Brown: Poole. How I always get his name

Lindsay Brown: right now.

Tom Rowland: Every time.

Scott Brown: Mike and best pooler. And, they're like, oh, yeah. We we were freedive spear spear fisherman over here. And I was like, really? In in Destin? And they're like, yeah. It's an awesome spear fishery. And that's where we we continued it. It was down there.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And then What were the targets?

Scott Brown: So you have, obviously, the big red snapper over there. You have a wahoo fishery in the fall. Mhmm. You have a gag grouper. You got you got quite a few few things. I mean, recently, yellowfin tuna have been shot over there. It's crazy. So

Tom Rowland: So how how deep are you diving in that area?

Scott Brown: If you wanna shoot, like, really good, like, solid fish, you're diving to 70 to 80 feet. K. And, it's all structure oriented. It's not really there is live bottom over there, but, it's it's few and far between. It's not like down here in The

Tom Rowland: Keys. Right. So you're doing that on one breath or you're take

Scott Brown: You're taking

Tom Rowland: one breath. Okay. Just So but why why is it that you're attracted to that when you're obviously very good at scuba? You could go down there. Is it because you can get closer to the fish? Or

Scott Brown: I think you

Tom Rowland: can get It's more challenging or what?

Scott Brown: Well, I love the challenge. Absolutely. I'm all about the hunt. You know? But, I think you can shoot way more fish in those deeper depths on a single breath than having to do a repetitive dive on open circuit. Plus, it's more of just a personal thing.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Is that is there, like, a a community, of spearfishermen, like, hunters, like, freediving is, like, bow hunting, and, like, using tanks and gear is, like, rifle hunting?

Scott Brown: Yeah. I would say there's a culture in it. Yeah. A very strong culture. It's, getting more and more popular. As you've seen, I mean, out of the hunting industry, bow hunting is on the incline. Yeah. You know, just as fly fishing's on the incline in in and regular fishing. But, there's a strong community over in the Panhandle region of, of freedivers. But then all of a sudden, we had our first kid, you know. And Lindsay and I, we kinda just roll with the punches. We never we don't plan anything. Not real big planners. We're not huge planners at all. And we always wanted kids, and so we had Graton, our first kid. And, I said to myself, you know what? Like, we're not, we're not gonna be free diving with Graton. You know? So we got rid of the center console and there's some other stuff that went into that too as far as my my job goes. And, we went back to, the Maverick HPXV flats boat.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm. And

Scott Brown: so it went right back to to the flats fishery.

Fishing Differently With Kids on the Boat

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And that was, like, how I got into the bay boat, like, was well, we started with a bay boat when we were doing these Redfish tournaments.

Scott Brown: Mhmm.

Tom Rowland: But nobody really had bay boats down here. And so when we brought the bay boat down, my kids were about the same age as yours. And then I started realizing, wow. Like, I can do a lot of things with the bay boat. And and I could do a lot of things with the skiff too, but the higher sides made everybody happier. Like, you've got Chandler right there crawling around, and it's like, it's possible that she could crawl over the side of the Maverick. Yeah.

Lindsay Brown: Or Yeah. Should I she'll definitely get to a point where she'll be able to. Right now, she's still just starting to pull up on things.

Tom Rowland: Months away.

Lindsay Brown: Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: And then we went to, you know, I I got this bay boat, and it had higher sides. And, man, that really was great for for my kids. Like Absolutely. And then it opened up a whole new world of fishing for me that I didn't even you know, I'd been blowing past these mangrove shorelines and blowing past all this stuff and not paying any attention to it whatsoever. And then because of the kids, started going over there trying to catch little snappers. Oh, there's other stuff here too. Oh, this is really cool. And, you know, you just end up learning a ton more.

Scott Brown: Oh, absolutely. It's always it's it's ironic, like, talking to you about it and and funny at the same time. Just the the learning curve on that when you have kids and the the different approach on how you would fish. You have to take a totally different approach than what you normally would.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Like, tell me about how that is because I wonder if it's similar to the different approach that I had to take.

Scott Brown: It's, I mean, obviously, like, you know way better than me. Just species depend on what you wanna target. I mean, Graton, he caught his first bonefish a couple of months ago, like, probably two months ago. And I targeted a specific group of bonefish that I knew were susceptible to to being caught by him. Ones that were not pressured, ones that you could get within 20 feet of with the boat.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm. They had

Scott Brown: no idea what the boat was. And, he's able to launch a cast about 20 feet, and he was successful in doing that. But

Tom Rowland: So how old is he?

Scott Brown: He's three going

Tom Rowland: on a Three years old, he site casts a bonefish

Scott Brown: I wouldn't

Tom Rowland: say so.

Scott Brown: By himself casted. You said I knew there were there.

Tom Rowland: Throw it over there. Yeah. And he he makes the cast.

Scott Brown: Yeah. It was a nother rig with a piece of dead shrimp. I knew that this bonefish would smell it as long as it got within as long as it got within, I wouldn't say within a feet, but as long as it was up current Right. Of this. It's going crazy, though, there. Yeah. You gotta keep him entertained.

Time Flies: Military Life, Balance, and Being Present

Tom Rowland: Oh, yeah. It's really funny, though. I mean, like, you know, people will tell you that time flies. Like, you know, like, people will say things like and I remember people telling me this. It's like, oh, they're long they're young, man. You won't believe it. You'll blink your eyes, and they'll be out of college. And all these old people kept telling me this, and I was like, you know, people old people just must have a different, sense of time or whatever. And you're like, not me. I'm gonna relish every little bit of this. But Yeah. I look at your kids that are really similar in age to to to where mine were. And now my son both boys are in Montana. We have a 22 year old and a 20 year old and a 16 year old. And literally, like, we're gonna go to Chico's right after this. Yeah. And we probably went to Chico's four times a week with my kids. Woah. And I can remember this whole scene so well. And when people tell you that you will blink your eyes, I mean, I don't wanna be the other old person that's telling you this, but it is it goes by so fast. And it's

Lindsay Brown: It does.

Tom Rowland: It's just amazing.

Lindsay Brown: I mean, even just, like I can't believe that we've almost been here for a year.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. That

Lindsay Brown: because we we moved here when Chandler was two weeks old. So I just it's crazy that it's like

Scott Brown: A military family's timeline goes very fast. One thing to another. Luckily, because of being in special operations, you're kinda solidified in in one place. You're not moving around everywhere. But when you're gone for majority of that time, you blink your eyes and it's all gone very quickly. And so

Tom Rowland: So is that one of the reasons why you're you're so focused on spending so much time with your kids? Absolutely.

Scott Brown: I know what it's like for them or for me not to be there, and I know the second and third order effects of me not being there. And so It's all true. Knowing that and and kinda looking at everybody else and knowing the same the same things. I have similar friends in the similar similar situations where they also take notice. I'm like, man, where did time go? Like, my kid's 16 years old now. I have, you know, I miss birthdays. I miss Christmases. And any chance I get, I'll spend with them. I'll turn down schools. I'll turn down a lot of stuff just so I can get time with them because, I mean, this I can't can't repay time.

Tom Rowland: You know? So No. You can't. And it goes by so fast. And you think you know, I mean, there's always this fine line of, like I mean, when my kids were that age, I was working, you know, three hundred days a year.

Scott Brown: Yep.

Tom Rowland: And so there's this fine line of you're trying to provide for your family, but at the same time, you're also trying to, you're also trying to make sure that that you're spending enough time with with everybody. Absolutely. And then you kinda get out of balance. Yeah. Everybody. Your wife as well as well. Like, I mean, that's just Exactly. It's equally as important and much easier to forget. Like Oh, yeah. The kids are literally hanging on your bed. Yes. And your wife is like,

Scott Brown: I'm over here. Well yeah.

Tom Rowland: I mean How are you? I I see that. I see the kids really need you right now. Like, that's obvious. Yeah. And then it's like, you know, but but you can't neglect any part of the whole deal.

Scott Brown: Absolutely, man. There's a balance. As you know, there's a balance in everything. And the balance, I think, is, like, the main goal we're always looking for. Time with family, time on the water, time at the job. There's everyone understands the balance. The it's the journey and getting there and figuring out is the hard part.

Tom Rowland: The really funny part about the balance is that in order to really excel at anything, you have to be wildly out of balance in some Oh, yeah. For for some distinct period of time, like Malcolm Gladwell calls it the ten thousand hours. You can call it whatever you want, but there has to be a time when things are so far out of balance that you are neglecting everything else. Yeah. But, like, a successful relationship, like Lindsay shaking her head, like, yes, a successful relationship seems to be that everybody's kind of on the same page. Okay. Like, you need to work right now. Kind of an everybody kind of understands that, but then you also understand that, but not too much. Mhmm. And then when it's time off, then we gotta spend time with the family.

The Viral Casting Video and the Start of Hooked On Family

Scott Brown: What's up, dude? The TV?

Tom Rowland: This TV. This little TV right here, y'all.

Lindsay Brown: See yourself on that one.

Scott Brown: You've been on the camera before. That TV.

Tom Rowland: That TV. Yeah. He's like a YouTube star. There was one video where, you're kinda cruising down the mangroves, and and you just toss it right up under the bushes and get a and get a, a snapper, I think. It's pretty impressive. A cubera snapper?

Lindsay Brown: Yeah. You did. That's one last weekend. Microphone. But I I know you can come over here.

Scott Brown: I definitely wouldn't I would advise you not to do that.

Lindsay Brown: It'll be the great show for sure. Absolutely.

Scott Brown: Yeah. That that's kind of the catalyst for Hooked on Family. What's that right there? That video? There's three things that kinda were the catalyst for Hooked on Family. The first one was, I kind of had a major failure in my military career with in in the sense of what I wanted to do, you know. And, I interviewed for this organization a couple of times, and I just didn't have the personality for it. And which kinda led me to throwing in the Key West towel, you know, like, hey. If if I can't do that, give me some time with my family, and I wanna be an instructor down in Key West. That's So instructor time is is, time with family is what I equate that to. You know, I'm still working in the same capacity. I'm just not operational. You know? I just have more time with the family. And,

Tom Rowland: That's a choice, though.

Scott Brown: That's a choice. Absolutely. A choice that I wanted very badly. And, obviously, chose Key West strategically. And, Well, I remember we were

Tom Rowland: we were in touch over email.

Scott Brown: A long time ago. Yeah. Absolutely. It feels like yesterday, but, yeah, I wanted to get your your opinion on on that. And, just be coming down here as a kid throughout my entire life, I knew this is where I wanted to end up to begin with. But so there was that. And then, that last part was that that viral video that we had of of Graton pitching like he was in the Bassmaster circuit. People are just like, yo, your kid pitches better pitches the flips better than than my friends do, and they're full grown men. I'm like, dude, I don't know where he got it from. You know, we didn't teach him that. Right?

Lindsay Brown: Yeah. I mean, we We didn't teach him anything. Remember just one day on the boat, I showed him just, like, how to open the bail, and, like, that's how the line comes out. And then he figured out his own way to make it happen. It's pretty crazy.

Kid-Sized Rods, Casting Techniques, and the Ring Game

Scott Brown: He's a super small kid for three years old. Yeah. He's he's, like, thirty two pounds, and we just did a video on on how he casts. I kinda emphasized just let your kid figure it out. You know? There's a proper way, obviously, to cast, but that's Yeah.

Tom Rowland: But a lot of times, the kids figure out a way that works for them with a rod that is really like, if you try to teach them how you would cast the rod, well, it's a seven foot rod and you're six six two. Right? So that's if you give him a rod that's his size, that's his height, you know, maybe he can do it the way you're teaching him. But what I found with my kids was that they came up with their own little way. They stuck with it for a while. But after a while, they become really good the way that they are doing it. Absolutely. It's not wrong. No. It's just the way shooter reference. If I gave you a 12 foot a 15 foot rod, how would you cast it? Like, it would probably be different than your talent.

Scott Brown: Probably take a couple of steps into that. Right.

Tom Rowland: That was one of the things that that, With Kathy Gilmore? Kenny Harris always told me about the kids. He was like, you know what? You should get, like, a older rod, and you should you should cut it down and then cut the corks down and get it to where it it fits him like a rod fits you. Absolutely. And then when I had some special rods made and some ones that I'd get from the sponsors and, you know, like, even as little as ice fishing rods and stuff like that that, like, we could catch snappers with. But all of a sudden, the kids have rods that fit them. They're not you know, you're using a tiny little reel. You're using a tiny little rod, and we would use all of those little push button, you know, Zebcos or whatever with a push button. And they got really good at it because I I didn't really understand at first that if you push the button all the way in, the line doesn't go out. Mhmm. But when you let it go and then you can push the button again and the line will stop. And when you figure that out, you can be really accurate with those things. But the problem is and so we would play that game in the backyard, and we would pitch to things and try to cast at things. But saltwater just it they don't last more than a day or so with the saltwater.

Scott Brown: I think there's quite a few rods and reels in the in Davy Jones' locker from Graton. Yeah.

Lindsay Brown: We've yeah. Graton's gotten a bunch of those little kids' rods, and we have none of them anymore. Right. I think we've gone through, like, four.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Absolutely. You gotta have something that's good enough.

Lindsay Brown: Right.

Tom Rowland: But, you know, we transitioned to the

Scott Brown: the freshwater trout. Right? You know those little yellow Eagle Claw rods,

Tom Rowland: I think, is what they were?

Scott Brown: We transitioned to that because, you can find, like, a six foot rod in that, and it's it's super light. I think it's like an ultralight rod. And, he started catching a little speckled trout with that thing, and then that transitioned into Mhmm. To bigger rods. And then, honestly, he likes

Lindsay Brown: Can't go to hell.

Scott Brown: He can cast, what is this? It's one of G. Loomis's inshore. One of their green water rods, I think. It's a it's a green blank, but it's super lightweight. Mhmm. And, he could he can propel that thing because the because of the action, the tip. Yeah. The action in the tip of the rod. And, we tried super short rods, but a lot of them are heavy for them. Kids have weak wrists. Yeah. You know, they're not they're not strong enough to be able to use that. So what he'll do is he'll tuck it up underneath his arm, hold the line and the bail with his left hand, and he'll use his body weight to cast it. You know? Yes. And, again, he came up with this this idea and this technique, and we just rode with it. We're like, you know what? If that works for you, that works for you. I'm not gonna sit here and

Tom Rowland: tell you what it is. Great for him. That would be lovely. Did you ever listen to that, that one podcast I did about the ring game?

Scott Brown: Yeah. Absolutely. The ring game.

Tom Rowland: That is the best, man. And when I'm late I'm looking at him about how old he is. That's about the age that I started playing that game with with my son. He was he was good like him. He could do the cast. And come to think of it, that's how he would cast too. It was under his arm, and he would open the bail, and he would turn his hips and, like, throw the cast out there. But we had we lived on a canal, and then he could, I would throw out there. It would make a ring. You know, the the jig would land or whatever, and it would make a ring. And then he would try to land his in that ring.

Scott Brown: Nice.

Tom Rowland: And then, then later, it was that he would make a ring, and I would try to throw it in there. But, man, hours of free entertainment. Oh, that's awesome. To make it. Hula hoops. Yeah. Well, hula hoops or or,

Scott Brown: you know, you can Play a big rope down.

The YouTube Channel and How-To Videos

Tom Rowland: Yep. Go anywhere, but it it's super fun. Yeah. So, so how's the Hooked On Family thing going? Well, on YouTube?

Scott Brown: You know, we we kinda push it. We really don't. But it started off as kind of home videos for us, honestly. You know, we're like, you know what? I I didn't know anything about editing. I didn't know anything about cinematography. And, one day, I was like, you know what? I'm notorious for picking up stuff and just going a 110% with it and figuring it out. And,

Tom Rowland: Honey, it doesn't seem like somebody in your profession would do things like that.

Scott Brown: I I looked at Lindsay, and I was like, you know what? I'm going to go a 110% into cinematography, research this. We're gonna drop a bunch of money into a computer. We already have the camera. We have the the fishing experience.

Lindsay Brown: Okay.

Scott Brown: Let's just do it. And so we went all in. And now we have this YouTube channel that we we keep up with. I'd say 90% we keep up with.

Lindsay Brown: Yeah. I mean, we've had a couple

Scott Brown: Life comes up and Yeah.

Lindsay Brown: Things that have come up that we

Tom Rowland: Can't imagine why.

Lindsay Brown: We've had to take some breaks.

Scott Brown: A lot of people hit me up. They're just like, yo, man. Like, you need to you need to do more. You need to do more. I'm like and I don't tell people what I do. I'm like, yo, you don't even understand. Like, well,

Tom Rowland: that's the thing about the the digital age is that anything that people like at all, like this podcast for instance or YouTube channels or whatever, the appetite is insatiable. Oh, absolutely. People want more and more and more, and you can't turn it out fast enough. I can't. So the the real I think, the real recipe there is to find something that you can do fairly quickly. And it doesn't have to be super incredibly, high quality right now, but it's more about regularity. Like, every single week is probably better than than than, you know, a really good one once every couple of weeks.

Scott Brown: Consistency is key. Absolutely. I agree with that. That's that's everything in life, consistency. But so we started we kinda played around with the fact with, these how to videos. We've we've done two how to videos. And I try to keep the same quality that I can, just keeping it shorter and giving more information. But I don't I don't like giving people the answers because I feel like you learn a lot more figuring it out yourself. You know?

Tom Rowland: So, like, what would be what would be a a subject that you've done so far?

Scott Brown: So we did how to launch a boat with kids because that's actually a task if you've ever done it by yourself.

Life Jackets and Taking Heat Online

Tom Rowland: Lock them in the car, and then, like, let's let's go do it. You know? So, like,

Scott Brown: I'll put Graton because, like, Graton actually knows how to swim pretty well for his age even without a life jacket. And, the kid can survive if he fell in the water.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Scott Brown: I keep a life jacket on him whenever we're underway, obviously, because that's law. And I keep a life jacket on him when the water is turbid or the clarity is is not good. You can't see what depth you're in. And I keep a life jacket on them when the current is Mhmm. Is is ripping. But other than that, I don't ever keep a life jacket on before pulling five inches of water, and I take a lot of heat for that.

Tom Rowland: Well But I mean, we take a lot of heat for that too. We we did a TV show like that, and, you know, we're in a we're in a bay boat. The sides are high. It was the same thing. It was like we were completely within the law, but somebody saw a kid without a life jacket on a boat. Oh, yeah. And it is just a hot button. Oh, yeah. But I mean, for me, it's like, okay. There's also I mean, certainly, you would never wanna endanger your child, but no one knows his ability to swim better than you do. You obviously are professional around the water. There's a lot of things going on here that people probably don't realize.

Scott Brown: Absolutely.

Tom Rowland: Secondly, it is five inches deep. Okay? And there's never going to be a time when he's more than arm's length from you. Could he fall in? Yes. Absolutely. Could would you be in immediately after? Probably even before the life jacket could lift him up out of the water, you would be. Of course. I've been in that same situation lots of times. But then there's this then there's this weird little balance of it's August. It's super hot. Yes. Do you like to wear a life jacket? Oh, yeah. Like, you're I mean, it's like we're trying to get a child to really enjoy this. Absolutely not. Wear a wet suit in 95 degree heat with the sun as strong as it is in the Florida Keys, I don't really think you're having a good time.

Scott Brown: Absolutely not. I'm not having a good time.

Tom Rowland: Right. Nobody is. So, like, you wanna take the life jacket off. But like you're saying, there are you're not just taking it off anytime. You're taking it off when the water's clear. It's really shallow. Everything is under your control.

Scott Brown: Absolutely.

Tom Rowland: And okay. Now now let's,

Lindsay Brown: She's stuck under there with you.

Scott Brown: They're going crazy right

Tom Rowland: now. They are.

Scott Brown: At least they're not, like, bugging us right now.

Tom Rowland: But why don't you expect anything different? Right. It's like We have so Chandler's how old?

Lindsay Brown: She's 10.

Tom Rowland: And so 10. And greatness, what?

Lindsay Brown: Three and a half.

Tom Rowland: Three and a half.

Lindsay Brown: Yeah. He'll be four

Tom Rowland: in April. I mean, that's about yeah. That's about what you expect.

Lindsay Brown: They're just getting to the point where they can kinda get along.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Oh, they'll be best friends.

Lindsay Brown: Kind of. Like, to steal their toys.

Scott Brown: Gonna be pushing him around.

Lindsay Brown: Yeah. She's gonna definitely.

Scott Brown: Yeah. Yeah. She's gonna be bigger than he than him. Absolutely.

Lindsay Brown: She's already bigger than he was.

Scott Brown: She'll she'll be running the show for sure.

Tom Rowland: So what kind of heat did you get on the, the

Scott Brown: life jacket? So I wanna say the first people that that took that video was Maverick Boat Company, and we didn't we didn't take any heat from them. Just people that have no idea. They don't understand the environment of the Florida Keys. They don't know that it's it's super shallow.

Lindsay Brown: And on on the flip side of getting a lot of heat from it, there's also a huge group of people who, like, would come to the rescue. Be like, he's a Keys kid. Like, he probably knew how to swim before he could walk and this and that. So yeah. I mean, yeah. There's people who are

Scott Brown: people that came.

Lindsay Brown: A lot of people who are like

Scott Brown: like, hey, man.

Lindsay Brown: Like the keys.

Scott Brown: You obviously don't understand.

Lindsay Brown: Right. So there's, you know, there's always some good with the boat. I just

Tom Rowland: love the

Scott Brown: comment, like, what? He's gonna fall off the boat and water's gonna come rushing up to his kneecaps. But no. I give it to people too. Like, I I I love cyber warriors. I love them. You know? They get they get they have a lot of courage online.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Certainly online. Yeah.

Scott Brown: I I I think it's entertaining. You know? I I'm I'm a big fan of constructive criticism. Criticize me all you want, but don't misconstrue actual law from from your opinion. Right. You know? Every time that we don't have a life jacket on, we're anchored with a power pole. That's law. You have to be anchored. You know? Mhmm.

Tom Rowland: And

Scott Brown: so when you're sitting there telling and influencing others, like, hey. That's not the law. Like, that's an outright lie, and I'm gonna correct you, you know, on the spot because you're you're taking away from everyone else's ability to be able to enjoy the, the water. You know? I mean, if if you didn't know better and someone's like, hey. Your kid's gotta wear a life jacket twenty four seven and you don't bother to research it. Your kid's gonna be wearing a life jacket twenty four seven because you're right on the Internet.

Tom Rowland: Right.

A Year Off Social Media

Scott Brown: You know? And that's a whole another subject that kid kid it. There's so many subjects we could get into with this. We've learned so much jumping into the social media world. This whole this whole world is totally new to me. I despised social media for a long time because of what it did kind of to the culture of The United States and to kind of, like, my actual job in itself. I didn't really like it, but I see a lot of good in it now because we're so heavily involved in it. I'm sure you've noticed the same thing over time.

Tom Rowland: Well, it's interesting kind of I don't know what I think about it, honestly. And and just when I start to put my arms around it, I don't like it again. And then just when I don't like it the most, I realize that there's so much good about it. And I think it's this changing relationship that we probably all have with social media eventually. And I even noticed my my my kids, like, my boys, which is pretty refreshing and pretty pretty awesome, really. Like, my son, Hayden, he was saying that he well, he had this opportunity to take a job running a social media account. He chose not to because he's like, dad, I don't want my phone with me all the time.

Scott Brown: Consumes your life. Right. And I don't

Tom Rowland: I don't want that. And in fact, I'm gonna take Instagram off my phone, and I'm gonna take Snapchat off my phone. And I might put it back on there, but I'm not gonna delete my accounts. But I'm gonna just take it off my phone. And it's like I almost think that that's kind of what we're gonna see is that just like when you have people that get really What? Into whatever, and then you have a, like, a subculture of people that wanna get off the grid, and they want to, you know, live Frontier style, and they wanna do whatever and eat only stuff that they grow and all that. So the more you go this way, there's a culture that goes this way. And then then you have, like I I just really do believe that that some kids are going to push away from social media. And it's gonna be few and far between, you know, comparatively to the ones that are getting on social media or staying on social media. But I just thought it was pretty refreshing for my son to be like, I don't want my phone all the time.

Scott Brown: Oh, yeah. You just opened up a can of worms, buddy.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, we've had

Scott Brown: we've definitely have done the same thing. I went cold turkey from Instagram for an entire year year in 2320.

Tom Rowland: With social media before Hooked on Family?

Lindsay Brown: I I mean, really just posted on my because I do the Hooked on Family Instagram account. But on my personal account, I just would post pictures of kids for, like, family to see because we in Destin, we were 10.

Scott Brown: We don't have any family there all.

Lindsay Brown: I mean, I had I had family in Alabama, but we didn't have anybody that was, like, immediately close to us. So it was that was the main tool that I used it for is just, I mean, before I don't Both

Tom Rowland: of us I don't really remember.

Scott Brown: We kinda came up about in the Facebook era. Mhmm. I was a senior in high school when when Facebook hit the scene. And so you had to have you had to have a college email to be able to get on it. And so we were able to get on it then. And, obviously, that evolved over time. And then I was probably four years into the military when Instagram came about, and I had nothing to post on there, you know, because I why would I ever post anything about what I do on on Instagram? But I started posting spearfishing stuff a lot, and then, obviously, like, all the the fish we caught. But we never it was kinda like showing, like, all of our other friends across The United States. Like, hey. We're down here. Like

Tom Rowland: So why did you end up taking a year off?

Scott Brown: Honestly, because, I saw myself getting wrapped up into it. And I was like, this is out of control. Like, what is what is this? What are you doing right now? And so I went a solid year of not posting anything. Nothing. Nothing. And the other part of that is I was I was in other places in the world where I didn't have any Right. Any Internet access or anything like that. But, yeah, it definitely felt good. So I proved it to myself, and then I I understood, that balance that we were talking about earlier where you needed to be. And then, I criticized people after the fact. But looking back, I think it was kinda foolish of me to criticize when those people were using social media for the good side that we're about to talk about as far as meeting people and promoting your business Mhmm. Which is super important in 2019.

Making Friends and Navigating Human Terrain

Tom Rowland: Right. You know? So now how have what kind of transition have you made to kind of, first of all, understanding that, but then kind of wrapping your arms around social media again to the point of kind of I kinda need this.

Scott Brown: Oh, absolutely. So we use it to meet people. You know? I I use that to actually so I was just talking talking to a couple of people. Nick Labatey was one of the guys that that we were talking to. It's funny. Like, I just saw that you had Brandon in here also. Yeah. Nick and Brandon and their their families were were hanging out with us the other night. We had a big conversation on that. Nick was able to relate in the sense of, like, finding friends whenever he moved down to Key West. I'm in the same boat. You know? We've it's so hard to have friends when you're in in the military outside of the military because, one, everyone that's your friend in the military is somewhere else in The United States.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Scott Brown: So and they're usually deployed. So how are you gonna keep up with them? Two, the friends that you do have there, you can't really keep up with them because they never know if you're there or not. You know? So I was gone. I probably say a solid three years, the time that we lived in Destin. And so I'd come back, and you'd come back to to what? You know? Right. Like, my family, obviously, and that's great. But all of a sudden, you wanna hang out with everybody, and no one even knows that you even exist anymore. You know? So I kind of use social media and fishing to, one, find friends, people that see eye to eye with me, and, two, to kind of be assimilated with the culture in the outdoors world, you know, because that's something that I've been missing out on for over a decade now. You know, I used to be heavily into it growing up and in college, and all of a sudden, it's, like, kinda taken away from you. So now I'm back in. And what's the quickest way to to, like, find people that see eye to eye eye to eye? Social media now. Right. You know? Obviously, you're gonna have to sift through the BS and the people, but you eventually find genuine people. You know? Yeah.

Tom Rowland: It's funny that you would eventually find genuine people on social media, which seems to be one of the least genuine things on the planet.

Scott Brown: But Majority of my job is, navigating human terrain.

Tom Rowland: Yeah.

Scott Brown: You know, I don't wanna get into, like, what I actually do, but human terrain plays a huge part in what I do. And So

Tom Rowland: when you say human terrain, you're talking about Understanding personalities, like,

Scott Brown: networking, mindset, all that stuff. So I've met quite a few personalities in my in my decade across the world. But, no, I I know when someone's genuine, and I know when someone sees eye to eye, you know. Go out there. Great. Chill out, dude. Chill. Chill. Chill. He's turning up now.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, we're gonna get some good Mexican food here

Scott Brown: shortly. Absolutely.

Tom Rowland: So navigating human terrain, that's a pretty interesting way to to to describe that. Yeah. Absolutely.

Scott Brown: It's it's very it's just a a term for just understanding personalities. Right. Knowing your environment, you know, that is just kind of being aware of who's around you and what they're all about. You can see the same thing online. You could tell everything about a person, kind of, when you look at their Instagram indirectly.

Tom Rowland: Do you really think that? Because I would think that you can tell everything about the way a person wants their life to look.

Scott Brown: I totally agree with that.

Tom Rowland: But for you, you're looking at it even deeper going, okay. I see who this person wants to be. And how does that tell you who they actually are?

Scott Brown: There's I don't wanna say that, like, I target people or anything like that, but because, like, that's what I do, you know, like, but I know when someone is truly genuine, you know, and all I have to do is just have, like, a a ten minute long conversation, you know, and you can I don't judge a book by its cover? You know, that's that's very ignorant of me to do, but but you can get you can get a lot from a person on a on a quick conversation.

Tom Rowland: So have have has it been, pretty easy for you to meet friends and other other people that have families and stuff? Absolutely. And, Lindsay, have you found

Scott Brown: It takes work, though. You know?

Lindsay Brown: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely it's just hard coming, like, being in one place and having your set of friends Right. And then trying to, like especially here because every I feel like everybody already has their, like, their set groups, you know? So it's like you have to kinda, like, try to

Tom Rowland: work your way into them. But we But with the kids, don't you think that the kids Yeah. Kinda help you in there? Because

Lindsay Brown: I think the hardest part about that is just that we are because we're up in Sugarloaf, so it's we're kind of just far enough from everything that it's it's hard to get him into things Mhmm. To, like, meet other moms.

Tom Rowland: Well, we found that, like, probably with our first child in The Keys, like, my I don't know that my wife had a lot of friends until we started having babies, and then the friend group started coming. And with the first one, there were some friend groups. But then on the second one, for whatever reason, a lot of other people had babies about that same time, and that one was the one that she really met a lot of a lot of people. That's when that's when it really started changing for her and having, like, a bunch more friends. And for whatever reason, it was just like the the neighborhood just all of a sudden had a baby, like, about the same age. And then those were those became some of her best friends. And then then again later, I guess, now we're one of the people that has your group around, and then you'd bring another baby into it, and you bring some other people into the groups or whatever. But, it's yeah. Key West is a is an interesting area because it's it's having a family is not exactly the part of the course. You know? It's like Right. Almost like a rarity

Lindsay Brown: Yeah.

Having Kids at 30

Tom Rowland: In some cases. But there's a lot of people that raise raise families down there.

Scott Brown: Our age group with kids is a rarity nowadays also.

Tom Rowland: Which is what is your age group? 30. 30. 30.

Lindsay Brown: I'll be 28.

Tom Rowland: We were 28 when we had our first baby.

Scott Brown: See, I feel like that was typical of your day, but nowadays

Tom Rowland: Of my day. Absolutely. Oh, ouch. Wow. You know, I I feel you

Scott Brown: have tough skin by now.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I have tough skin, but it's really old, apparently. It's kinda like armor. Yeah. You know? It's armor.

Scott Brown: All wrinkly and old. No. There's not a lot of 30 year olds that I know that as far as, where we where we lived before. You'll find that a lot of military families have. Wait.

Tom Rowland: Would you so do you think that 30 year olds have older kids or younger kids?

Scott Brown: Oh, I'd say younger.

Tom Rowland: Like, they're just getting started.

Scott Brown: They're just getting started.

Tom Rowland: And we were just getting started at 28. That don't even

Lindsay Brown: They don't have any

Tom Rowland: want kids either. Or, I

Lindsay Brown: mean, or just They're

Scott Brown: not ready to

Lindsay Brown: do twenty months ago. Married.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. 30 is a funny time, though, because, like, 30 if you're not married at 30, there's a pretty good chance you might make it through your whole thirties without getting married. Yeah. And then then as 40 approaches, you might be like,

Scott Brown: oh, oh, man. I'm past 40. Maybe I better get married. But, I mean,

Tom Rowland: it's a funny time because you're kinda like, a lot of your friends are getting married. You're there's weddings all the time. I happen to miss all of that because I was down in Key West or in Wyoming when all my friends got married, and I didn't go to any of them. We're we're always None of those people none of those people are are are listening to this because we're no longer friends.

Scott Brown: I think I've been to two weddings so far in my lifetime.

Tom Rowland: Two or three.

Lindsay Brown: One was your sister's.

Scott Brown: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't again, we're I'm well, I'm always gone.

Tom Rowland: You know?

Scott Brown: But

Tom Rowland: So you think that people are having kids a little bit later? Absolutely. You know?

Scott Brown: I think our culture kind of has has dictated that. And the Why do you

Tom Rowland: think that is?

Scott Brown: I don't know, man. I honestly don't know. You know?

Tom Rowland: Yeah. It felt about right for me. Other people I remember the first person that was a friend of ours, like, a close friend that came down here. I can remember this like it was yesterday. We were living on Ramrod Key, and our friend, Chip and Susan, they came down with their new baby. And Cynthia tells me, like, Chip and Susan are coming with Lindsay, their new baby. And I was like, what? First thing I'm thinking is, they're my age, and I'm not old enough to have a baby. What are they doing? Like, I was just in shock. And then here they come, and they drive right up, and they get out. Here, meet Lindsay. And I was like, this is insane. Like, y'all aren't old enough to have a baby. Yeah. And and then it I mean, for, like, months after that trip, I was like, wow. Maybe I am old enough to have a baby. Like, gosh. And then there's this whole different kind of mindset, and it just it it didn't really, like, mess me up. But it was kind of like a it was kind of like a period in your life to where you're kinda like, wow. Things are really changing. Like, I'm getting older. And it wasn't that long after that that, you know, my wife and I started talking about it, but it took that first person to, like, show us that it was possible, I guess, or that, yeah, these are things that you guys should be thinking about. Like Yeah. And I don't even know if we were yeah. We were definitely married. But, yeah, that was that was weird.

Scott Brown: Yeah. We definitely we definitely didn't think about it.

Lindsay Brown: Yeah. I mean, we we didn't we didn't plan Didn't plan anything. But we did both know, I think, that we wanted to have kids a little bit earlier. Mhmm. Just because think

Scott Brown: about it though.

Lindsay Brown: No. But I, I mean, do you disagree? I think we both wanted

Scott Brown: to Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Lindsay Brown: Go ahead and get it done just because we, you know, don't wanna be super old and not be able to do things I

Scott Brown: will say

Lindsay Brown: with the kids.

Scott Brown: To to caveat on that, I wanted to be able to run, jump, and swim with my kid. You know? I didn't wanna be that old man that couldn't do what my kid, or what my kid could do. I wanted to have just as much fun. I I'm actually a giant kid kinda with two hundred eight pound kid.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. You know? So

Scott Brown: Yeah. I am too. You know? Like, I wanted to be able to do everything that Graton Graton and could do. And, like, Lindsay always makes fun of me. She's like, do you know how fast a kid is? I'm like, yeah. But you don't know how fast I am. You know?

Scott Brown: I still wanna be an athlete even when I'm older. And you you I don't think you can do that to your to your true potential if you're you're 40 years old. You know what I mean? By the time your kid becomes a teenager. So I wanna be able to enjoy my time with my kid and time that I thought I was gonna have. But,

Water Confidence: Teaching the Kids to Swim

Tom Rowland: so what about the diving and stuff? Are you, are you getting him in the water?

Scott Brown: Yep. Absolutely. What about Chandler? Yep. Same thing. We're trying to improve water confidence. If you live in the state of Florida and you don't have your kid in the water, you're wrong. Because as you know, the state is covered in water. Swimming pools in everybody's backyard.

Lindsay Brown: Oh, yeah.

Tom Rowland: I mean, not so much in Key West, but, I mean, you when you fly over Miami, I mean, literally, there's a swimming pool in everyone's backyard. And the kids are going to be around water and probably unsupervised in one shape or one way, shape, or form. And there's some really incredible, I mean, even when we had kids, there were some incredible programs to get the kids to be able to be self sufficient in the water and survival. You know? Like Absolutely. Where they just kinda roll over on their back and take a breath and then roll over, and and they're making it a little bit. But I used to freak people out real bad over at the Casa Marina. They had this thing where we could have a, we could have a membership at the Casa Marina. And so every day, I took, Turner to the Casa Marina and took him swimming, and and, he was really young. Like, younger than Chandler.

Scott Brown: Absolutely. We did the same thing with, with Graton. Hey. What's up, Chandler? Come here. We'd set a cabin.

Tom Rowland: So what did what did what in your with your expertise around the water, what what method did you choose to teach the kids?

Scott Brown: So I didn't teach them for once. You know?

Tom Rowland: That's the first thing.

Scott Brown: That's the first thing. I'm not gonna to do that. Yeah. We it's hard enough teaching grown men how to be divers, but, yeah. So we had a a woman in Destin. I think her name was, like, coach Mary or something like that. And I mean, she she had a a regimen that got kids right as far as the water goes. I mean, sometimes I'd walk in, I'd be like, yo, this is ruthless. Like but, hey, their water confidence skyrocketed. So whatever she's teaching was the right answer because, I mean, kids like, I think Graton was two, one and a half or two years old when he started that. Yeah. And it was a whole summer long program. I mean, he was able to dive subsurface and grab rings in, like, two feet of water. Wow. And, I mean, to see that like, to see, like, a, like, a a toddler do that, you're like, yo, that looks weird. Like, that's unnatural. You know? I mean, I'm sure you've seen the infants flip over on their back in the pools and

Tom Rowland: and And that's what we had with, with my son. That's what we did. And I would just have him, you know, holding him, you know, face down just above with his face above the water and just kinda slowly, slowly, slowly let him down and then just let him go. And he would kinda

Scott Brown: Yeah. Turn like crazy.

Tom Rowland: And then they would he would just stay there until somebody came to get him. Yeah. And it's like, wow. They have a really different, I guess, has muscle structure and you grow and stuff. Your your buoyancy changes, but it's almost like it's a very natural thing for their buoyancy to be to where their mouth is above the water with very little effort. And, like, if they just stop doing anything, they just roll right over. Like, if they keep trying to swim, they're gonna stay face down. But they just and I don't know what that's called, and we didn't take a course. But I kind of heard about it. Yeah.

Scott Brown: Figured it out.

Tom Rowland: I was like, I'm just gonna take him, and I'm gonna just just I would just kinda pull Turner to me, and I would get his chin wet. Mhmm. And then I would get just his lips wet. And then I would be like, okay. Just a little bit under. And then and I'm like, okay. Here we go. And that somebody told me you're supposed to blow in their face, so I blow in his face. And and I don't know if it worked, but he totally got it.

Scott Brown: You're the

Tom Rowland: He totally got it. So easy. And and then same thing with Hayden. He did the same thing. But the funny thing was is, like, I was so dead set. Like, I'm gonna teach Turner how to swim when he is an infant. Yep. And then with Hayden, it was, like, a little bit older. And then with Hannah, she was, like, older. Because you just I don't know. I guess I guess you become a little more seasoned as a parent, and it's like, okay. There's more time here than there's no urgency Yeah. Absolutely. Like, first of all, if they're a toddler, they're not even they're certainly not gonna be crawling in someone's backyard. Yeah. Like, there's some little more time. There wasn't so much urgency with Hayden, and then wasn't so much with with Hannah. But, it was so important to teach him how to swim early. Absolutely. Early. So do you do you get him in the water a lot?

Scott Brown: A lot. So, like, every time we we catch a fish now, especially, like, bonefish, just because, like, I know, like, you don't wanna take you try to take bonefish out of the water as minimally as possible, you know. We'll get Graton in the water with them, you know, just because one, it's fun for the kids. It's a it's an experience that you can't replicate. Yeah. Two, it improves water confidence. So, yeah, he might be up to his neck, but you know what? He's fine with that.

Every Kid Is Different: Answering the Secret Question

Tom Rowland: What what about the swimming pool?

Scott Brown: Swimming pool. He loves swimming pool. We're we don't really get to the swimming pool much. We're always on

Tom Rowland: the boat. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Brown: You know? Yeah. Our our most of our our free time is is in that boat. And we're kinda lucky because Lindsay and I both enjoy that. You know, people are people ask us, like, how we do this a lot, and it's fifty fifty. You know? Your spouse has to enjoy it as much as Yeah. As you do.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. For sure.

Scott Brown: You know? And, it's an adventure for us. It's not every day is ever the same. We're always having fun out there. It it can get kinda brutal sometimes. Like, when the kids are just like, yo, we've had it. We're just like, alright. We've had it too. We're ready to give back. But we few and far between. It's ever been like that. I mean, great. The this kid is like

Tom Rowland: he'll stay on the boat with you all long. Like super human.

Scott Brown: Long. Really? Yeah. It's weird. All my friends, like, I we just had him out in the boat with a couple of my friends.

Lindsay Brown: All day.

Scott Brown: All day long. And

Lindsay Brown: I mean, left at

Tom Rowland: He had, like,

Lindsay Brown: 7:38 o'clock.

Scott Brown: Breakdown. Like, one breakdown. And other than that, he's out there. He, he enjoys it a lot, because the last thing I wanna do is is burn them out.

Tom Rowland: Right. I don't know. And so I'm surprised that he can make it all day long like that. But what would you say, like, when somebody's getting started, like, how do you

Scott Brown: how do you do that? Number one, every kid is totally different. There is no the same answer, the way that we did it for Graton, you can't do it for any other kid. Right. Because Chandler is a totally different kid than Graton is, you know. And I'm not gonna do the same thing that I did for Graton for Chandler. So when people ask me, they're like, hey, man. Like, how are you doing? It's like, what's the secret? Because, like, we have quite a few people asking us. And I'm like, hey. Number one, not every kid is the same. You gotta figure it out on your own, buddy. You know? Because just because my three year old's doing it, does that that that does not necessarily mean the way that I brought him up into doing this is gonna be the same for your kid. But I will say this, and I'm sure you know this. You're a product of your environment. So if the only thing that Lindsay and I do in our free time is hunt and fish, what do you think our kids are gonna be doing? We don't press it upon them.

Lindsay Brown: I yeah. I think another fact never

Scott Brown: press it upon them.

Lindsay Brown: Factor of that is that, you know, we don't have the family close. So it's not like we can call nana and papa and be like, hey. Can you watch the kids? We're gonna go do this. They I mean, they have no choice but to come with us. We I mean, we've never, like, had a babysitter or anything like that. So it's We've

Scott Brown: had a babysitter twice in a lifetime. Way

Tom Rowland: that we are very similar.

Lindsay Brown: Yeah. See what's like I mean, they we we don't if we wanna go fishing, the kids are coming with us.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. So That was the same with us. I mean, we just didn't know many people and certainly didn't know who we could trust or whatever. And getting a babysitter was I mean, it was a long time before we got a babysitter. And then, you know, like, today, I look at some really cool things, like the people that'll go shop for you at the store. Mhmm. God, that seems amazing.

Scott Brown: We don't ever take advantage

Tom Rowland: of it.

Lindsay Brown: I know.

Tom Rowland: It just seems amazing because I was trying to tell somebody what it was like to raise the kids when you have no family around whatsoever. And it's like, well, if you need something at the store, you gotta pack them all up, and you're going to the store. Like, that's the thing. And that might take all day, or it might take fifteen minutes. You're not sure. And it's like, man, that that's the hardest thing. And then I see these services now. I'm like, man, we coulda used that. Oh, absolutely. Somebody go get your groceries

Scott Brown: for me. Bring them to your house. You probably wouldn't have used it, though.

Tom Rowland: Probably not. I mean, I know what you're I know what you're saying. Like, you from my in hindsight, you're like, oh, I I would use that. But you should get so busy. It's just like, that's just what you're gonna do. Plus, you're oftentimes, you're looking for an outing.

Scott Brown: Absolutely. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. That

Scott Brown: is where

Tom Rowland: she started.

Lindsay Brown: We'll go to the car car to Publix. It'll be great.

Right Time, Right Place, Right Bait

Scott Brown: Yeah. We're not we're not fishing all the time, though. Honestly, we fish maybe three times to twice a week, but the time that we do spend out there is a 110%, you know, because your kid's not gonna be entertained unless you're catching fish. So you better get on it. You better know where and when to be there. Right. And the something that we've the power or the the learning curve out here is steep as you know. Yeah. You know? That's something that we've been able to harp on just because that great fishery is in our backyard. You know?

Tom Rowland: But you seem to be doing pretty well with it. Like, pretty good. Like, I mean, I don't know how that's happening, but, I mean, the learning curve is pretty steep. But you you seem to be catching plenty of fish and catching plenty of fish in, you know, with with basically a couple of hands tied behind your back. I mean, I say that not not that that's a bad thing. It's like but if you just could just go out there and explore all you wanted to and you didn't have kids, you'd be learning a lot faster. Oh, absolutely. Like, not two hands tied behind your back in a negative way, but, I mean, you just have to do things a little differently. It's limited. But who says that that it that doesn't doing things a little bit differently doesn't lead to some of the best discoveries that you could ever make because nobody else is doing that. Like, nobody else is gonna sit there and and eat these things. What are those?

Lindsay Brown: Yogurt melts.

Tom Rowland: Yogurt melts. They didn't have those when we had kids. They're So But

Lindsay Brown: you're gonna have to eat

Tom Rowland: yogurt melts for a while, and then you're like, look. A school of redfish just swam up to us while we were sitting there. And the only reason we were sitting there is because we had a little meltdown. And now I learned this thing that I would never learned any other way.

Scott Brown: That's so true. You pretty much painted the the entire picture right there. It's all by accident, I feel like, you know.

Tom Rowland: Well, some, but then, you know, I would imagine that there's some on purpose too. But Oh, absolutely. You know? You're in a great place to to learn things, and there's a lot of different ways to learn them. And over the course of my career down here, I've had lots of different strategies. Like, I remember one time, one year, I just decided, man, it just seems like whenever I decide it's time to go and I put the push pull up and I'm just about to crank the engine, something happens. A fish rolls over there or something happens. So I decided one year, I was like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna I'm going to decide when it's time to leave. And then on the watch, when I can't wait any longer, I'm gonna wait five minutes on the watch. And I learned all kinds of stuff in that five minutes. Absolutely. Throughout that whole year because, I don't know, you just don't have enough patience or whatever. If you just stick it out a little bit longer, all of a sudden stuff different kind of stuff happens. And, like, with the kids, I can see that happening. And it certainly happened to me when I had my kids out there, like, learned all kinds of stuff, unexpected things.

Scott Brown: You you definitely have to tailor your fishing fishing techniques to them. Fishing though is and fishing and hunting is so simple when you think about it. Right time, right place, right bait or or right weapon, you know, if you're hunting. It's that simple. Now, yeah, there you can get into the nitty gritty of it and and break it down even further. But as long as you have those three, which Yeah. Those three is those three are very hard

Tom Rowland: to find out. That's the journey of of finding those three things all at the same time. Correct. Yes. That's that's the journey. And that's the interesting part about both of them is that it seems really easy. And some days, it is. It

Scott Brown: does. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: And then other days, you have two of the three, which is not good enough. And then other days, you have none of the three, which is what we did all offshore all day today while sitting out of the blue.

Scott Brown: Oh, man. When you hit me up the other day while I was out on the water, I wanted to ask you because I because, man, we crushed it back there, You know? And I was like, I wonder how that he's doing offshore. But

Tom Rowland: You know, it hasn't been good. The this time of the year is kind of a a flux time of the year for the offshore guys. Like, you have the first couple of cold fronts that comes through, but it really hasn't changed the water temperature enough to really push in the the bait fish and the pelagic species. But there's some around, just enough around to kinda make you, like, go fish for them. Yeah. But, you know, I got like, the hosts are really incredible fishermen. Mhmm. And if they're not making it happen out there, it's pretty tough. Oh, absolutely. And we got every tool you could possibly have. We got a livewell full of pilchards. We've got every technique and thing, piece of gear you could possibly imagine. And if it's not happening, it's really, really slow. And I knew it was gonna be a little slow, but sometimes we get into these situations to where you really need a couple of shows because you really need a couple of shows so that you can get the season started so that you can actually fish in the time that you wanna fish.

Scott Brown: Absolutely. I could only imagine.

Making Videos and Knowing Your YouTube Audience

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I mean, it it gets it just like just like the thing you're saying about hunting and fishing being very simple, making TV shows is very simple, except that there's a journey to being able to to get to the three things that you really need to make a TV show.

Scott Brown: You know, that we do the best when I I don't plan for anything. I have to plan so much in my regular job that I don't like planning outside of it. I'm like, somebody planned. Somebody do this for me.

Lindsay Brown: Yeah. All the time, I'm like, what do you wanna do this weekend? Scott's like, I don't care.

Scott Brown: I don't care

Tom Rowland: what we

Lindsay Brown: Figure something out.

Scott Brown: You know?

Tom Rowland: But I we do the same

Scott Brown: thing fishing, except for when we make these videos. There has not been I think there's been one video where we had to remake the video, and it was only for a small portion. I think it was, like, for the intro or something. But every every time we do this video I don't know what it is. Every time I say we say that we're gonna do this, dude, somehow we make this happen. And it's I think it's luck, honestly, because it's like, yeah, we're gonna go over here in lowercase, and we're gonna go crush some snook. All of a sudden, we're crushing some I'm like, what did we just do? And, you know, you can see the the genuine excitement on some of our faces, like, when we do this because we're just, like, mind is blown. Like, what did we just do out here? But if we're not making those videos, all of a sudden, it's just we're not catching anything. Yeah. It's like, maybe we just need to make these videos twenty four seven. Yeah. You know? But that is work. Oh my god.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. It's work.

Scott Brown: And Sitting there with that DSLR in my hand all day long and, like, filming everything, pushing the boat, I mean, there is a lot that people don't even understand. Yeah. And I'm sure taking care of the kids. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: I mean yeah. That's holding the DSLR is the easiest thing. You just you just

Scott Brown: Yeah. Absolutely.

Tom Rowland: But no. I'm sure that as you do it a little more, you'll come up with little rigs. You'll either find them, buy them, make them, you know, whatever. But you'll have your little ways that you get it going. And and, you know, I mean, the DSLR is is really nice and you probably need a lot of that. But, man, I mean, a lot of it, you can get by with a GoPro footage. And and, I mean, we take our our high end television videos and put them on YouTube, and they never really do very well. Like, people that watch YouTube want a certain type of video.

Scott Brown: Oh, I agree.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. It's a lot rawr or rawr. That's not even a word, but it is loud.

Scott Brown: You heard it here first.

Tom Rowland: It's it's they like it raw, and they like it kind of, you know, just a just a little more real.

Scott Brown: Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Like, I put a lot of time and effort into, like, editing and, like just because, like, I I enjoy that that portion of it. It's something new to me. You know? And I I love learning, like, new things, you know. It's it's not easy. And so that picking that up and, like, doing it, like, again, like, I'm putting a 110% into it, and then I put it on YouTube, and I'm just, like, man. And, like, to me, I'm just, like, yo, this is legit. I love it. I love watching it. You know? And then it's like, yeah. That's cool, dude. And all of a sudden, you have, like, Graton's video that was made on an iPhone. It, like, goes viral, and you're like, dude, that was that didn't take anything. Yeah. I know. Like, people love it. I'm like, I don't I don't understand it. You know?

Tom Rowland: But but a lot of it, I think, with a video that goes viral is somehow the angle has a lot to do with it. And a lot of times, that's unintentional, and that's just where you happen to be standing. And it just looks really cool coming across a phone screen that you didn't really expect, like, the ratio to get get a little bit smaller and how this is gonna look on a phone or how it's gonna look on a computer. And certain people, like the people that are really good at at YouTube, like BlacktipH and Deer Meat For Dinner and Fluke Master, a lot of people that I've had on this podcast, their success on YouTube is not accidental. Mhmm. But their repeated success on YouTube or their initial success could have been accidental. Their repeated success is definitely no accident. They have figured out exactly what their audience wants to see, and they keep giving it to them.

Scott Brown: Absolutely.

Tom Rowland: And in some cases, it's very little editing. Deer Meat For Dinner doesn't doesn't edit anywhere nearly as much as BlacktipH, but their views are similar because they both know their audience. Yeah. BlacktipH is really pushing the the the, the boundaries of of editing and trying to make a better, better, better, better, better promotion. Where Deer Meat For Dinner, like, Robert Arrington seems to be like, I know what my audience wants, and the most important thing I can do is give them another video, not spend more time making, you know, some super fancy thing.

Scott Brown: Mhmm.

Tom Rowland: And I'm sure he's tried it both ways. But I've I just find it kinda interesting that when you look at TV people that have done well on TV, it's no accident. They figure out a, like, a form formula. And when you figure out when you see it on YouTube, it's the same thing. It's no accident. But those people that did great on Vine when when Vine first started, that was no accident. They they did a couple that really went, and then they looked back at it. It's like, what was it about that video Mhmm. That really took off? And for for that video with Graton, it's like, there was a certain angle where he, like, cast under the bushes. And then it's like, that's where it would normally cut because he didn't catch a fish or because he got caught in the bushes or whatever, but it didn't. It sailed right under the bushes, and then there's the exactly what you thought was gonna happen. Like, wouldn't it be cool if this kid caught a fish right now? And he does. Like but it's, like, it's hard to put your finger on what it was about that. And I swear, a lot of it's the angle and how big he was in the frame and how little it made him look like a little kid. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's things that you can't quite put your finger on, but people that know YouTube Yeah. They're like, yeah. That one's gonna go.

Scott Brown: So that's the one thing that I have not taken the time to figure out. Hold on one second, dude. You got some socks on? Those are some pretty cool socks, dude. So, yeah. I

Lindsay Brown: You're fine.

Scott Brown: To be honest with you, like, on on this, like, honestly, man, I don't care if our YouTube channel ever goes anywhere. Yeah. You know, like, I I'm I'm doing it for Graton. And if I can influence one set of parents, that's good enough for me, man. Dude, I've I've done everything that I've ever wanted to do in my lifetime already. You know? And I kinda just want I see a problem in the outdoor community is, one, kids are not in the outdoors as much as they are. Well, maybe they are, but I I don't see it just in my group of friends, You know? And so if I can influence and affect just the person on my left and right, that's enough for me. You know? And it is actually our Instagram actually gets hit up quite a bit about, like, hey, man. I just wanna let you know you are molding our future on how we want to raise our kids.

Tom Rowland: Well, there you go.

Scott Brown: And I'm like, wow. That's that's pretty heavy. You know? Like, that's that's cool. Thank you. That's what I wanted to happen. You know? Like, I want to see more kids out there. We minimize the electronic devices with our kids. Of course, we're gonna introduce introduce that to them because that is a that is a a I don't know. What would you call it?

The Hooked On Family Mission and a Goodbye from Graton

Tom Rowland: I'd say that you're trying you're trying to minimize it, but you don't want your kid to be a social pariah. Like, What is that Exactly. What is that that you have in your hand? Great. Then you can get one that you can't get away. Like, we made that mistake with junk food on on one of my kids. Like, we didn't have any junk food in the house. Right? We just did that with So, I mean, we didn't have any in the house. And I'm like, no. We just don't buy it. And and then he goes over to the friend's house Mhmm. And he just dry cleans their their junk food closet. And and it's like they're getting he's getting sick. He's got a stomachache, and it's like, oh, well, that's what it is. And the same thing happened with video games. My oldest son, he wanted to play video games so bad, and then we were like, no. No. No. Only this much time a day, this much. And then by the time the younger one came around, he grew up with video games, and there was basically no restriction. And guess what? He never wanted to play them.

Scott Brown: Exactly.

Tom Rowland: He never wanted to play them. Yep. He didn't care. He still, to this day, he doesn't care about video games. I said he had it was never taken away from him, whereas the older one, there were all these restrictions exactly

Scott Brown: that. There's a balance to everything that we do. And there's moderation that we do to exercise,

Tom Rowland: you know. We're asking a lot out of these kids. You you guys, are doing really good. But I think it's almost time to go eat some Mexican food.

Scott Brown: I'm starving. I I don't know. I think I skipped lunch.

Tom Rowland: Right on. Yeah. So if you were to, blue sky it and see this time next year, what would you want to happen with with Hooked On Family? What would you say, and how can people help you to get there?

Scott Brown: I want to build a community of parents and future parents to get together and actually be part of the Hooked On family. You know? I wanna see more people bringing their kids into the outdoors and enjoy our natural resources because at the end of the day, they are the ones that are going to be, entrusted with the the continuation of hunting and fishing, if you think about it.

Tom Rowland: I love it. I don't think there'd be any better way than to end it right there, and the kids are ready to go eat Mexican food. Yeah. Let's eat. Alright. You guys did great.

Scott Brown: You really did.

Graton Brown: I'd say thanks.

Tom Rowland: That's an hour and six minutes.

Lindsay Brown: You wanna come say something?

Tom Rowland: But you were pretty quiet. Here. Can you tell everybody goodbye? Say something. You'll hear yourself. Can you say goodbye?

Graton Brown: Yes. Say bye. Bye.

Tom Rowland: Bye. We'll talk to you next time.

Graton Brown: I'll say it next time.

Tom Rowland: Okay. We'll do it. See you.

Graton Brown: Hey. I have have husband like this, but I have new ones. Yep. And, actually, I have green ones that don't have sneezes on it.

Tom Rowland: Uh-huh.

Graton Brown: They're actually for TVs, but this was another

Lindsay Brown: TV. No. Wear your headphones?

Graton Brown: Air game.

Lindsay Brown: On what? When we go on a what?

Graton Brown: A airplane.

Tom Rowland: On an airplane. Alright. Alright. Say bye to everybody.

Graton Brown: Bye.

Scott Brown: Bye.