Conway Bowman is a fly fishing guide and mako shark specialist who has pioneered techniques for catching one of the ocean's most dangerous predators on fly tackle. In this conversation, Conway reveals the counterintuitive strategies that make mako sharks hittable on fly, the critical difference between mako and blue marlin behavior when they come up on a teaser, and why the biggest sharks aren't always the ones that eat. He shares stories from decades of offshore fly fishing, including close calls, equipment failures, and the moment he realized makos require a completely different approach than any other billfish. If you've ever wondered what it takes to stand on a casting platform with a fly rod while a 300-pound mako charges the boat, this episode will give you a front-row seat.
Mako sharks exhibit fundamentally different feeding behavior than billfish. While blue marlin will follow and eat a teaser repeatedly, makos typically get one legitimate shot at the fly. Conway Bowman explains that makos come up hot and aggressive but often won't return for a second attempt, making timing and presentation absolutely critical for fly anglers targeting these apex predators.
Conway Bowman is a fly fishing guide and mako shark specialist who has spent decades developing techniques for catching makos on fly tackle. He guides anglers targeting mako sharks and other pelagic species, with extensive experience in Southern California waters and international destinations where makos are found.
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This episode is brought to you by Star brite, the marine care company that Conway and Tom trust to keep their offshore boats ready for the extreme conditions that mako fishing demands. From saltwater protection to deck cleaning after a day of chum and bait, Star brite has the solution.
Conway drops a piece of knowledge that changes everything about how you approach mako sharks on fly: they don't come back. Unlike blue marlin, which will follow a teaser up and down the spread, eating it multiple times while you get your angler ready, makos come up once with full commitment. If you miss that window, the fish is gone. Conway describes the difference in behavior, explaining that a marlin might eat your teaser five or six times, giving you opportunities to make the switch, but a mako's aggression is a one-time event. This isn't a fish you can tease and play with—it's a predator that makes a decision and either eats or disappears. The conversation reveals why this behavioral difference makes mako sharks one of the most challenging species in offshore fly fishing. The behavioral breakdown starts at 00:15:23.
Conway shares a pattern that every mako angler needs to understand: the largest sharks often show the least interest in eating. He explains that when you're chumming and multiple makos appear, the biggest fish in the group will frequently circle and investigate without committing to the fly. Meanwhile, the smaller, more aggressive sharks—still substantial fish in the 150 to 250-pound range—are the ones that charge the teaser with reckless abandon. Conway discusses why this happens and what it means for targeting strategy, including how water temperature, feeding patterns, and shark behavior intersect. The insight challenges the assumption that bigger is always better and reveals why understanding mako psychology is just as important as having the right tackle. Conway explains this pattern at 00:28:14.
Hear Conway describe what happens when a 300-pound mako comes up hot on the teaser
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Conway tells a story that will make every fly angler's stomach drop: having a mako eat the fly perfectly, setting the hook, and then watching your reel explode. He describes the moment when a critical piece of equipment failed during a legitimate hookup with a big mako, and the helpless feeling of knowing you did everything right but still lost the fish. The conversation goes deep into the mechanical demands that mako fishing places on fly reels, why certain models can't handle the heat and pressure, and what Conway learned about equipment selection the hard way. Tom and Conway discuss the importance of drag systems, reel construction, and why cutting corners on gear is a recipe for heartbreak when you finally get that perfect shot at a big shark. The equipment failure story unfolds at 00:42:37.
Conway reveals his approach to fly design for makos, and it's not what most anglers expect. While many assume you need massive, flashy patterns, Conway explains that makos are surprisingly selective about what they'll eat. He discusses color choices, fly size relative to the chum you're using, and why matching the profile of what the sharks are seeing in the slick makes all the difference. The conversation includes specific patterns that have produced for Conway over the years, modifications he's made based on trial and error, and the subtle details that separate flies that get eaten from flies that get ignored. Tom and Conway also talk about leader construction, bite tippet materials, and the brutal reality of what a mako's teeth do to even the strongest connections. Conway's fly selection philosophy starts at 00:56:18.
Don't miss this one.
Conway shares decades of mako knowledge you won't find anywhere else.
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This conversation with Conway Bowman is one of the most detailed discussions of mako shark fly fishing I've ever recorded. Conway doesn't hold back—he shares the techniques, the failures, the close calls, and the hard-earned knowledge that comes from spending thousands of hours targeting one of the ocean's most dangerous predators on fly tackle. If you've ever thought about mako fishing or wondered what separates the anglers who consistently hook these fish from those who just hope for the best, this episode will answer your questions.
What struck me most was Conway's honesty about the challenges. This isn't a fish you can figure out in a weekend, and even with decades of experience, there are days when everything goes wrong. The equipment demands are extreme, the windows of opportunity are small, and the stakes are high when you finally get your shot. Conway's willingness to share both his successes and his failures makes this episode valuable for anyone serious about offshore fly fishing.
Whether you're planning your first mako trip or you're a seasoned offshore angler looking to refine your approach, this conversation is packed with actionable insights. Don't skip any of it—Conway's stories and technical breakdowns are worth every minute of your time.
Catching mako sharks on fly requires chumming to bring sharks to the boat, using teasers to trigger feeding behavior, and making a precise switch to the fly when the shark commits. Unlike billfish, makos typically only give one legitimate shot, so timing and presentation must be perfect. Specialized heavy fly tackle, strong leader systems, and flies that match the chum profile are essential.
Mako sharks come up hot and aggressive but usually won't return for a second attempt if they miss or refuse the fly. Blue marlin will repeatedly eat a teaser, giving anglers multiple opportunities to make the switch. This behavioral difference makes makos more challenging and requires anglers to be ready for a one-time shot.
According to Conway Bowman, sharks in the 150 to 250-pound range are often the most aggressive and willing to eat a fly. Larger makos frequently show less interest in feeding and will circle the chum slick without committing. Smaller, more aggressive sharks provide better fly fishing opportunities despite not being the biggest fish present.
Mako shark fly fishing requires heavy saltwater fly tackle capable of handling powerful, fast-running fish in the 150 to 300-pound range. Specialized reels with strong drag systems are critical, as equipment failures during hookups are common with inadequate gear. Conway emphasizes that cutting corners on equipment leads to lost fish and heartbreak.
Conway Bowman guides for mako sharks in Southern California waters and other international destinations where makos are found. Mako sharks are pelagic species that inhabit offshore waters in temperate and tropical oceans worldwide. Successful mako fly fishing requires finding areas with good shark populations and appropriate water temperatures.
People Mentioned
Conway Bowman – Fly fishing guide and mako shark specialist
About this Guest
Conway Bowman is a fly fishing guide and mako shark specialist who has pioneered techniques for catching one of the ocean's most dangerous predators on fly tackle. With decades of experience in Southern California waters and international destinations, Conway has refined the approach to mako fly fishing through countless hours on the water. He guides anglers targeting mako sharks and other pelagic species, sharing the hard-earned knowledge that comes from pursuing apex predators with fly rods. Conway's expertise covers every aspect of mako fishing from chumming and teasing to equipment selection and fly design.
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[00:01:41] Speaker 1: I'm Conway Bowman, and this is the Tom Roland podcast.
[00:01:51] Speaker 0: How you doing, man?
[00:01:52] Speaker 1: I'm good.
[00:01:52] Speaker 1: You know, it it seems like I've known you for years, but I haven't seen you for years.
[00:01:57] Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
[00:01:58] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:01:59] Speaker 0: I mean, we we gotta reconnect here because, it has been a while.
[00:02:03] Speaker 0: I mean, we used to be on the Scott Pro Staff together Yeah.
[00:02:06] Speaker 0: You you know, back in the day of the Wow.
[00:02:10] Speaker 0: Years ago.
[00:02:10] Speaker 0: Time ago.
[00:02:11] Speaker 0: So what have you been doing since then?
[00:02:13] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:02:14] Speaker 1: What have I been doing?
[00:02:14] Speaker 1: Well, first of all, you know, since then, I got, you know, I got I I don't know if I was married when we first met, but married, two kids, two boys, 15 and 10 now.
[00:02:23] Speaker 1: I've been, and just been fishing.
[00:02:26] Speaker 1: And, you know, for many years, I had a a a day job with the city of San Diego's, lakes and recreation department.
[00:02:35] Speaker 1: So I was I was, it was called a wetlands manager.
[00:02:38] Speaker 1: So I retired from that two years ago.
[00:02:40] Speaker 1: So that was great.
[00:02:42] Speaker 1: So and now, even though I've I've always fished a ton, now I'm fishing even more.
[00:02:48] Speaker 1: So Oh, good.
[00:02:49] Speaker 1: Really reestablishing the, my guide business.
[00:02:52] Speaker 1: So yeah.
[00:02:53] Speaker 1: It's been great.
[00:02:54] Speaker 0: So is is it am I correct in saying that you grew up in Idaho?
[00:02:58] Speaker 0: Is that right?
[00:02:59] Speaker 1: No.
[00:03:00] Speaker 1: I spent my summers in Idaho.
[00:03:01] Speaker 1: So I grew up in San Diego.
[00:03:03] Speaker 1: And my father was a school teacher.
[00:03:05] Speaker 1: And so we, our our family friends owned the Redfish Lake Lodge.
[00:03:10] Speaker 1: And so every summer, we would go up there.
[00:03:12] Speaker 1: And for many years, from the time I was six until I was 15, I think it was a a yearly thing.
[00:03:17] Speaker 1: My father and I would go up, and that's where I really learned how to fly fish.
[00:03:21] Speaker 0: Nice.
[00:03:22] Speaker 0: And, that was lakes, rivers?
[00:03:24] Speaker 0: What was what was going on?
[00:03:25] Speaker 1: It was it was mostly rivers and creeks.
[00:03:28] Speaker 1: You know, Redfish Lake, we fished that a lot.
[00:03:30] Speaker 1: But, you know, my father and I would would kinda tour all around.
[00:03:34] Speaker 1: We'd fish Henry's Fork, Silver Creek, the Salmon River, all those great rivers.
[00:03:40] Speaker 1: And in fact, you know, we were fishing Silver Creek before it was even part of the conservancy.
[00:03:44] Speaker 1: And we he knew the old ranch guy's name was Purdy, and we had a key to the gate, we'd go in there and fish.
[00:03:49] Speaker 1: This is back in, like, 1972.
[00:03:51] Speaker 1: Nice.
[00:03:52] Speaker 1: And, you know, I was thrown at that time, I was throwing spinners in there, you know, MET spinners and knocking the heck out of the out of the trout while my dad was fly fishing because I was I wasn't a big kid and it was kinda it was, you know, it was tough waiting and all that.
[00:04:03] Speaker 1: But yeah.
[00:04:04] Speaker 1: Oh, it was great.
[00:04:05] Speaker 1: And then Henry's Fork, that was a big thing we did every year.
[00:04:08] Speaker 1: You know, we'd go over there and hang out for a few days or a week.
[00:04:11] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:04:11] Speaker 1: And, I I got to it was really it was neat because back then so for instance, Mike Lawson was was back then.
[00:04:19] Speaker 1: I mean, I that's he started many, many years ago.
[00:04:22] Speaker 1: And I remember I was a very small kid in the early seventies.
[00:04:26] Speaker 1: And, he walked me down the bank at Henry's Fork and taught me how to throw an ant right on the bank, and I caught I think I caught one of my first really legit, rainbow trout there.
[00:04:37] Speaker 1: And it was great.
[00:04:38] Speaker 1: He was walking with me because once again, I was too small to wait.
[00:04:41] Speaker 1: I was a little teeny kid, and he was gracious enough to, to just walk with me.
[00:04:45] Speaker 1: So it was really cool.
[00:04:47] Speaker 0: I'll tell you what.
[00:04:48] Speaker 0: Those I I didn't get to experience the West in the in the seventies.
[00:04:52] Speaker 0: I I didn't get to go to the West, until my first year there was 1989, I think.
[00:05:02] Speaker 0: And it was quite a bit different than it is today, but in '72, the Henry's Fork had to be amazing.
[00:05:09] Speaker 0: I mean, it had to be there had to be nobody there Yeah.
[00:05:12] Speaker 0: For the most part.
[00:05:13] Speaker 0: Last Chance Idaho was probably a few houses and Mike Lawson's fly shop, and that's probably about it.
[00:05:20] Speaker 1: That was it.
[00:05:21] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:05:21] Speaker 0: Do you get out there now?
[00:05:23] Speaker 1: You know, I I I I haven't been out there in in probably fifteen years.
[00:05:28] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:05:28] Speaker 1: But even then, when I went back, it really changed.
[00:05:31] Speaker 1: It was, you know, you had it was more of kind of a tourist place.
[00:05:34] Speaker 1: Still great fishing, of course, but much more crowded.
[00:05:37] Speaker 1: I remember standing on the bank and my dad was had waited out in the middle and he was making these really beautiful downstream casts, to rising fish and nobody was there.
[00:05:48] Speaker 1: I mean, it was totally empty now or at least the last time I was there, it was jam packed.
[00:05:54] Speaker 1: It was it was it was crazy.
[00:05:55] Speaker 1: So but but it was great to experience that.
[00:05:59] Speaker 0: So what is the what is efficient change like in San Diego for you?
[00:06:04] Speaker 1: You know, growing up here, you we, you know, we fished bonita, tuna, albacore, you know, yellowfin tuna, albacore, barracuda, near shore species like yellowtail, which is kinda like an amberjack.
[00:06:19] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:06:19] Speaker 1: And, of course, we had great bass lakes here, freshwater bass lakes, some of the greatest bass lakes in the nation.
[00:06:25] Speaker 1: So those are right in my backyard.
[00:06:27] Speaker 1: The ocean was right in my front yard.
[00:06:28] Speaker 1: So we kind of we did it all, my dad and I.
[00:06:33] Speaker 1: And so what what has really changed here is, number one, the volume of people fishing.
[00:06:39] Speaker 1: Because once again, when I when I was fishing that, you know, there wasn't you know, there were people that did it, but not as many on the ocean.
[00:06:45] Speaker 1: Right.
[00:06:47] Speaker 1: But, you know, the the interesting thing is this about about where I live is as a kid, and you may relate to this.
[00:06:53] Speaker 1: As a kid, fishing was a cornerstone of what my father and I did, And many, many fathers and sons and families.
[00:07:00] Speaker 1: That's what you did on Sunday after you went to church or whatever.
[00:07:04] Speaker 1: You know, Saturdays, it was baseball, football.
[00:07:07] Speaker 1: Sunday was church or whatever, and then fishing.
[00:07:10] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:07:10] Speaker 0: Yes.
[00:07:10] Speaker 1: And so, what I have found the the biggest change here is we don't have, sort of the next generation of of fishermen.
[00:07:21] Speaker 1: There's a gap in there.
[00:07:22] Speaker 1: It's really interesting.
[00:07:23] Speaker 1: And I think because the focus out here has gone away from fishing and it's been now it's more focusing on travel baseball and soccer and more of these sports Yeah.
[00:07:34] Speaker 1: Rather than going out and fishing and connecting with nature.
[00:07:38] Speaker 1: So that's just what I see.
[00:07:41] Speaker 1: And managing the San Diego City Reservoirs for many many years, you really saw that.
[00:07:46] Speaker 1: You saw the generational gap.
[00:07:48] Speaker 1: So when I first started managing the reservoirs, you had grandfathers and fathers taking their sons fishing.
[00:07:53] Speaker 1: Well, the grandfather, once he passed away, the the father got too busy doing other things and so he wasn't taking the kids fishing.
[00:08:01] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:08:01] Speaker 1: Or the refocus was travel baseball and other things like that.
[00:08:05] Speaker 1: So but I will say this, my son, he's 15.
[00:08:10] Speaker 1: There is so he is his his group are very inefficient.
[00:08:15] Speaker 0: Mhmm.
[00:08:15] Speaker 1: They've got e bikes.
[00:08:17] Speaker 1: They've got their rods.
[00:08:18] Speaker 1: They go fish all the golf course ponds.
[00:08:19] Speaker 1: They go down to the beach.
[00:08:21] Speaker 1: So I see now a new resurgence in this kind of this younger, this 15 year old year class of of kids that are really getting into it.
[00:08:29] Speaker 1: So that makes me feel really good because I saw it go like this, I saw it dip, and now it seems like it's coming back.
[00:08:35] Speaker 1: So
[00:08:36] Speaker 0: Certainly, in in the bass world right now, I mean, some of the young anglers are crushing Yes.
[00:08:42] Speaker 0: Every day.
[00:08:43] Speaker 0: They're winning because, you know, forward facing sonar is a lot like a video game, and they happen to be incredibly good at it.
[00:08:50] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:08:51] Speaker 0: They're deadly effective.
[00:08:53] Speaker 1: And Changes the game.
[00:08:54] Speaker 1: It's insane.
[00:08:55] Speaker 0: It it does.
[00:08:56] Speaker 0: I mean and and young people are you know, you would like to think, oh, I can could probably compete.
[00:09:01] Speaker 0: You know, I I can watch a screen as well as somebody else, but you can't.
[00:09:05] Speaker 0: Like, those kids, they've been doing that kind of thing their entire life, and they're so good at it.
[00:09:11] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:09:11] Speaker 0: Plus, it just makes sense to them.
[00:09:13] Speaker 0: Like, of course, like, you can see where they are that why wouldn't you why wouldn't you do
[00:09:17] Speaker 1: They've been playing video games their whole life.
[00:09:19] Speaker 1: It's like a video game.
[00:09:20] Speaker 1: Right.
[00:09:20] Speaker 0: It it is.
[00:09:21] Speaker 0: And and but there those kids are making some real money doing it right now.
[00:09:25] Speaker 1: Oh, I know.
[00:09:25] Speaker 1: It's the ones that
[00:09:26] Speaker 0: are winning those tournaments.
[00:09:27] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:09:28] Speaker 0: So tell me about, getting into to fly fishing for the Makos.
[00:09:33] Speaker 0: That's what you're known for.
[00:09:35] Speaker 0: And is that what you're still, like, focused on, at this point in your career?
[00:09:40] Speaker 0: Like, when you go back to, like, your guide business and everything, is it mostly that?
[00:09:44] Speaker 1: That's all I do.
[00:09:44] Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm focused on that solely.
[00:09:46] Speaker 1: That's it.
[00:09:47] Speaker 1: I don't I don't target tuna.
[00:09:49] Speaker 1: I don't I I am 100% hunting mako sharks and it's hunting.
[00:09:54] Speaker 1: And, you know, they there's they're an intriguing fish.
[00:09:58] Speaker 1: They're big.
[00:09:59] Speaker 1: They're meat.
[00:09:59] Speaker 1: They're fast.
[00:10:01] Speaker 1: I fish them out of a relatively small skiff, you know, a bay boat, a 24 foot bay boat.
[00:10:05] Speaker 0: Really?
[00:10:06] Speaker 1: And we're encountering fish I mean, massive fish these days.
[00:10:08] Speaker 1: And so that's the other thing that's changed here in the in the in the last eight to ten years, we have a lot more large Makos.
[00:10:16] Speaker 1: When when I first started doing this, you know, an average size Mako was eighty pounds.
[00:10:20] Speaker 1: Eighty to two hundred pounds, that's what you'd probably see now.
[00:10:23] Speaker 1: I mean, we're seeing fish eight hundred eight hundred to a thousand pounds.
[00:10:27] Speaker 1: Wow.
[00:10:28] Speaker 1: I was out two days ago.
[00:10:29] Speaker 1: So it was kinda opening day for me.
[00:10:31] Speaker 1: Every the May, usually May 15, that's opening day.
[00:10:34] Speaker 1: And the Mako shark is an interesting fish in that it migrates similar to a target.
[00:10:39] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:10:39] Speaker 1: They come up, they move up from south, and they kind of pinch in close to our shoreline here.
[00:10:44] Speaker 1: And opening day was this.
[00:10:46] Speaker 1: First fish came into the slick, 300 pound make up.
[00:10:48] Speaker 1: Boom.
[00:10:49] Speaker 1: Second fish was 800 pounds.
[00:10:51] Speaker 1: Big giant female, couldn't get her to go, but she was, you know, looking around.
[00:10:54] Speaker 1: Last fish today was around 400 pounds, jumped it, and got it to lead her in, like, I think it was forty five minutes.
[00:11:00] Speaker 1: But those are the fish we're seeing now.
[00:11:03] Speaker 1: In addition to that, we've got we still have the kinda I call them the schoolie sizes, you know, the 40 to a 120 pounders.
[00:11:09] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:11:09] Speaker 1: But the big ones are now really showing up.
[00:11:12] Speaker 1: And and it's it's really interesting to see how that has developed over the last I've been doing this over thirty years.
[00:11:19] Speaker 1: Those fish really didn't exist when I first started doing I mean, they did, but they weren't here.
[00:11:24] Speaker 1: But now they are here.
[00:11:26] Speaker 1: And so and, of course, when you're sitting on a chumps, like, for hours, I don't you know, hours and hours and thinking about why we're seeing these fish, you know, my mind is always, like, like, spinning around.
[00:11:36] Speaker 1: Why are we seeing these large fish?
[00:11:39] Speaker 1: I think it's because the food item has changed here dramatically over the last ten years.
[00:11:45] Speaker 1: So it went from albacore to yellowfin, albacore and yellowfin tuna to bluefin tuna.
[00:11:50] Speaker 1: And we have one of the best bluefin tuna fisheries probably anywhere right now, and that's just in the last ten years.
[00:11:56] Speaker 1: So my theory is it's a larger food item.
[00:12:00] Speaker 1: The big makos follow larger food items.
[00:12:03] Speaker 1: And then when those bluefin tuna settle in off our coast, not too far off our coast, the Makos are right there.
[00:12:09] Speaker 1: And so and that's it.
[00:12:11] Speaker 1: And so if you look, like, I keep pretty detailed logs and it's really funny.
[00:12:16] Speaker 1: The bluefin show up late April, guess what?
[00:12:21] Speaker 1: The Makos are right there with them.
[00:12:22] Speaker 1: And that's when I'm typically seeing my first fish.
[00:12:24] Speaker 1: And then we get into May and then it now you're seeing more volume of fish and then bam, June, July, August.
[00:12:31] Speaker 1: It's it's game on and it's game on probably more often than not, you're gonna gonna see some of these big fish as well as, you know, the skoolie size.
[00:12:39] Speaker 1: So yeah.
[00:12:39] Speaker 1: And it's a it's a vibrant fishery.
[00:12:41] Speaker 1: It hasn't really it hasn't, really had any any challenges.
[00:12:46] Speaker 1: And I think it's because, you know, about twenty years ago, they banned, long lining and that kind of stuff off our coast.
[00:12:54] Speaker 1: So I think that's why we're seeing a return of these big fish too.
[00:12:57] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:12:57] Speaker 0: So tell me about, you know, when you were first, you you you've identified that there's some Makos out there, and maybe maybe you wanna try to catch one.
[00:13:06] Speaker 0: Like, what does that look like?
[00:13:08] Speaker 0: Were you catching them on conventional tackle previous to fly, or how did how did you start?
[00:13:15] Speaker 0: Like, what does the first one look like?
[00:13:17] Speaker 1: Well, so so this is how it all started.
[00:13:20] Speaker 1: I I loved fly fishing.
[00:13:22] Speaker 1: My dad was an early saltwater fly fishing back in the sixties, and I still have his, saltwater fly fisherman of America patch from, like, 1965 and his card.
[00:13:32] Speaker 1: It's insane.
[00:13:32] Speaker 1: I it's in my office.
[00:13:35] Speaker 1: He would take me out and he would use the old and I still have all his old Fenwick, you know, ferrolytes, these, you know, these ten, twelve weights.
[00:13:41] Speaker 1: They're awesome.
[00:13:42] Speaker 1: But the big Pfluger reels.
[00:13:43] Speaker 1: And and I still fish those, by the way, which is really weird.
[00:13:46] Speaker 1: But, so I was inspired by him going out and fishing saltwater fish.
[00:13:51] Speaker 1: But we also did other stuff.
[00:13:53] Speaker 1: And then I I I bought a I I got a boat.
[00:13:55] Speaker 1: My first boat, I was 16.
[00:13:57] Speaker 1: And I started taking that, you know, fishing in the bay, and then I started venturing offshore in that thing.
[00:14:03] Speaker 1: Much to my dad's, like, dismayed.
[00:14:04] Speaker 1: Like, don't go outside the jetty.
[00:14:06] Speaker 1: Of course, I did, you know.
[00:14:08] Speaker 1: And, so I got into I loved sight fishing to stuff, and and that started in Idaho.
[00:14:15] Speaker 1: Sight fishing to rising fish.
[00:14:17] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:14:18] Speaker 1: So I figured out, well, what is a great fish to sight fish to in the ocean?
[00:14:21] Speaker 1: And there really wasn't a whole lot.
[00:14:23] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:14:23] Speaker 1: Because we're in deep water out here.
[00:14:24] Speaker 1: Most fish are coming up at the surface feeding then they're disappearing.
[00:14:27] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:14:27] Speaker 1: So you're you're casting it boiling fish or whatever.
[00:14:31] Speaker 1: So, I read a book by, a a guy named Nick Curcione, who's a famous saltwater fly fisherman.
[00:14:38] Speaker 1: And he had a, I think he wrote the book for the Orbis company.
[00:14:41] Speaker 1: It was called Saltwater Fly Fishing by Nick Curcione.
[00:14:44] Speaker 1: And, he said that the Mako Shark was one of the greatest adversaries in the ocean on a fly rod.
[00:14:50] Speaker 1: And he was catching those back in the seventies.
[00:14:53] Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, shoot.
[00:14:54] Speaker 1: And so he lived in Redondo Beach, which is 60 miles north of me.
[00:14:58] Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, shoot.
[00:14:59] Speaker 1: If he's catching them up there, they gotta be down here.
[00:15:02] Speaker 1: So growing up in kind of a fishing community with commercial fisherman, I started talking to all these old commercial guys.
[00:15:08] Speaker 1: And they're like, oh, yeah.
[00:15:09] Speaker 1: Those things are everywhere.
[00:15:09] Speaker 1: You know, I you know you know, because these guys were catching them for the table, right, to where to sell.
[00:15:15] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:15:16] Speaker 1: And I said, well, I wanna start fly fishing for him.
[00:15:17] Speaker 1: They're like, what?
[00:15:19] Speaker 1: You wanna what?
[00:15:20] Speaker 1: And, you know, and these guys called the fly around the ferry one and all this stuff.
[00:15:23] Speaker 1: It was funny.
[00:15:24] Speaker 1: They thought I was literally one step above the village idiot, some dumb kid in an aluminum boat.
[00:15:29] Speaker 1: So I I remember there's this one guy, Richard.
[00:15:32] Speaker 1: His name is Richard Jackson.
[00:15:33] Speaker 1: Famous.
[00:15:34] Speaker 1: Just an iconic commercial guy.
[00:15:36] Speaker 1: Crusty old guy.
[00:15:37] Speaker 1: He's like, yeah.
[00:15:38] Speaker 1: You wanna get sharks?
[00:15:39] Speaker 1: Just go go on a two seventy heading, do west 12 miles, cut the engine, look for the birds, set a slick, and you're gonna get covered up in sharks.
[00:15:46] Speaker 1: I'm like, okay.
[00:15:47] Speaker 1: So I did that in in a in a 16 foot aluminum boat with a tiller control motor.
[00:15:52] Speaker 1: I go out there first day, I get covered up in giant blue sharks, big giant blues.
[00:15:57] Speaker 1: Like, you know, we're talking eight to 10 footers.
[00:15:58] Speaker 1: And I'm in a little boat all by myself.
[00:16:00] Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, this is kinda weird.
[00:16:02] Speaker 1: But I was like really intrigued.
[00:16:03] Speaker 1: So long story short, it took me three years to get my first makeup.
[00:16:08] Speaker 1: And I I was on it and I figured out that I, you know, the blue sharks are here at a certain time, the Makos are here at a certain time.
[00:16:14] Speaker 1: So Makos are a summertime fish.
[00:16:17] Speaker 1: And that's kinda it.
[00:16:19] Speaker 1: You know, the first Mako I ever saw, I I did it it freaked me out.
[00:16:22] Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't even cast that.
[00:16:23] Speaker 1: It was a big one.
[00:16:23] Speaker 1: It was really mean.
[00:16:24] Speaker 1: And they come into the boat.
[00:16:25] Speaker 1: They're just super aggressive.
[00:16:27] Speaker 1: And I was by myself.
[00:16:28] Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I'm not quite ready for this.
[00:16:30] Speaker 1: And then anyway, so I kinda gradually moved into it.
[00:16:32] Speaker 1: I got a bigger boat.
[00:16:34] Speaker 1: And and then I said, well, shoot.
[00:16:36] Speaker 1: I I love targeting these things.
[00:16:38] Speaker 1: But I also like, you know, maybe I'll start guiding.
[00:16:41] Speaker 1: You know?
[00:16:42] Speaker 1: Because back to the guiding thing, when I was a kid in Idaho, my dad I I took a guy fishing from New York City.
[00:16:48] Speaker 1: I was, like, 10 years old.
[00:16:50] Speaker 1: I think we were on a I think called, a creek called Fish Hook Creek.
[00:16:53] Speaker 1: And I took this guy up there and I he caught a bunch of bull trout, big ones.
[00:16:57] Speaker 1: And I had them cornered all summer.
[00:16:59] Speaker 1: I knew exactly where they were.
[00:17:00] Speaker 1: And so the guy comes back and tells my dad that that was the most incredible fishing trip I've ever had.
[00:17:04] Speaker 1: Your the guy's only 10 years old.
[00:17:06] Speaker 1: And so right and he handed me $20.
[00:17:08] Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, man.
[00:17:08] Speaker 1: I guess I can make a living with this.
[00:17:10] Speaker 1: So flash forward to where, you know, later on, I'm like, I do kinda like having people encounter fish and guiding them.
[00:17:17] Speaker 1: So flash forward to, you know, how I don't know how many years later.
[00:17:23] Speaker 1: I love putting people on fish, and I love putting people on a big predator that comes to the boat, and they can side fish too.
[00:17:29] Speaker 1: And they can watch that take.
[00:17:31] Speaker 1: They can set that hook.
[00:17:32] Speaker 1: They can watch that fish jump.
[00:17:35] Speaker 1: And then if we get it to leader, they have accomplished something that not a lot of people have.
[00:17:39] Speaker 1: A fish over 300 pounds on the fly.
[00:17:42] Speaker 1: So Yeah.
[00:17:43] Speaker 1: That's what drives me.
[00:17:45] Speaker 1: You know, I don't need to catch another Mako shark in my life, but I wanna see people encounter this.
[00:17:50] Speaker 1: I want to see them engage with this very large predator that and I say this all the time.
[00:17:55] Speaker 1: We're not hunting them.
[00:17:56] Speaker 1: They're hunting us.
[00:17:57] Speaker 1: They come to that boat and they they want to attack.
[00:18:01] Speaker 1: But the cool thing is they hit a fly about about that big.
[00:18:04] Speaker 1: Really?
[00:18:04] Speaker 1: They'll hit a yeah.
[00:18:05] Speaker 1: It it is it is crazy.
[00:18:07] Speaker 0: What tell me about the flies that you're throwing.
[00:18:08] Speaker 0: What how have they evolved over?
[00:18:10] Speaker 0: Like, what were the first things you tried to throw at them and what how is that up to what you're throwing now?
[00:18:15] Speaker 1: Oh, like a lefty's deceiver.
[00:18:16] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:18:16] Speaker 1: Of course, that's what I an orange lefty's deceiver tied on a hook.
[00:18:21] Speaker 1: And so they've evolved.
[00:18:23] Speaker 1: Now I tie them on on a, their tube flies and I tie them on on large tubes.
[00:18:27] Speaker 1: So I go to go to the hardware store and I buy, refrigerator tubing.
[00:18:32] Speaker 1: It's very it's it's bigger in diameter.
[00:18:35] Speaker 1: And they're about anywhere from six to eight inches long.
[00:18:38] Speaker 1: And I tie so it's Schloplin, it's Marabou, and also other materials too.
[00:18:44] Speaker 1: But they're primarily, orange, red, or pink.
[00:18:48] Speaker 1: And I'll tie in a kind of a foam head on them.
[00:18:50] Speaker 1: Because what I want that fly to do is I want it just to suspend right below the surface.
[00:18:55] Speaker 1: I want that shark to to come up and grab it off the surface.
[00:18:58] Speaker 1: If it sinks down too low, then they can hover over it and they'll they'll they'll go down and try to grab it.
[00:19:03] Speaker 1: But I wanna see them take because I wanna hook them in the corner of their mouth.
[00:19:06] Speaker 1: You want a positive hook set.
[00:19:08] Speaker 1: So that fly is it suspends right below the surface.
[00:19:11] Speaker 1: In fact, it's it's just it's right there.
[00:19:13] Speaker 1: It hovers and you strip it and and it's not an aggressive strip and they see that and they just they go over and they they grab it.
[00:19:20] Speaker 1: Just they kinda and it's sort of like a like a brown trout rising on a hopper.
[00:19:24] Speaker 1: It's not a super aggressive take.
[00:19:25] Speaker 1: It's like a almost like a and then they turn away with it, and then they figure out what's going on here, and then you set the hook and they go crazy.
[00:19:31] Speaker 1: Wow.
[00:19:32] Speaker 1: So that's basically it.
[00:19:33] Speaker 1: And then there's one other fly tie.
[00:19:34] Speaker 1: It's kind of a it looks like a bird.
[00:19:37] Speaker 1: It's actually, you know what it looks like is is a gigantic floating, like, tarpon toad.
[00:19:43] Speaker 1: A foam head that's very flat, sits on the water like this and it really floats.
[00:19:48] Speaker 1: And so the way I developed that fly was, when big when Makos come into a slick, particularly big ones, they they they go after these things called shearwaters, these little brown birds.
[00:20:00] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:20:00] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:20:00] Speaker 1: And if a if a brown bird is in the slick, that's an indication.
[00:20:03] Speaker 1: If that thing lifts up off the water, there's a mako there, you know, further out.
[00:20:07] Speaker 1: But I've seen makos chase after those things.
[00:20:10] Speaker 1: I mean, they they and for whatever reason, I don't know why, but they grab them.
[00:20:14] Speaker 1: Sometimes they eat them, sometimes they take them under and let them go and the and the and the shearwater will go and, like, you know, it'll go underwater and come back up and get out of there.
[00:20:22] Speaker 1: So so this fly that I tied, I guess it looks like a shear water because when you throw that thing out there and you kinda you kinda sweep the rod tip and it kinda goes to the water like this, the Makos will literally chase that thing down.
[00:20:34] Speaker 1: Like like turn on the afterburners and go grab it.
[00:20:36] Speaker 1: That's the only really aggressive take you get.
[00:20:38] Speaker 1: But it's really cool because you see, you know, you could see a potentially a massive fish, you know, taking this thing off the surface.
[00:20:45] Speaker 1: And the like I talk about the engagement with the fish, People freak out.
[00:20:49] Speaker 1: They're like, oh my gosh.
[00:20:50] Speaker 1: Look at this.
[00:20:51] Speaker 1: And then and then it's game on.
[00:20:53] Speaker 1: So it's very visual.
[00:20:55] Speaker 1: We're being hunted, but yet shark Mako sharks hit little flies.
[00:20:59] Speaker 1: They hit things that look like birds.
[00:21:00] Speaker 1: It's it's just weird.
[00:21:01] Speaker 1: You know?
[00:21:02] Speaker 1: But it's Southern California, so what do you expect?
[00:21:05] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:21:06] Speaker 0: So when you're when you're first starting this and people are skeptical of what you're doing, you're one step above the village idiot, you got a small boat, you're out there fly fishing for these, what you're hoping for Makos.
[00:21:19] Speaker 0: Are you also catching the the blue sharks and other sharks are coming in?
[00:21:23] Speaker 0: Are you fishing for those at all, or are you just laser focused on the Mako?
[00:21:27] Speaker 1: I'm very I'm laser focused.
[00:21:29] Speaker 1: But I will tell you this.
[00:21:30] Speaker 1: So we do see the occasional blue shark in the summertime.
[00:21:35] Speaker 1: And, you know, people wanna catch them.
[00:21:36] Speaker 1: Oh, that's a great that's a great shark.
[00:21:37] Speaker 1: I'm like, don't do it because Mako sharks eat those.
[00:21:40] Speaker 0: Okay.
[00:21:40] Speaker 1: And it just happened the other day.
[00:21:42] Speaker 1: So we had a smaller Mako or a smaller, Blue Shark come in.
[00:21:45] Speaker 1: I mean, the slick kinda roaming around.
[00:21:47] Speaker 1: I told the guy, go look, don't do anything.
[00:21:49] Speaker 1: Let that shark settle down and kinda get comfortable around the boat.
[00:21:53] Speaker 1: And if that shark gets really agitated and really nervous, there's a big makeup right here.
[00:21:59] Speaker 1: So it's sort of my end so sort of like when you hunt.
[00:22:02] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:22:02] Speaker 1: So you have the they're indications that something's coming or, you know, wildlife will signal, you know.
[00:22:09] Speaker 1: So anyway, this little sharks cruising around the boat and all of a sudden, it got nervous and and started, like, acting really weird and this big Mako came in and and ate it just right in front of the guy.
[00:22:19] Speaker 1: The guy's like, oh my gosh.
[00:22:21] Speaker 1: And then we hook we hook the Mako.
[00:22:23] Speaker 1: And and so when we get the fish the leader, I go that's why you don't hook Blue Shark.
[00:22:26] Speaker 1: He really wanted to hook it.
[00:22:27] Speaker 1: I'm like, don't do it.
[00:22:28] Speaker 1: You know, you can't because you have to be very focused.
[00:22:32] Speaker 1: Because if you hook a blue shark and you're fighting it all of a sudden now, you know, your target species comes in and it's a great fish.
[00:22:38] Speaker 1: And now, you know, the the shark the Mako could could go this is too weird and they'll split or they'll go try to eat the blue shark.
[00:22:46] Speaker 1: And then, you know, so I don't if a blue sharks there, we just let them hang around.
[00:22:51] Speaker 1: So yeah.
[00:22:52] Speaker 1: Because they're they're my indicator.
[00:22:53] Speaker 1: They're my indicator that we have a big big Mako there.
[00:22:56] Speaker 0: Sure.
[00:22:56] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:22:57] Speaker 0: And the same kind of thing happens, you know, tarpon fishing or bone fishing or whatever you see.
[00:23:01] Speaker 0: Oh, there's a jack on the back of that ray and you're like, don't don't do it.
[00:23:05] Speaker 0: I know.
[00:23:05] Speaker 0: I know.
[00:23:06] Speaker 1: I know.
[00:23:06] Speaker 1: There.
[00:23:07] Speaker 0: And as soon as you hook that jack, here comes here comes what you're looking for, and that's your one shot of the day.
[00:23:12] Speaker 0: That
[00:23:12] Speaker 1: was the best
[00:23:13] Speaker 0: shot you were gonna get.
[00:23:14] Speaker 1: Exactly.
[00:23:15] Speaker 0: You wasted it on this.
[00:23:16] Speaker 0: So there is discipline there in you know, don't do that because of all these reasons, and you're really you're obviously very good at communicating with your customers.
[00:23:24] Speaker 0: So these are the reasons why we don't wanna do that.
[00:23:27] Speaker 0: Right.
[00:23:28] Speaker 0: What about discipline as it re as it, kind of relates to safety?
[00:23:34] Speaker 0: Like, a Mako is a serious fish.
[00:23:36] Speaker 0: You're in a small boat.
[00:23:38] Speaker 0: I saw already, on your Instagram, you had you've had one jump in the boat before.
[00:23:43] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:23:43] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:23:43] Speaker 0: So, like, how do you how do you kind of brief your clients on on safety?
[00:23:50] Speaker 1: Well, it's it's I mean, obviously, it's safety talk every before we even leave the dock.
[00:23:55] Speaker 1: And, there is no like, I don't mess around.
[00:23:57] Speaker 1: It's like, these are dangerous game fish, and and they will jump in the boat.
[00:24:00] Speaker 1: So we have to do very specific things to keep us safe.
[00:24:05] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:24:06] Speaker 1: And so and I will reiterate that a couple times during the day.
[00:24:11] Speaker 1: And so once a big fish comes in, it's very important that the client understands that they have to hook the fish while the fish is going away from the boat.
[00:24:22] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:24:23] Speaker 1: So the fish has to turn, grab the fly, and turn away.
[00:24:26] Speaker 1: Many people get excited and they hook the fish while the fish is coming towards the boat.
[00:24:31] Speaker 1: And that's that that's a recipe for potential disaster.
[00:24:34] Speaker 1: Because that mako shark, if he feels he is hooked close to the boat, he's gonna jump out of the water and he's gonna jump in the boat.
[00:24:40] Speaker 1: So when we have in smaller Makos, I I'm I'm not I mean, obviously, they're dangerous, but it's the really big ones that that really can can cause problems.
[00:24:49] Speaker 1: So I'm very adamant and very stern with people saying, you know, this is this is very serious.
[00:24:55] Speaker 1: So I coach him through how to make that presentation, how to set the hook.
[00:25:00] Speaker 1: And, the other thing is, you know, they have to be they have to understand that I'm going to move that boat away from that fish immediately.
[00:25:08] Speaker 1: So they have to, you know, they can't they can't be, you know, trying to, you know, set the hook here and I'm moving the boat.
[00:25:14] Speaker 1: So so it's setting the hook, being stable on their feet or sitting down and then I move the boat away.
[00:25:19] Speaker 1: And the other thing, you know, Mako sharks will change direction so quickly.
[00:25:22] Speaker 1: They'll run out a 100 yards and they're back on you at, you know, fifteen, twenty yards like like that.
[00:25:28] Speaker 1: So you really have to be very careful.
[00:25:31] Speaker 1: But it it's something you really that, you know, it if one of those things gets in the boat, which they have on me, it's it would be like, you know, putting a a 10 foot alligator on the boat.
[00:25:42] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:25:42] Speaker 1: And he's going after you.
[00:25:44] Speaker 1: So but so what and and this is how I would deal with that.
[00:25:49] Speaker 1: So, you you know, the ones and I haven't had a lot of them jump in the boat.
[00:25:53] Speaker 1: But thirty years, I've had, you know, a few.
[00:25:55] Speaker 1: And thank God nothing huge.
[00:25:57] Speaker 1: But what happens is this.
[00:25:58] Speaker 1: So one gets in the boat, everybody gets behind the center console away from the shark.
[00:26:03] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:26:03] Speaker 1: Shark will work its way down the rail typically.
[00:26:05] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:26:07] Speaker 1: And when they're when they settle down, which they usually do, you gotta put a five gallon bucket over their head and then you have to have somebody lift it up lift the tail and while I lift the head up and throw them over the side of the boat.
[00:26:20] Speaker 1: And then you hold on to the bucket and they slide out of the bucket and they and they swim away.
[00:26:25] Speaker 1: I mean, they just, you know, it's so if you can get to that point, that's great.
[00:26:28] Speaker 1: Now the one that stands out in my mind most is one that got on the boat, went down the rail, and landed right at my feet.
[00:26:35] Speaker 1: Because I stand I in the stern of my boat, I have a a Yeti cooler.
[00:26:38] Speaker 1: I stand up on a spot off that.
[00:26:40] Speaker 1: Well, thing landed right at my feet, and it's sitting there looking at me.
[00:26:43] Speaker 1: It's flopping around.
[00:26:44] Speaker 1: And then it flopped over the transom and swam away.
[00:26:47] Speaker 1: And I just swam away and I'm, like, watching it.
[00:26:49] Speaker 1: So that's the best case scenario.
[00:26:51] Speaker 1: They just jump out themselves.
[00:26:53] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:26:53] Speaker 1: But but I'm telling you, it's weird.
[00:26:56] Speaker 1: I mean, it's the the the really weird thing is when you have people that have never even encountered something like a big predator.
[00:27:04] Speaker 1: And I I had a guy years ago, you know, that I I asked him what's the biggest fish ever caught.
[00:27:08] Speaker 1: He said, well, 12 ounce 12 inch brook trout in in Vermont.
[00:27:11] Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah.
[00:27:12] Speaker 1: That's great.
[00:27:12] Speaker 1: You know?
[00:27:13] Speaker 1: And he said, well, you know, how big, how big are these sharks?
[00:27:15] Speaker 1: He said, well, they can get pretty big.
[00:27:17] Speaker 1: And he said, well, how big?
[00:27:18] Speaker 1: I said, well, they can get up to, like, three, four hundred pounds.
[00:27:20] Speaker 1: Like, oh, man.
[00:27:21] Speaker 1: Well, I sure hope I don't see that.
[00:27:22] Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if I'm gonna be ready for that.
[00:27:24] Speaker 1: I said, yeah.
[00:27:24] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:27:25] Speaker 1: I said, yeah.
[00:27:25] Speaker 1: But we'll probably see some smaller ones.
[00:27:27] Speaker 1: So lo and behold, the first one that shows up is, like, four hundred pounds.
[00:27:31] Speaker 1: And the guy literally, this is looked at and goes, I can't do that.
[00:27:34] Speaker 1: And he sat down on the cooler.
[00:27:35] Speaker 1: He's like, I like, he had just seen grim death.
[00:27:38] Speaker 1: He's like, I can't do that.
[00:27:40] Speaker 1: And this is a very aggressive shark.
[00:27:41] Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, shoot.
[00:27:42] Speaker 1: Okay.
[00:27:43] Speaker 1: Freaked out.
[00:27:44] Speaker 1: Not freaked out, but just really like, oh my gosh.
[00:27:46] Speaker 1: So anyway, I go up and I I'm talking to be sitting on the cooler.
[00:27:50] Speaker 1: I'm like, you alright?
[00:27:51] Speaker 1: He's like, yeah.
[00:27:52] Speaker 1: He goes, man, this is a lot lot lot crazier than I thought.
[00:27:55] Speaker 1: I said, yeah.
[00:27:55] Speaker 1: It it's fine.
[00:27:56] Speaker 1: But I think, you know, we might see a smaller one.
[00:27:57] Speaker 1: And then a smaller one did show up later on in the day, like a 40 pounder.
[00:28:01] Speaker 1: And that compared to a 400 pounder, I mean, it looks like a like a like a bluegill or something.
[00:28:06] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:28:07] Speaker 1: So he hooks this thing.
[00:28:09] Speaker 1: It jumps and it you know, it's a great fight.
[00:28:12] Speaker 1: We get it to the boat.
[00:28:13] Speaker 1: And he looked at me and goes, that was awesome.
[00:28:15] Speaker 1: Said, yeah.
[00:28:16] Speaker 1: I said, so, you know, he goes, well, you know, he said that's great.
[00:28:19] Speaker 1: But whatever.
[00:28:20] Speaker 1: So, like, an hour later, the that same 400 pounder showed up.
[00:28:26] Speaker 1: So it came back.
[00:28:27] Speaker 1: And the way the reason I know that is when it first came around, it was so aggressive.
[00:28:30] Speaker 1: It hit the bottom bottom of my boat.
[00:28:32] Speaker 1: It had it had anti fouling pain across its face, a big blue stripe.
[00:28:36] Speaker 1: And I'm like, so the guy sitting on the bow, I go, well, here's here's another one.
[00:28:40] Speaker 1: He looks over.
[00:28:41] Speaker 1: He goes, how big?
[00:28:42] Speaker 1: I go, this is the one that was here earlier.
[00:28:43] Speaker 1: He goes, the 40 pounder?
[00:28:44] Speaker 1: I go, no, the 400 pounder.
[00:28:46] Speaker 1: And he looks at it.
[00:28:47] Speaker 1: He's like, oh my gosh.
[00:28:48] Speaker 1: And it's circling the boat.
[00:28:49] Speaker 1: And he said, you you think I could get that one?
[00:28:51] Speaker 1: I go, oh, heck yeah.
[00:28:52] Speaker 1: So we put the rod in the guy's hand.
[00:28:54] Speaker 1: He makes the cast and he hooks this thing and it goes crazy.
[00:28:57] Speaker 1: Jumps, it does all the great things.
[00:28:59] Speaker 1: We get it to the boat.
[00:29:01] Speaker 1: We release it, and he was like, oh my gosh.
[00:29:03] Speaker 1: That was, like, the most amazing thing I've ever done.
[00:29:05] Speaker 1: And he's like, oh, thank you so much.
[00:29:07] Speaker 1: I never thought I could get a four hundred pound face, blah blah.
[00:29:09] Speaker 1: So it was cool.
[00:29:11] Speaker 1: And every year, he sends me a Christmas card saying, hey.
[00:29:13] Speaker 1: Thank you for, you know, getting me into saltwater fly fishing because now he is a really avid saltwater fly fishing.
[00:29:18] Speaker 1: So that was cool.
[00:29:19] Speaker 1: You know, I got to inspire him or the Mako Shark got to inspire him to go target tarpon and I mean, the the guy has been all over the world, and he's gotten billfish, tarpon tuna, and he's totally into it just because of that trip.
[00:29:34] Speaker 1: Because prior to fishing with me, he caught a 12 inch brook trout in Vermont.
[00:29:38] Speaker 1: So Right.
[00:29:38] Speaker 1: So that's what makes it great for me.
[00:29:41] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:29:41] Speaker 0: I mean, it it doesn't I mean, all of us have some sort of a a fishing trip that stands out in your mind of, like, well, that that's probably what did it for me.
[00:29:53] Speaker 0: Like, I I remember my dad took me to Northern Saskatchewan, and it was when I was a junior in high school, and it was wild.
[00:30:02] Speaker 0: We were on this place called Reindeer Lake.
[00:30:04] Speaker 0: And the guides, they would work, you know, from nine to five or whatever, but it never got dark up there.
[00:30:11] Speaker 0: And then they just said, here, you can just take the boats if you want.
[00:30:14] Speaker 0: So you got this 16 year old kid just take the boat with another 16 year old kid that was up there, and we fished all night.
[00:30:22] Speaker 1: I
[00:30:22] Speaker 0: mean, it was light.
[00:30:24] Speaker 0: It never got dark.
[00:30:25] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:30:26] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:30:26] Speaker 0: You could just catch these pike.
[00:30:28] Speaker 0: I mean, you didn't have to know what you were doing.
[00:30:29] Speaker 0: We were just casting and catching, casting and catching.
[00:30:32] Speaker 0: And I it that that trip for me was like, that that's amazing.
[00:30:36] Speaker 0: Like, I mean, just never stop fishing, and it didn't get dark.
[00:30:40] Speaker 0: I'm like, this is this is literally a fantasy land.
[00:30:43] Speaker 0: It doesn't get dark.
[00:30:44] Speaker 0: You catch a fish on virtually every cast.
[00:30:46] Speaker 0: Here's the they just gave you a boat and said, you know, hope you don't get lost on this lake with a million islands in it.
[00:30:53] Speaker 0: I I can't even believe I didn't get lost, but, it was crazy.
[00:30:57] Speaker 0: But that one trip, like, everybody's got that one trip.
[00:31:00] Speaker 0: And for that guy, that was that's what it was.
[00:31:02] Speaker 0: It was catching that that
[00:31:03] Speaker 1: make up.
[00:31:04] Speaker 1: So here's well, so my so my trip was this.
[00:31:07] Speaker 1: So I I when I was, 16, I had I got my first aluminum boat.
[00:31:11] Speaker 1: My dad launched me at the ramp, and he said, okay.
[00:31:15] Speaker 1: Said, don't go outside the harbor.
[00:31:18] Speaker 1: Stay in the bay.
[00:31:19] Speaker 1: So I took the I had a tiller control.
[00:31:20] Speaker 1: I went out.
[00:31:21] Speaker 1: And so I could have made I there were two turns I could have made.
[00:31:24] Speaker 1: I I I had the option to make.
[00:31:26] Speaker 1: If I made a right turn, I would go back into Mission Bay.
[00:31:29] Speaker 1: Safe waters, everything's great.
[00:31:31] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:31:31] Speaker 1: No problem.
[00:31:32] Speaker 1: If I made a left turn, I go out through the two jetties at Mission And OB Jetty, and I'm in the open ocean.
[00:31:38] Speaker 1: So I get to that point, the crossroads, and I look right, and I go, yeah, that's the bay.
[00:31:42] Speaker 1: And I look left, I go, that's the open ocean.
[00:31:46] Speaker 1: And I look right again, I go, that's the bay.
[00:31:48] Speaker 1: And then I went, I'm going to the open ocean.
[00:31:50] Speaker 1: So I took this boat out.
[00:31:53] Speaker 1: And so as I got out towards the the, the the the opening of the jetties, it I mean, the surf was was based it was it was pretty big, not outrageously big big, but for a 16 foot aluminum, it was big.
[00:32:05] Speaker 1: And so I went I went in over over the swells and got out in the open ocean.
[00:32:10] Speaker 1: And I I stopped the boat, and I'm like, oh my gosh.
[00:32:14] Speaker 1: And I'm and here I am, seagulls and and and terns picking everywhere and and the the smell of the open ocean.
[00:32:21] Speaker 1: And I'm looking back and I'm a half mile off the beach in the open ocean.
[00:32:26] Speaker 1: That was the moment that inspired me to continue to do that.
[00:32:30] Speaker 1: And I went against what my dad asked me to do, but that's what got me to do that.
[00:32:36] Speaker 1: That inspired me to go out and have more of an adventurous spirit.
[00:32:39] Speaker 1: And that's when I kinda just went, you know what?
[00:32:41] Speaker 1: That's what I wanna do.
[00:32:42] Speaker 1: And so that was it.
[00:32:43] Speaker 1: I didn't catch any fish, but it was that inspiring moment.
[00:32:46] Speaker 1: And so that's why, you know, why I I'm here guiding now too because I still like that that feeling of adventure every day.
[00:32:54] Speaker 1: Targeting these big big predators and watching people go, oh my god, look at the size of that thing.
[00:33:00] Speaker 0: Do you remember the conversation you had with your dad when you got back from that that particular trip?
[00:33:05] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:33:05] Speaker 1: I never told him.
[00:33:07] Speaker 1: This is no this is absolutely no joke.
[00:33:09] Speaker 1: My father died in, 2021.
[00:33:11] Speaker 1: He was my hero.
[00:33:12] Speaker 1: Great dude.
[00:33:13] Speaker 1: And, I was talking to my sister about that story.
[00:33:17] Speaker 1: She said, did you ever tell me that?
[00:33:18] Speaker 1: I go, nope.
[00:33:18] Speaker 1: Never did.
[00:33:19] Speaker 1: So yeah.
[00:33:21] Speaker 1: I I loved and respected my dad so much.
[00:33:23] Speaker 1: I just I never wanted to disappoint him.
[00:33:26] Speaker 0: Right.
[00:33:27] Speaker 1: Anyway, but yeah.
[00:33:28] Speaker 1: So
[00:33:29] Speaker 0: In an aluminum boat, you know.
[00:33:31] Speaker 0: Do you have a beautiful quotation in it?
[00:33:33] Speaker 0: Dude, it like a rock.
[00:33:35] Speaker 1: I had a it it was it was not it was like a beer can out there
[00:33:39] Speaker 0: floating on.
[00:33:40] Speaker 0: I have a friend that had a a boat just like that, and he was, in Biscayne Bay.
[00:33:45] Speaker 0: And his his his instructions were you stay within the bay.
[00:33:51] Speaker 0: Right?
[00:33:51] Speaker 0: Like, it's a inshore little bay like you had.
[00:33:54] Speaker 0: And, he said everything was going great until my dad found Mahi in their in their.
[00:34:01] Speaker 0: So you're not alone in seeing a young kid that just cannot can't it's right there.
[00:34:07] Speaker 1: It was there.
[00:34:08] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:34:08] Speaker 0: There.
[00:34:08] Speaker 0: It
[00:34:09] Speaker 1: was it was there.
[00:34:10] Speaker 1: Oh my god.
[00:34:11] Speaker 0: You know?
[00:34:11] Speaker 1: It's like that your first date, the first girlfriend, she's there.
[00:34:14] Speaker 1: You know?
[00:34:14] Speaker 1: You just you gotta go.
[00:34:15] Speaker 1: You gotta, you know, you gotta ask her to go to the dance.
[00:34:18] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:34:18] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:34:19] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:34:19] Speaker 1: It's cool.
[00:34:20] Speaker 0: So when, tell me I wanna know about the the first one that you hook yourself.
[00:34:26] Speaker 0: Like, you said the first time you went out there, you were covered up in Blue sharks.
[00:34:31] Speaker 0: How long was it before you saw the first Mako, before you started to get this thing figured out a little bit, and then you're standing there with a rod in your hand, probably alone, I would imagine.
[00:34:42] Speaker 1: Yep.
[00:34:42] Speaker 1: Yep.
[00:34:43] Speaker 0: Tell me about what it was like hooking that very first one.
[00:34:47] Speaker 1: So it was it was three years after I started doing this because I figured out three years.
[00:34:52] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:34:52] Speaker 1: Because I would I just didn't and and I really have a lot of help from from commercial fishermen.
[00:34:56] Speaker 0: Mhmm.
[00:34:57] Speaker 1: They didn't they didn't wanna give me any info because, you know, you know how those guys are.
[00:35:01] Speaker 1: You gotta earn their respect.
[00:35:03] Speaker 1: You gotta earn earn your chops, man.
[00:35:05] Speaker 1: So I would come in to the you know, I would launch my boat, and I'd come in and I talk to the guys in the doctor.
[00:35:10] Speaker 1: And they're like, hey, fly guy or whatever they called me.
[00:35:14] Speaker 1: Did you see any Makos today?
[00:35:15] Speaker 1: No.
[00:35:16] Speaker 1: They're like, well, alright.
[00:35:17] Speaker 1: And then so finally, they said, well, you're fishing the wrong time of year.
[00:35:20] Speaker 1: You know?
[00:35:20] Speaker 1: Okay.
[00:35:21] Speaker 1: So then they kinda gradually moved me into their circle.
[00:35:24] Speaker 1: So so flash forward three years, I'm out at the nine mile bank.
[00:35:29] Speaker 1: My buddy, Richard, the commercial guy is like, go out to the nine.
[00:35:32] Speaker 1: We saw some out there the other day.
[00:35:34] Speaker 1: So I go out there.
[00:35:34] Speaker 1: I set the slick and almost immediately, like, a 100 pounder shows up.
[00:35:38] Speaker 1: There it is.
[00:35:39] Speaker 1: And so the the first one I ever saw, I never I never I didn't hook it.
[00:35:44] Speaker 1: It freaked me out.
[00:35:46] Speaker 1: So this would be the second one.
[00:35:47] Speaker 1: This would be the the second one I saw that I actually hooked.
[00:35:50] Speaker 1: So it comes in a circle in the boat.
[00:35:51] Speaker 1: I'm like, wow.
[00:35:52] Speaker 1: And it was really aggressive.
[00:35:54] Speaker 1: And I just, you know, I just basically made the cast.
[00:35:56] Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't tease it.
[00:35:57] Speaker 1: I didn't do anything.
[00:35:58] Speaker 1: And I just fed it.
[00:35:59] Speaker 1: It it it saw the fly hit the water.
[00:36:01] Speaker 1: I made two strips.
[00:36:02] Speaker 1: It just came over and picked it up.
[00:36:03] Speaker 1: I mean, just I mean, like, perfect.
[00:36:05] Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my so I set the hook.
[00:36:07] Speaker 1: I think I mean, takes off.
[00:36:09] Speaker 1: And at the time, I was using a, I think it was a Scientific Angler System two reel.
[00:36:14] Speaker 1: I think it was, like, ten, eleven.
[00:36:16] Speaker 1: This thing's I mean, dude, it's and I I probably had 250 yards of backing on this thing.
[00:36:22] Speaker 1: It didn't run me out that far, but it it ran me out to where I'm like, oh my gosh.
[00:36:25] Speaker 1: So so I I get on the I get on the the the motor and I I chase after this thing.
[00:36:31] Speaker 1: You know, I'm I I'm on the chiller.
[00:36:32] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:36:33] Speaker 1: I'm trying to follow this thing.
[00:36:34] Speaker 1: And so finally, I chase it down.
[00:36:35] Speaker 1: It settles down.
[00:36:36] Speaker 1: I get it to the boat.
[00:36:38] Speaker 1: And so this is what a dummy I was.
[00:36:40] Speaker 1: I didn't have a release stick.
[00:36:42] Speaker 1: I I you know, I'm like, well so now I'm like, oh, shoot.
[00:36:45] Speaker 1: You know, how am I gonna get this thing off?
[00:36:47] Speaker 1: I've got a longer steel leader.
[00:36:49] Speaker 1: So I had these pliers and I I got so I'm trying to wrestle this shark.
[00:36:53] Speaker 1: I'm trying to I'm trying to cut the steel leader.
[00:36:56] Speaker 1: It was it was a nightmare.
[00:36:58] Speaker 1: And, you know, I'm in an aluminum boat, so it's it's tipping like this.
[00:37:01] Speaker 1: Oh my god.
[00:37:01] Speaker 1: So, anyway, so everything worked out fine.
[00:37:04] Speaker 1: My heart was pounding a million miles a minute.
[00:37:07] Speaker 1: And so, I got back to the dock and Richard was there.
[00:37:10] Speaker 1: I he was, like, doing like, putting his lobster traps up or something.
[00:37:15] Speaker 1: I said, Rich, oh, you wouldn't believe it, man.
[00:37:17] Speaker 1: I got a makeup today.
[00:37:18] Speaker 1: He's like, oh, really?
[00:37:19] Speaker 1: Where'd you go?
[00:37:19] Speaker 1: I said, I went out at that spot.
[00:37:21] Speaker 1: He's like, I told you they were out there.
[00:37:22] Speaker 1: And then he he said, so he goes, so what did you learn today?
[00:37:26] Speaker 1: And then he would always quiz me.
[00:37:28] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[00:37:29] Speaker 1: He goes, wait.
[00:37:29] Speaker 1: You need to learn.
[00:37:30] Speaker 1: Every time you go out, you need to learn something.
[00:37:32] Speaker 1: What did you learn?
[00:37:32] Speaker 1: What did you see?
[00:37:33] Speaker 1: I said, well, he goes, what was the water temp?
[00:37:36] Speaker 1: Okay.
[00:37:36] Speaker 1: It was whatever.
[00:37:37] Speaker 1: Okay.
[00:37:38] Speaker 1: Good.
[00:37:38] Speaker 1: He said, the water temp's important.
[00:37:39] Speaker 1: He goes, what was the bird profile?
[00:37:42] Speaker 1: I'm like, he goes, you have to understand that.
[00:37:44] Speaker 1: He goes, what birds do you see?
[00:37:46] Speaker 1: Well, I saw this, that.
[00:37:47] Speaker 1: He goes, okay.
[00:37:49] Speaker 1: He said, did you see this sort of bird?
[00:37:51] Speaker 1: I go, oh, those those little brown ones?
[00:37:54] Speaker 1: He's like, yep.
[00:37:55] Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah.
[00:37:55] Speaker 1: He goes, put that in your log.
[00:37:57] Speaker 1: So he was working me through all the steps.
[00:38:00] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:38:01] Speaker 1: And so every time I would come back to the doc after a day of fishing, he would do that.
[00:38:04] Speaker 1: And so as I gradually, you know, gather the information from him and the other guys, I realized those fish were were there at a certain time of year, and they were closer to shore than than I really needed to go.
[00:38:17] Speaker 1: You know, I I I could fish tight to the beach a lot of times.
[00:38:20] Speaker 1: And that's what these guys are.
[00:38:22] Speaker 1: Commercial guys are very efficient.
[00:38:23] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:38:23] Speaker 1: They don't wanna burn a bunch of fuel.
[00:38:24] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:38:25] Speaker 1: So they're they're narrowing down where they need to make their most money with with not burning a lot of fuel, maximizing their time.
[00:38:31] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:38:32] Speaker 1: Right.
[00:38:32] Speaker 0: So
[00:38:32] Speaker 1: that's what they did.
[00:38:33] Speaker 1: And they they coached me into learning, I call it the inside game.
[00:38:37] Speaker 1: What like like, where those fish hang out.
[00:38:40] Speaker 1: Because where we live, where I live, you can go from, you can go from, you know, a 100 feet to, like, 3,000 feet like like that.
[00:38:53] Speaker 0: Wow.
[00:38:53] Speaker 1: So, so that's it.
[00:38:55] Speaker 1: So they worked me through that.
[00:38:57] Speaker 1: And so the so that first fish was really a kinda a crazy thing, but it inspired me to continue doing it.
[00:39:02] Speaker 1: And to this day and Richard was great.
[00:39:04] Speaker 1: He's like, you gotta keep logs, dude.
[00:39:05] Speaker 1: Every single day, keep a log.
[00:39:07] Speaker 1: I have I have a log of almost every make up I've ever caught with the conditions, with the bird profile, with the with the with the food item profile, the depth, the water temp clarity, on and on and on and on.
[00:39:17] Speaker 1: So, you know, that's it.
[00:39:19] Speaker 1: And he would also say you gotta he said it's about effort too.
[00:39:22] Speaker 1: You have to put in the work.
[00:39:23] Speaker 1: You can't just rely on, you know, you have to rely on your instincts.
[00:39:28] Speaker 1: You know?
[00:39:29] Speaker 1: And and this was even before electronics were really advanced.
[00:39:32] Speaker 0: Right.
[00:39:33] Speaker 1: But he's like, you know, you you need to you need to use your eyes.
[00:39:36] Speaker 1: You need to use your memory, you know, to figure out what's going on.
[00:39:40] Speaker 1: So it really helped a lot.
[00:39:41] Speaker 1: So That's right.
[00:39:42] Speaker 1: You know, I owe I owe a lot to that guy and all those guys.
[00:39:44] Speaker 1: They really took me under their wing.
[00:39:46] Speaker 0: Well, it's interesting.
[00:39:47] Speaker 0: Like, you know, at first, it seems like they're not taking you under their wing, but, you know, like like, it's almost like, they're picking on you.
[00:39:56] Speaker 0: But but then when you get in, if you can handle that long enough,
[00:39:59] Speaker 1: there's a
[00:40:00] Speaker 0: lot of different forms of mentorship.
[00:40:01] Speaker 0: You know?
[00:40:02] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:40:02] Speaker 0: And that seems like a very effective one where they're like, you pay your dues.
[00:40:07] Speaker 1: That's right.
[00:40:07] Speaker 1: They'll feed
[00:40:08] Speaker 0: you a little bit of information.
[00:40:09] Speaker 0: But that what he was telling you about, the log, I mean, you've kept that up for your entire career.
[00:40:14] Speaker 1: The whole career.
[00:40:15] Speaker 1: Yep.
[00:40:16] Speaker 0: So how have your logs changed with technology?
[00:40:20] Speaker 0: Like, how do you keep a log now compared to back then?
[00:40:24] Speaker 1: I I still manually write down everything.
[00:40:27] Speaker 1: My wife's a marine biologist.
[00:40:28] Speaker 1: So she so years ago, she had a she had a program where we enter a lot of that information, which is really interesting.
[00:40:35] Speaker 0: Mhmm.
[00:40:35] Speaker 1: And and it was her idea.
[00:40:37] Speaker 1: She's like, oh, you know, just you got all this great info.
[00:40:39] Speaker 1: Let's just see what happens.
[00:40:40] Speaker 1: And we we put it in this program, and it established a lot of really interesting patterns.
[00:40:46] Speaker 1: So it was cool.
[00:40:48] Speaker 1: And so so she inspired me to do that.
[00:40:51] Speaker 1: So and I'll do that, you know, at the end of the season, I might I'll usually enter that info.
[00:40:55] Speaker 1: But I still do the handwritten logs.
[00:40:58] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:40:59] Speaker 1: It it's just something I do.
[00:41:00] Speaker 1: You know, I just like, even all my calendars are everything's handwritten.
[00:41:03] Speaker 1: So Yeah.
[00:41:04] Speaker 1: I'm just I I'm one of those guys now.
[00:41:05] Speaker 1: I'm like the grumpy guy in the dark with the the old
[00:41:08] Speaker 0: But but a handwritten log for me, like, it almost seems like something's happening when you're writing something down, you're thinking about it, that it makes a permanent memory in your in your mind.
[00:41:18] Speaker 0: Because like you, I have all these old calendars, and I can look at these old calendars, and it basically just has somebody's name there.
[00:41:25] Speaker 0: Like, I fish with Fitz Coker for these five days.
[00:41:28] Speaker 0: Yep.
[00:41:28] Speaker 0: And I look at that, and all of a sudden, I can remember, like, all kinds of things that happened on those five days.
[00:41:34] Speaker 1: Dude, that's exactly been able
[00:41:36] Speaker 0: to remember that before.
[00:41:37] Speaker 0: But it's because you have some sort of there's some sort of tangible thing where you're writing it down
[00:41:42] Speaker 1: That's right.
[00:41:43] Speaker 1: And it
[00:41:43] Speaker 0: goes into your memory.
[00:41:44] Speaker 1: It's the greatest thing.
[00:41:45] Speaker 1: It is so awesome.
[00:41:46] Speaker 1: And so my logs are are tide log.
[00:41:49] Speaker 1: So I it's like a tide calendar log.
[00:41:51] Speaker 0: That's what
[00:41:51] Speaker 1: I've been
[00:41:52] Speaker 0: on too.
[00:41:52] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:41:52] Speaker 1: And I I and it is unbelievable because, you know, when you start lining up moon phases and all this stuff, you're like, oh, okay.
[00:41:59] Speaker 1: Oh, oh, on the Slack here, on this, boom, boom, boom, bam.
[00:42:02] Speaker 1: There they are.
[00:42:03] Speaker 1: Just like I said, opening day, May 15, I go I go to the same spot every opening day.
[00:42:09] Speaker 1: And you know what?
[00:42:11] Speaker 1: Every opening day, I find at least one Mako shark.
[00:42:14] Speaker 1: So Cool.
[00:42:15] Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy?
[00:42:16] Speaker 1: But it's because of those laws.
[00:42:18] Speaker 0: The the the old Florida sportsman, they probably I don't know.
[00:42:21] Speaker 0: They probably had a California sportsman, but they would have this this colorful tide chart, and it would just show you up and down.
[00:42:27] Speaker 0: And, you know, some days I wouldn't have, time to to really write out a whole bunch of stuff, but one of my mentors, Simon Becker, he was like, look.
[00:42:35] Speaker 0: All you really need to know is what you saw, where it was, and what time it was.
[00:42:41] Speaker 0: Exactly.
[00:42:42] Speaker 0: And he showed me this little trick.
[00:42:43] Speaker 0: He's like, look.
[00:42:44] Speaker 0: It's like it says that low tide was at twelve and high tide was at four.
[00:42:48] Speaker 0: So if it was 02:00, it's about halfway in there, and he would just write a line there, and he's like, bonefish at so and so.
[00:42:54] Speaker 0: Yep.
[00:42:54] Speaker 0: And, you know, and then you just, like, fill in the fill in the the tide chart.
[00:42:59] Speaker 0: And I have all these old books of that.
[00:43:01] Speaker 0: And It's so great.
[00:43:02] Speaker 0: Those are, like, more, usable for me now to flip through those things and go, oh, I remember that spot.
[00:43:10] Speaker 0: I remember that.
[00:43:10] Speaker 0: I remember what happened that day rather than, like, some long entry.
[00:43:15] Speaker 0: Right?
[00:43:15] Speaker 0: Like, you have to read that whole thing, which which is good, but just those quick notes.
[00:43:21] Speaker 0: And today with technology, I mean, I know like, if you take a picture with your iPhone, it gives you I mean, you can have it set up to where it gives you the location.
[00:43:30] Speaker 0: It gives you the time of day, everything.
[00:43:32] Speaker 0: So you got a picture of a Mako, and it's like, oh, that was it at 02:30.
[00:43:37] Speaker 0: Yep.
[00:43:37] Speaker 0: And you you go back to that same day.
[00:43:39] Speaker 0: You look at the tide chart.
[00:43:40] Speaker 0: You're like, 02:30.
[00:43:40] Speaker 0: Oh, the tide was doing this.
[00:43:42] Speaker 1: Yep.
[00:43:42] Speaker 1: It's
[00:43:42] Speaker 0: pretty easy nowadays, but I don't know.
[00:43:44] Speaker 0: I don't know that it replaces, like, what we're talking about, like, writing down.
[00:43:48] Speaker 1: It it doesn't because, like you said, you're making this connection from your brain to the pencil or pen and writing on this piece of paper.
[00:43:55] Speaker 1: And there's something really organic about that and that it's really important for what what we do.
[00:44:01] Speaker 1: At least at least for us.
[00:44:02] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:44:02] Speaker 1: So I think maybe the next gen the the generation of people kids now are young men or young guys.
[00:44:07] Speaker 1: Hey.
[00:44:08] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:44:08] Speaker 1: They're more, you know, tech savvy.
[00:44:10] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:44:11] Speaker 1: I just you know?
[00:44:12] Speaker 1: But I do love that.
[00:44:13] Speaker 1: And, honestly, I love, like, in the wintertime, just flipping through those logs while I'm out in the garage goofing off or time flies or whatever.
[00:44:20] Speaker 1: Like, oh, check this out.
[00:44:22] Speaker 1: But it's something I'll be able to pass down to my kids too.
[00:44:24] Speaker 1: You know?
[00:44:24] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:44:25] Speaker 0: So Are they showing interest?
[00:44:26] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:44:27] Speaker 0: My my Max
[00:44:28] Speaker 1: Max is yeah.
[00:44:29] Speaker 1: In fact, he's gonna help me out this summer.
[00:44:30] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:44:31] Speaker 0: Oh, good.
[00:44:31] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:44:31] Speaker 1: He's a he's a great fisherman.
[00:44:33] Speaker 1: Loves it.
[00:44:33] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:44:34] Speaker 0: So what I know when we go shark fishing, it's fairly, messy, with the with the slick and the chum that we use.
[00:44:43] Speaker 0: We'll use carcasses for the most part.
[00:44:45] Speaker 0: What do you use on for your chum?
[00:44:48] Speaker 1: So I call it matching the hatch.
[00:44:49] Speaker 1: So Mako sharks, their primary food item is bluefin tuna.
[00:44:55] Speaker 1: So I only use, the sort of the the dark meat of a bluefin tuna.
[00:45:01] Speaker 1: And I have a I have a buddy who owns a fish processing place.
[00:45:04] Speaker 1: So it has to be fresh.
[00:45:07] Speaker 1: I don't use any commercial stuff.
[00:45:09] Speaker 1: And so and it's basically a a three, a three gallon bucket, and I put it in a kind of a larger bucket that has holes in it.
[00:45:17] Speaker 1: And so I used to put it in a milk crate, but the since the sharks are getting bigger, they come in and it'll still break the milk crate off the boat.
[00:45:24] Speaker 1: So I now I've got these these larger blue sort of a water kinda water containers are very thick.
[00:45:29] Speaker 1: You've seen them.
[00:45:30] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:45:31] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:45:31] Speaker 1: Drill a few holes in there and it it's all about, you know, kind of a slow sort of soak all day long.
[00:45:37] Speaker 1: There's not a lot of stuff going in the water other than the scent, but then I supplement that with manhaden oil.
[00:45:43] Speaker 1: So I'll pour a little bit of manhaden oil in there occasionally or I have a little container that bleeds out Manhaden oil very, very slowly throughout the day.
[00:45:52] Speaker 1: And that's all I use, you know.
[00:45:53] Speaker 1: I don't you know, this whole thing, you know, guys like, aren't you gonna, you know, put more chum in the water?
[00:45:57] Speaker 1: I'm like, nope.
[00:45:58] Speaker 1: Nope.
[00:45:58] Speaker 1: Nope.
[00:45:59] Speaker 1: Because, you know, a Mako shark, their sensors are insane.
[00:46:03] Speaker 1: Like, they can figure out all kinds of stuff.
[00:46:05] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:46:06] Speaker 1: So they can smell that from a great distance.
[00:46:09] Speaker 1: And if you're fishing edges, margins, fathom curves, they're running up those fathom curves.
[00:46:14] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:46:15] Speaker 1: They're running along them.
[00:46:16] Speaker 1: So they're gonna eventually run across that slick.
[00:46:18] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:46:18] Speaker 1: And they'll smell it and will come to the boat.
[00:46:21] Speaker 1: But I do find that matching that hatch is really important.
[00:46:25] Speaker 1: The commercial chum does not work because they put all kinds of stuff in there that that they're not that they're not sort of, probably accustomed to eating or dialed in on.
[00:46:34] Speaker 1: So I can tell you.
[00:46:35] Speaker 1: There might be another guy there might be another guy says, you know, Conway doesn't you know, who cares?
[00:46:40] Speaker 1: I use commercial stuff and it works great.
[00:46:41] Speaker 1: You know, I don't know.
[00:46:42] Speaker 1: But it's just me.
[00:46:43] Speaker 1: Wait.
[00:46:43] Speaker 1: You found
[00:46:44] Speaker 0: your we every guide finds the thing that works for them, and it works for the best, and you also develop confidence in it.
[00:46:51] Speaker 0: One thing that I've learned, especially about the Minhayden oil, is you don't wanna get that shit on your deck.
[00:46:58] Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
[00:46:59] Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna tell you a story about that if you got a minute.
[00:47:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:47:03] Speaker 1: And I'll make it really quick.
[00:47:06] Speaker 1: A friend of mine, his name's, Jack Vincent.
[00:47:07] Speaker 1: He's a great giant Mako fisherman, unconventional gear.
[00:47:10] Speaker 1: All catch and release, but this guy gets, like, thousand, like, thousand pound fish consistently.
[00:47:15] Speaker 1: So I wanted to go catch a big one.
[00:47:17] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:47:17] Speaker 1: Just just to do it.
[00:47:18] Speaker 1: So we went up off Long Beach, and so I hooked into a make where he said it was over 1,300 pounds.
[00:47:23] Speaker 1: It was the biggest one he had ever seen on stand up gear.
[00:47:26] Speaker 1: Stand up.
[00:47:27] Speaker 1: Okay.
[00:47:27] Speaker 1: I'm on this thing for four hours, and we're chase I think we chase it for, like, seven miles.
[00:47:32] Speaker 1: Some of the man haven oil that he used spilled on the deck.
[00:47:35] Speaker 1: And so I'm working my way around the gunnel rail.
[00:47:37] Speaker 1: So I'm on the I think I was on the port side, and I slipped, and I hung up on the rail.
[00:47:42] Speaker 1: My feet came off the deck, and I almost went overboard.
[00:47:45] Speaker 1: And when I when I did that, I jammed the reel into full full, full full full gear.
[00:47:51] Speaker 1: And I almost got yanked over the side by this giant makeup.
[00:47:54] Speaker 1: So what saved me was the deckhand who grabbed there's a little, like, a handle on the back of that belt.
[00:47:59] Speaker 1: He pulled me back on the deck.
[00:48:01] Speaker 1: I we were in 4,000 feet of water.
[00:48:05] Speaker 1: How's that?
[00:48:06] Speaker 1: Two.
[00:48:06] Speaker 1: So manhaden oil.
[00:48:08] Speaker 1: Yes.
[00:48:08] Speaker 1: It's slippery.
[00:48:09] Speaker 1: And dude, it is dangerous as heck.
[00:48:12] Speaker 1: And even if you're fly fish, you don't wanna be slipping on the deck with one of these things.
[00:48:16] Speaker 0: Oh.
[00:48:16] Speaker 1: Oh, it it's the worst.
[00:48:17] Speaker 1: But, yeah, you gotta be really careful.
[00:48:19] Speaker 1: You don't
[00:48:19] Speaker 0: have to spill a lot of it.
[00:48:21] Speaker 1: Oh, no.
[00:48:22] Speaker 0: Of that will cover your entire boat.
[00:48:24] Speaker 0: Whenever you walk around and and mess with it, it gets It gets
[00:48:27] Speaker 1: on your deck boots.
[00:48:28] Speaker 1: Oh
[00:48:29] Speaker 0: my god.
[00:48:30] Speaker 0: Two drops.
[00:48:30] Speaker 0: Everybody's going in.
[00:48:32] Speaker 0: Right?
[00:48:32] Speaker 0: Like that
[00:48:32] Speaker 1: That's that's the worst.
[00:48:33] Speaker 1: Try not
[00:48:33] Speaker 0: to use that if I don't have to because Yeah.
[00:48:36] Speaker 0: It's so slippery.
[00:48:38] Speaker 1: Oh, it's horrible.
[00:48:39] Speaker 0: So slippery.
[00:48:40] Speaker 1: But it sure works.
[00:48:41] Speaker 1: Imagine.
[00:48:41] Speaker 1: So do you
[00:48:42] Speaker 0: is that a safety precaution that you use now?
[00:48:44] Speaker 0: Do you always have a knife on you?
[00:48:46] Speaker 1: Always.
[00:48:47] Speaker 1: Always.
[00:48:47] Speaker 0: But nobody's tied into the fly rod.
[00:48:50] Speaker 1: No.
[00:48:50] Speaker 1: No.
[00:48:50] Speaker 1: No.
[00:48:51] Speaker 1: They can just yeah.
[00:48:51] Speaker 1: They can let it go.
[00:48:53] Speaker 1: And and that was just that was so that was a really weird experience.
[00:48:56] Speaker 1: And it freaked
[00:48:57] Speaker 0: me out.
[00:48:57] Speaker 1: I was just like and and Jackie went, man, that was close.
[00:48:59] Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah.
[00:49:00] Speaker 1: That was close.
[00:49:01] Speaker 1: But this this shark was massive.
[00:49:04] Speaker 0: Those are big ones.
[00:49:04] Speaker 0: I've never I've never
[00:49:06] Speaker 1: So scared.
[00:49:06] Speaker 0: Like that, but I have caught a big hammerhead like that.
[00:49:09] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
[00:49:10] Speaker 1: I've that that was a huge hammerhead you got.
[00:49:12] Speaker 1: That thing was massive.
[00:49:13] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:49:13] Speaker 0: I mean, it is all of a sudden, you're you're you're tied into that.
[00:49:17] Speaker 0: You've got the stand up gear on.
[00:49:19] Speaker 0: You're you're you're locked into the rod.
[00:49:21] Speaker 0: Same kind of thing.
[00:49:23] Speaker 0: And we're on a on a 24 foot bay boat, and, you know, this thing is pulling so hard that it's like nothing I had ever experienced before.
[00:49:34] Speaker 0: And when I was trying to explain to, people after I had done it, they're like, you know, what what was it like?
[00:49:42] Speaker 0: And I'm like, well, it would shake its head like a normal fish.
[00:49:46] Speaker 0: Right?
[00:49:46] Speaker 0: Like, go back and forth.
[00:49:47] Speaker 0: But you had to have the the drag set hard enough to to actually slow this thing down.
[00:49:54] Speaker 0: Right.
[00:49:54] Speaker 0: So when it would shake its head, it would it had such a throw going back and forth, not like a tarpon that, you know, does it just a little bit, maybe six inches, 12 inches, maybe maybe two feet.
[00:50:06] Speaker 0: This thing had a throw of, like, three to six feet.
[00:50:10] Speaker 0: Right?
[00:50:10] Speaker 0: So it would go completely slack, almost pull you out of the boat like you're water skiing.
[00:50:15] Speaker 1: I know.
[00:50:15] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:50:16] Speaker 0: Completely slack.
[00:50:17] Speaker 0: And then then that same deal again.
[00:50:19] Speaker 0: And I mean, I I mean, that was the first and biggest thing I had ever hooked, and it happened to be that.
[00:50:26] Speaker 0: I didn't know what I was doing.
[00:50:27] Speaker 0: Like, I'm sure that if I did it again, I wouldn't have the drag set like that.
[00:50:32] Speaker 0: But, man Yeah.
[00:50:34] Speaker 1: It it it's it's it's tricky business, man, when you're dealing with those big big predators like that.
[00:50:38] Speaker 1: It's like, you know, encountering a grizzly bear, right, with a bow.
[00:50:41] Speaker 1: It's like, oh, okay.
[00:50:41] Speaker 1: What are we doing here?
[00:50:42] Speaker 1: You know?
[00:50:43] Speaker 0: It's like I know.
[00:50:44] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:50:44] Speaker 0: But but like you, I wanted to do it once, maybe once or twice.
[00:50:48] Speaker 0: I don't need to do it five times.
[00:50:49] Speaker 0: Just once or twice, I wanna experience what that's like because you're you're around these things all the time.
[00:50:54] Speaker 0: It's like they're they're eating your tarpon.
[00:50:56] Speaker 0: They're they're chasing other fish around.
[00:50:59] Speaker 0: You're seeing them.
[00:50:59] Speaker 0: It's like, man, I'd like to know what it would be like to to catch one of those.
[00:51:03] Speaker 0: Well Yeah.
[00:51:04] Speaker 0: Catch one, and then it's like, okay.
[00:51:05] Speaker 0: I've done that.
[00:51:06] Speaker 1: I've catch one.
[00:51:06] Speaker 1: I'm done.
[00:51:08] Speaker 0: You don't need to do that again.
[00:51:10] Speaker 0: But what a what a crazy experience.
[00:51:12] Speaker 0: What about getting your first client?
[00:51:15] Speaker 1: Oh, gosh.
[00:51:16] Speaker 1: So he was a yeah.
[00:51:17] Speaker 1: I remember this guy.
[00:51:19] Speaker 1: I was and it wasn't even shark fishing.
[00:51:21] Speaker 1: We were fishing yellowtail.
[00:51:23] Speaker 1: And he was a I'm trying to think.
[00:51:26] Speaker 1: So I was totally green.
[00:51:28] Speaker 1: Now I'm just kinda winging it because I I didn't have any guides to mentor me.
[00:51:30] Speaker 1: That's the thing.
[00:51:31] Speaker 1: I didn't have somebody to take me out.
[00:51:32] Speaker 1: I had commercial fishermen.
[00:51:33] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:51:34] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:51:34] Speaker 1: Those guys were the grubbiest, like
[00:51:36] Speaker 0: catch fish, though.
[00:51:37] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:51:37] Speaker 1: But they definitely weren't people people people you know?
[00:51:40] Speaker 1: And so but I always, you know, I always was good with people.
[00:51:43] Speaker 1: So I take this guy out and, it is just a crappy day.
[00:51:47] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:51:48] Speaker 1: I mean, not catching fish.
[00:51:49] Speaker 1: The guy was yeah.
[00:51:50] Speaker 1: He was okay.
[00:51:51] Speaker 1: You know, he was kinda one of those guys.
[00:51:53] Speaker 1: And, you know, he, I was working hard.
[00:51:58] Speaker 1: Nothing happened.
[00:51:59] Speaker 1: And I could tell he was like, this sucks, you know.
[00:52:01] Speaker 1: And on the way in, we were a few miles out, this big spotty yellowtail kinda popped up.
[00:52:07] Speaker 1: And the yellowtail at that time on the fly was kind of a unicorn.
[00:52:10] Speaker 1: They were very difficult to catch.
[00:52:12] Speaker 1: So I was rigged up for that.
[00:52:14] Speaker 1: And so I put this guy on a boiler yellowtail and the the guy hooks like a 20 pounder.
[00:52:18] Speaker 1: I mean, that I mean, that didn't really I mean, that was like a unicorn fish.
[00:52:22] Speaker 1: We get it to the boat, and that made the day.
[00:52:25] Speaker 1: So on the way back in, I'm like, wow.
[00:52:27] Speaker 1: And I'm saying this to myself.
[00:52:29] Speaker 1: I'm like, okay.
[00:52:30] Speaker 1: Okay.
[00:52:31] Speaker 1: That was my first trip.
[00:52:32] Speaker 1: It worked great.
[00:52:33] Speaker 1: Maybe I am meant to do this, you know.
[00:52:35] Speaker 1: And then so that that's how it started.
[00:52:36] Speaker 1: So it was cool.
[00:52:38] Speaker 1: But the pressure and, you know, you you you just kinda go about it and you kinda slog your way through the day and because you've never been there before.
[00:52:46] Speaker 1: You've never dealt with a guy who has expectations.
[00:52:48] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:52:49] Speaker 1: You know, you you've never dealt with, you know, how people have their own little kinda idiosyncrasies you have to read.
[00:52:56] Speaker 1: You don't have any you don't have a blueprint for that.
[00:52:58] Speaker 1: Like, I never like I said, I never had a mentor, a fly fishing guide mentor to say, okay.
[00:53:02] Speaker 1: This is what you this kinda guy does this or this kinda person can do this or blah blah blah.
[00:53:05] Speaker 1: You need to show them how to cast.
[00:53:07] Speaker 1: You don't do the you know, so but it was it was cool.
[00:53:10] Speaker 1: It was a great experience, and it kinda set the foundation for, you know, how I run my show today, you know.
[00:53:16] Speaker 1: It's about the customer.
[00:53:17] Speaker 1: It's about being successful.
[00:53:19] Speaker 1: It's about managing expectations also being honest, and assessing the ability.
[00:53:26] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:53:26] Speaker 1: They're casting ability, making that adjustment.
[00:53:28] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:53:29] Speaker 1: And then ultimately, you know, getting them to encounter a large game fish and and hopefully, getting that to the boat, getting that fish to the boat.
[00:53:38] Speaker 0: What about managing expectations?
[00:53:40] Speaker 0: That's I think that's probably maybe the most important thing that a fishing guide can learn how to do.
[00:53:46] Speaker 0: When does that start for you is managing someone's expectations?
[00:53:51] Speaker 1: It starts immediately.
[00:53:53] Speaker 1: You know?
[00:53:53] Speaker 1: It's
[00:53:53] Speaker 0: like I mean, like, on the first phone call?
[00:53:55] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:53:55] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
[00:53:56] Speaker 1: Absolutely.
[00:53:56] Speaker 0: Because like getting you through social media, or do you wait for the boat?
[00:54:00] Speaker 1: No.
[00:54:00] Speaker 1: No.
[00:54:00] Speaker 1: No.
[00:54:00] Speaker 1: It's it's the first phone call.
[00:54:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:54:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:54:02] Speaker 1: Because I I I I don't want because, you know, some people say, well, you know, what's what's our what's our chances of getting a Mako shark?
[00:54:08] Speaker 1: Well, you know, there you have a chance of getting a Mako and you may not.
[00:54:13] Speaker 1: You know, it's and I always say this is hunting.
[00:54:15] Speaker 1: And the thing is hunters understand this.
[00:54:17] Speaker 1: Big game hunters get it.
[00:54:18] Speaker 1: They totally get it.
[00:54:19] Speaker 1: Because, I had a client last year.
[00:54:22] Speaker 1: He was hunting polar bears for thirty days, you know, in the in the North Poles, you know, sleeping in a tent with, two Inuits and didn't see a polar bear.
[00:54:30] Speaker 1: So he's the perfect client.
[00:54:31] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:54:32] Speaker 1: He's like, oh, this is we're three days into five days and we haven't seen a fish yet.
[00:54:35] Speaker 1: And he's like, I get it.
[00:54:36] Speaker 1: You know, I spent this much time with two Inuits in a tent in 20 below zero weather.
[00:54:41] Speaker 1: This is nothing.
[00:54:42] Speaker 1: And then so he we stuck it out the fifth day.
[00:54:44] Speaker 1: He got a 600 pound make.
[00:54:46] Speaker 1: It was the setup was great.
[00:54:47] Speaker 1: The build up was great.
[00:54:48] Speaker 1: Boom.
[00:54:49] Speaker 1: Last day.
[00:54:50] Speaker 1: Like, the last two hours, he he got what he was going for.
[00:54:53] Speaker 1: So he understood the game.
[00:54:56] Speaker 1: I didn't have to manage his expectations.
[00:54:58] Speaker 1: But I find now since I've been doing this so long, people know what I do.
[00:55:04] Speaker 1: They know the game and, you know, it it's pretty easy.
[00:55:08] Speaker 1: It's I don't really have issues.
[00:55:10] Speaker 1: I don't have the guys saying, well, I need to catch twenty fifth.
[00:55:12] Speaker 1: You know, I I just don't.
[00:55:13] Speaker 1: You know?
[00:55:15] Speaker 1: And I don't get the the the because I do all catch and release.
[00:55:17] Speaker 1: That was a thing early on.
[00:55:18] Speaker 1: Hey, can I keep a make other really good e?
[00:55:20] Speaker 1: It's like, nope.
[00:55:21] Speaker 1: Well, why not?
[00:55:22] Speaker 1: Well, just because you can't because I that's fundamentally I don't do that because it's a it's a, you know, it's a it's an ethical thing for me not to do that.
[00:55:30] Speaker 1: Now you can go with somebody else and they'll they're more than happy to do, but I'm not going to do that.
[00:55:34] Speaker 1: Well, why not?
[00:55:34] Speaker 1: It's like, you know, uh-huh.
[00:55:35] Speaker 1: You know, on and on and on.
[00:55:37] Speaker 1: So people know now that I I strictly catch and release.
[00:55:41] Speaker 1: So I don't have to manage that expectation anymore either.
[00:55:43] Speaker 1: And if I do, I just refer them to somebody else or the people are really understanding.
[00:55:47] Speaker 1: They're like, oh, that's cool.
[00:55:48] Speaker 1: That's good.
[00:55:49] Speaker 1: You know?
[00:55:49] Speaker 1: It points up.
[00:55:50] Speaker 0: I mean, I feel like what happens when you talk to people is if they understand why Yeah.
[00:55:55] Speaker 0: Then go with it.
[00:55:56] Speaker 1: That's it.
[00:55:57] Speaker 1: You know, and I I don't you know, it's but, you know, the the, you know, the the the being honest about it is setting that precedent right off the bat makes things a lot easier.
[00:56:07] Speaker 1: And it's just the way it is.
[00:56:08] Speaker 1: And if somebody wants has a too high of an expectation, they'll go somewhere else.
[00:56:13] Speaker 1: The you know?
[00:56:14] Speaker 1: And then and then they don't they don't they probably won't fish with me.
[00:56:17] Speaker 0: But Right.
[00:56:18] Speaker 1: I reiterate, this is hunting, big game hunting.
[00:56:20] Speaker 1: We may see five in a day.
[00:56:22] Speaker 1: We may see one.
[00:56:22] Speaker 1: We may see none.
[00:56:23] Speaker 1: I always suggest let's do three days.
[00:56:25] Speaker 1: That's gonna give me the ability to do my due diligence and put forth my best effort to make you successful.
[00:56:31] Speaker 1: And if that's running 20 miles out or running 20 miles up the coast or fishing, you know, trying to find the fish because Makos move, they're they don't sit on certain spots, you know, that's gonna give me the the time to do that.
[00:56:46] Speaker 1: So people people appreciate that.
[00:56:48] Speaker 0: Of course, they do.
[00:56:49] Speaker 0: I don't know if you're fully aware of what is going on in the state of Florida with sharks, but sharks are they're we've never seen so many.
[00:56:59] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:56:59] Speaker 1: I've heard.
[00:57:00] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:57:00] Speaker 0: Some sort of incredible explosion of sharks, which defies the, imagination of a lot of shark advocates who think that there there's just no way that you could have this giant explosion of sharks because everything that they read in here is that the shark population is going down globally.
[00:57:19] Speaker 1: But I
[00:57:19] Speaker 0: can tell you from Texas all the way around to Key West all the way up to Maine, that's not the case.
[00:57:26] Speaker 0: And Right.
[00:57:27] Speaker 0: There there are more sharks than I've ever seen.
[00:57:30] Speaker 0: They're as aggressive as I've ever seen them, and it's the kind of thing where we could leave the dock and go two miles, and then you're gonna encounter very, very aggressive sharks.
[00:57:41] Speaker 0: Or you could leave the dock and go in any direction you want to, 200 miles, and when you stop, you're going you're going to, find very aggressive sharks.
[00:57:50] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:57:50] Speaker 0: So I'd like, there are a lot of people that say that it's, you know, they're they're following the engine noise.
[00:57:56] Speaker 0: There there's other people that are saying that it's they're being conditioned.
[00:57:59] Speaker 0: There's other people that are saying that, you know, all different all different things.
[00:58:03] Speaker 0: But what I know is that you can run to places that people don't fish very often, and there are They're there.
[00:58:11] Speaker 0: Sharks.
[00:58:11] Speaker 0: So what's a shark what's the shark population like?
[00:58:16] Speaker 0: I know that we when we first started this, you were saying that you see these giant sharks, these 800 pounders or thousand pounders in the waters that you're fishing that that didn't they didn't exist before or they didn't exist in your world where you were going and maybe they've moved in or something.
[00:58:34] Speaker 0: What is tell us about what's going on in the in, you know, as far as the Mako goes or any sharks in California.
[00:58:41] Speaker 1: So we don't we don't I I and I've heard about what's going on in Florida.
[00:58:44] Speaker 1: It's crazy.
[00:58:44] Speaker 1: It's nuts.
[00:58:45] Speaker 1: And that tells me there's something even further out of balance than just sharks.
[00:58:48] Speaker 1: I mean, there's something else going on there.
[00:58:50] Speaker 1: So they're you know, it's not just the shark.
[00:58:53] Speaker 1: It's something else
[00:58:54] Speaker 0: that's totally black.
[00:58:55] Speaker 0: It doesn't have to be necessarily bad.
[00:58:57] Speaker 0: I mean, I had Chris Right.
[00:58:58] Speaker 0: On the podcast from o search and, you know, he knows a lot about sharks and
[00:59:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:59:02] Speaker 1: He does.
[00:59:03] Speaker 0: All over the place.
[00:59:04] Speaker 0: And he is a firm advocate that this is this is, abundance in the ocean, that this is Right.
[00:59:11] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[00:59:11] Speaker 0: That we are returning to abundance.
[00:59:13] Speaker 0: And part of that is that they've stopped long lining sharks.
[00:59:17] Speaker 1: So there you go.
[00:59:17] Speaker 0: Yep.
[00:59:18] Speaker 0: You you you're not going to have an abundance of sharks unless you have an abundance of things for sharks to eat.
[00:59:24] Speaker 0: Correct.
[00:59:25] Speaker 0: It it just doesn't line up like that.
[00:59:27] Speaker 0: You're not just gonna have a billion sharks and nothing for them to eat.
[00:59:30] Speaker 0: Right.
[00:59:31] Speaker 0: Right.
[00:59:31] Speaker 1: You
[00:59:31] Speaker 0: have a billion sharks, you're gonna have a a high degree of of bait fish and and food and other fish and game fish.
[00:59:38] Speaker 0: But, I just would like to know what your what your opinion is.
[00:59:41] Speaker 1: No.
[00:59:42] Speaker 1: I I think you're right.
[00:59:42] Speaker 1: I think so, they've had pretty pretty strict conservation measure measures out here over the last twenty years, longlining, and commercial fishing.
[00:59:52] Speaker 1: And so that has really helped.
[00:59:53] Speaker 1: And and you can correlate these fish I'm seeing now are probably 20 year old fish.
[00:59:57] Speaker 0: Mhmm.
[00:59:57] Speaker 1: Right?
[00:59:58] Speaker 1: So the the weird thing though is we had a gap in this fishery.
[01:00:01] Speaker 1: We didn't see any small fish for quite a while, which is really weird.
[01:00:04] Speaker 1: That tells me something happened there.
[01:00:06] Speaker 0: Right.
[01:00:07] Speaker 1: So they were either eat getting eaten by the big ones or they were getting, you know, commercially harvest somewhere else.
[01:00:12] Speaker 1: Because once you get outside of certain areas, they can and, you know, and these are highly pelagic fish.
[01:00:17] Speaker 1: So they might be protected here, but if they're they're going somewhere else, they're getting whack.
[01:00:21] Speaker 1: So, yeah, I I think right now, we're I'm seeing a lot of sharks, a good mixed bag of small, medium, very large Makos.
[01:00:33] Speaker 1: We're seeing, kind of a resurgence of blue sharks.
[01:00:37] Speaker 1: So I really I it boils down to, like, the conservation managers, number one, and the food item.
[01:00:42] Speaker 1: Right?
[01:00:43] Speaker 1: That, it all like, it does it does correlate.
[01:00:46] Speaker 1: So yeah.
[01:00:47] Speaker 1: You know, and and we don't so it's interesting.
[01:00:49] Speaker 1: I watched the videos of the, of the sharks in Florida and how they're eating tarpon and all that stuff.
[01:00:53] Speaker 1: That's that's crazy.
[01:00:54] Speaker 1: We don't get that here.
[01:00:56] Speaker 1: Sharks are great here because and, you know, some people might get upset with me saying this, but they eat seals and sea lions.
[01:01:02] Speaker 1: And we have an absolute explosion of of those mammals.
[01:01:06] Speaker 1: They're cute.
[01:01:06] Speaker 1: They're pretty.
[01:01:07] Speaker 1: But they they impact fishing more than a shark.
[01:01:10] Speaker 1: Right?
[01:01:11] Speaker 1: But these big sharks come in and eat those.
[01:01:13] Speaker 1: They're kinda like the they're they're, you know, that's a really great food item for them.
[01:01:17] Speaker 1: And in addition to the larger makos, we're seeing a lot more great whites, in our local waters now too.
[01:01:23] Speaker 1: Right on the right off the beach.
[01:01:24] Speaker 1: And why?
[01:01:25] Speaker 1: Because the food item is there because the marine protection mammal act that was that was, implemented, I think, in 1993 or something like that protected those those those mammals.
[01:01:36] Speaker 1: And we have an overabundance of them, and the sharks are there eating them.
[01:01:40] Speaker 1: And then the sharks eat them and they go, wow, this is a cool place to hang out.
[01:01:43] Speaker 1: I'll I'll just have my babies here too.
[01:01:45] Speaker 1: You know?
[01:01:45] Speaker 1: And so that's how that works.
[01:01:46] Speaker 1: You know?
[01:01:47] Speaker 1: So Yeah.
[01:01:47] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[01:01:48] Speaker 0: So will a Mako eat those?
[01:01:51] Speaker 1: Oh, god.
[01:01:51] Speaker 1: Yes.
[01:01:51] Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
[01:01:52] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:01:53] Speaker 1: They eat them up.
[01:01:54] Speaker 0: So a Mako, I'd like for you to tell me about a mako in this, you know, what what type of a predator is.
[01:02:00] Speaker 0: I know it's one of the fastest fish in the ocean.
[01:02:02] Speaker 0: It has a pointier nose and a smaller mouth than something like a great white or even a bull shark, which tends to look to me like it's designed to eat those mammals.
[01:02:12] Speaker 0: It looks like the mako is designed to eat something else, but I'm sure that once you get to be eight hundred pounds, you eat whatever you want.
[01:02:20] Speaker 1: Whatever you want.
[01:02:21] Speaker 0: But tell me about, like, what, like, what your how you would describe a Mako as a as a predator.
[01:02:28] Speaker 1: So they are they are in my opinion, the apex predator.
[01:02:32] Speaker 1: They because, as you said, number one, they're fast.
[01:02:36] Speaker 1: Number two, they're they're sort of their body makeup is really hydrodynamic.
[01:02:40] Speaker 1: They're like a missile because they travel 40 to 50 miles.
[01:02:44] Speaker 1: Their burst speed is insane.
[01:02:46] Speaker 1: It's crazy.
[01:02:46] Speaker 1: They can chase down anything.
[01:02:48] Speaker 1: They say, I think a wahoo or a sailfish is the fast fish.
[01:02:51] Speaker 1: A maker will chase those things down and kill them.
[01:02:53] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[01:02:53] Speaker 1: So, so hydrodynamic pointy nose or eyes are set more forward like a predator, like like, you know, if you look at a at an at a, at an, like an osprey or or a, you know, a hawk or some sort of raptor.
[01:03:06] Speaker 1: They're kinda raptor like.
[01:03:08] Speaker 1: Right?
[01:03:08] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:03:08] Speaker 1: They have these these teeth that aren't they're not serrated when they're when they're small.
[01:03:13] Speaker 1: Now when they get really large, their teeth become serrated, but they're more like daggers, like knives.
[01:03:17] Speaker 1: Right?
[01:03:18] Speaker 1: And they kinda they're kinda craggly.
[01:03:20] Speaker 1: So when they come in, they get behind their prey and they attack and they try to bite their tail off and then they circle around while that prey is kind of floundering and they come in, they do another hit, boom, then they back off and they circle it.
[01:03:30] Speaker 1: So they're very, they're like a cat playing with a toy mouse.
[01:03:33] Speaker 1: Right?
[01:03:33] Speaker 1: They just they're really sneaky, whereas a great white just comes up and just obliterate something.
[01:03:38] Speaker 1: Makos don't do that.
[01:03:41] Speaker 1: A Mako will feed on, primarily fish until they get to a certain size.
[01:03:48] Speaker 1: Then they they start eating pinnipeds, so, mammals.
[01:03:53] Speaker 1: Mhmm.
[01:03:54] Speaker 1: And that's when they're, you know, three hundred pounds.
[01:03:57] Speaker 1: That's when they start changing what they're gonna eat.
[01:03:59] Speaker 1: And then when they get to that gigantic size, they're eating swordfish, mammals, poor I've seen them eat porpoise before, baby porpoise.
[01:04:09] Speaker 1: They eat everything.
[01:04:10] Speaker 1: They're they're a total a total predator.
[01:04:12] Speaker 1: So whatever's an opportunity, they're gonna go for it.
[01:04:15] Speaker 1: They do not hang around dead whales.
[01:04:18] Speaker 1: I've never seen a mako shark or shark ever hang around any sort of dead item.
[01:04:23] Speaker 1: They don't they don't do that.
[01:04:24] Speaker 1: At least what I've seen.
[01:04:26] Speaker 1: Now you find a big dead whale floating offshore here, you're probably gonna see a great white on it.
[01:04:29] Speaker 1: But you never see I've never seen a great, a mako on that.
[01:04:33] Speaker 1: So I think they're geared towards this predatory instinct.
[01:04:37] Speaker 1: They want something that's alive.
[01:04:39] Speaker 1: They wanna kill it.
[01:04:40] Speaker 1: And then they just wanna just selectively go through and just kinda pick it apart.
[01:04:44] Speaker 1: Wow.
[01:04:45] Speaker 1: And they're they're they're so when they attack and I've seen, I don't know how many thousands around my boat.
[01:04:51] Speaker 1: They're very methodical.
[01:04:52] Speaker 1: You know, they use their eye and they roll up and they really look and scrutinize their prey.
[01:04:57] Speaker 1: Like, they're cautious.
[01:04:59] Speaker 1: When they attack to keep their eyes open.
[01:05:01] Speaker 1: And I I think that that sort of that personality has evolved because that's what they do.
[01:05:06] Speaker 1: They're not sort of a blind attacker like a great white.
[01:05:09] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:05:09] Speaker 1: They really know what they want and they focus in on it and they get behind it.
[01:05:14] Speaker 1: So, yeah.
[01:05:15] Speaker 1: The the other thing magos don't like is they don't like something getting behind them.
[01:05:18] Speaker 1: So if something gets behind them, they they try to position themselves to make sure they're facing that that fish or whatever.
[01:05:25] Speaker 1: It's a mammal and they'll always get themselves in front of it.
[01:05:29] Speaker 1: So when I'm chasing down mako sharks after we hook them, if you're behind that mako, boy, they they stay away from you.
[01:05:35] Speaker 1: So you have to really sneak in on them to where you don't startle them.
[01:05:38] Speaker 1: But if you're behind them, they they just keep going.
[01:05:40] Speaker 1: So you have to kinda kinda get in front of them and slide in on them so you can get close to the leader.
[01:05:45] Speaker 1: But they're they're an incredible so I would say they're they're they're like a cheetah.
[01:05:51] Speaker 1: They're so if you compare them to an animal, a cheetah is probably, you know, something that that would be the equivalent in that world.
[01:05:59] Speaker 1: They're they're fast and but they have a very they're they have their disposition is really kinda off and on.
[01:06:05] Speaker 1: Like, they can be very aggressive, like, spooky, like, oh my gosh, you know, like, attack the boat.
[01:06:09] Speaker 1: Or they can be very cautious and come in, swim around, kinda look at you, and assess the situation then just disappear.
[01:06:16] Speaker 1: So, you know, their behavior I I call it they have a light switch.
[01:06:20] Speaker 1: It's either on or off.
[01:06:21] Speaker 1: It turns off or on.
[01:06:22] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[01:06:23] Speaker 0: So
[01:06:23] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:06:23] Speaker 1: So I would not I would not wanna be in the water with a with a big one.
[01:06:27] Speaker 1: They are nasty.
[01:06:28] Speaker 0: You wouldn't have no chance.
[01:06:30] Speaker 0: I mean, they're so fast that we're so slow.
[01:06:32] Speaker 0: We're the even if we had a motorized sailboard or or a motorized, like like a hydrofoil kind of one of those foil boards Oh.
[01:06:41] Speaker 0: Like, you have no chance.
[01:06:43] Speaker 1: I had a yeah.
[01:06:44] Speaker 1: I I was spearfishing a number of years ago, and, so I I spearfished kelp patties.
[01:06:49] Speaker 1: I don't do deep diving.
[01:06:50] Speaker 1: But, you know, you you fish around floating debris.
[01:06:53] Speaker 1: And, so we had some Dorado on the patty and and they they just disappeared.
[01:06:57] Speaker 1: I was looking looking and all of a sudden, I I kinda I come kicking up and there's a mica shark coming right up underneath me.
[01:07:03] Speaker 1: I mean, literally.
[01:07:04] Speaker 1: And it grazed me like this.
[01:07:05] Speaker 1: It was about six feet long.
[01:07:07] Speaker 1: But he came from underneath and swam straight up.
[01:07:09] Speaker 1: And it was almost like he was just kinda investigating who I was.
[01:07:13] Speaker 1: But good gosh.
[01:07:14] Speaker 1: Could you imagine if that was an eight hundred pounder?
[01:07:16] Speaker 1: Holy smokes.
[01:07:18] Speaker 1: I mean and I didn't I didn't even see him coming.
[01:07:20] Speaker 1: And that's the other thing is when they're in the water, they have this great camouflage where they blend into the surface and the texture of the water and the way the light hits them.
[01:07:29] Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of times you don't see them till the last minute.
[01:07:32] Speaker 1: So they're pretty cool.
[01:07:34] Speaker 0: So when you're chumming for the, for the Makos, are you bringing in great whites too?
[01:07:39] Speaker 1: Yes.
[01:07:39] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
[01:07:39] Speaker 1: Yep.
[01:07:40] Speaker 0: You've seen those?
[01:07:41] Speaker 1: I have seen those.
[01:07:42] Speaker 0: Are you not an often thing, but sometimes.
[01:07:45] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:07:45] Speaker 1: I think last year, I saw what I think we eight or nine last year.
[01:07:49] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:07:50] Speaker 1: We didn't see any of the really big ones.
[01:07:52] Speaker 1: Like, my, the guy that works with me, he saw one that was, like, 18 feet long.
[01:07:58] Speaker 1: The ones I saw were, like, five, six hundred pounds.
[01:08:00] Speaker 1: Those are considered juveniles.
[01:08:01] Speaker 1: You know?
[01:08:02] Speaker 1: So but we do see the big giant ones, you know, occasionally.
[01:08:07] Speaker 1: They're here.
[01:08:08] Speaker 1: But, yeah, they and that's a whole different ballgame.
[01:08:11] Speaker 0: You know, the the Farallon Islands and and all that.
[01:08:14] Speaker 0: That's where they've long been known.
[01:08:16] Speaker 0: Yep.
[01:08:17] Speaker 0: And that was one of the things that I thought was interesting talking to Chris Fisher is that, that, he knew everybody knew about those sharks out there, but he was like, well, if they're up if they're here and here and here, then they should be in the state of Florida.
[01:08:28] Speaker 0: And people are like, no.
[01:08:29] Speaker 0: Not not any great whites in Florida, but with all of his tagging that he's done, now I mean, you can see them.
[01:08:36] Speaker 0: They're they're
[01:08:36] Speaker 1: They're everywhere.
[01:08:38] Speaker 1: Through all
[01:08:38] Speaker 0: over the time all over the place.
[01:08:40] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[01:08:40] Speaker 0: People have, you know, phones in their pocket now.
[01:08:43] Speaker 0: So instead of, like, you know, when you and I were first getting started, people say, I think I saw a great white, and people were like, no.
[01:08:49] Speaker 0: It's just a big shark.
[01:08:49] Speaker 0: You know, whatever.
[01:08:50] Speaker 0: Right.
[01:08:50] Speaker 0: But you wouldn't have any proof.
[01:08:52] Speaker 0: Right?
[01:08:52] Speaker 0: And now people have all these videos, and their great whites coming right into the teasers.
[01:08:57] Speaker 0: And, you can clearly see it's a great white.
[01:08:59] Speaker 0: Plus people have drones and everything.
[01:09:02] Speaker 0: You can clearly see these these things.
[01:09:05] Speaker 0: Tell me about, we're we're gonna run out of time here in just a second, but I wanna know what, like, the the the prime conditions are.
[01:09:12] Speaker 0: Like, it do you have windless days when you're fishing?
[01:09:16] Speaker 0: Like, what is a just kind of walk me through, like, if you were to show up at the dock and you're like, this is the perfect day.
[01:09:24] Speaker 1: Mhmm.
[01:09:24] Speaker 1: What would
[01:09:24] Speaker 0: that look like?
[01:09:26] Speaker 1: So it's going to be, no cloud cover.
[01:09:29] Speaker 1: You're gonna have about a 10 to 12 knot wind out of the Northwest or due west or even south.
[01:09:37] Speaker 1: Southwest is good.
[01:09:38] Speaker 1: You want a slight chop on the water.
[01:09:41] Speaker 1: You want your water temperature to be anywhere between sixty four and sixty eight degrees.
[01:09:45] Speaker 1: That's prime water temp.
[01:09:48] Speaker 1: And, you know, water clarity, it doesn't really matter, but but nice blue kind of this I call it dark gray water is really nice.
[01:09:56] Speaker 1: Your bird profile is gonna be you're gonna have lots of sheer waters in an area.
[01:10:00] Speaker 1: You don't necessarily need bait because these things are moving, but I do find a correlation between sheer waters and Mako sharks.
[01:10:07] Speaker 1: And that's it.
[01:10:08] Speaker 1: And and the perfect day is those fish are tight to the beach.
[01:10:11] Speaker 1: So two miles off the beach, you know.
[01:10:13] Speaker 1: And so and that's basically it.
[01:10:16] Speaker 1: Slit glass days are the worst.
[01:10:18] Speaker 1: Those are horrible days to fish makos because there's not that layer of protection and camouflage that that that shark can use to his advantage when he comes to the boat.
[01:10:28] Speaker 1: If it's slit glass, they're a lot more persnickety.
[01:10:32] Speaker 1: But you get that texture on the water and they they will charge the boat.
[01:10:36] Speaker 1: The other interesting thing is this, I a lot of my bigger Makos come after 2PM.
[01:10:41] Speaker 1: And on the West Coast, our sun sets in the West.
[01:10:43] Speaker 1: Right?
[01:10:44] Speaker 1: So you have this sort of this ongoing glare that hits the water and I think those Makos use that glare to their advantage when they're coming in from the West heading east, and and and trying to attack a food item.
[01:10:56] Speaker 1: So my boat looks like a food item to a big maker.
[01:10:59] Speaker 1: They come in they they probably think it's a swordfish.
[01:11:01] Speaker 0: Down.
[01:11:01] Speaker 1: So that later that later afternoon glare helps a lot.
[01:11:04] Speaker 1: And they are really aggressive when they come in.
[01:11:07] Speaker 1: They they'll they'll they'll they'll attack the boat.
[01:11:10] Speaker 1: So they're like a like a jet fighter pilot.
[01:11:12] Speaker 1: Right?
[01:11:12] Speaker 1: They're using that sun to kinda They're coming in and out.
[01:11:16] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:11:16] Speaker 1: Right.
[01:11:16] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:11:17] Speaker 0: And so you've said that they're really aggressive a lot of times.
[01:11:20] Speaker 0: Like like, tell me about, like, when you see one coming in, is it making a wake?
[01:11:25] Speaker 0: Is the fin up?
[01:11:26] Speaker 0: Is it is or is it just, like, all of a sudden it's on you?
[01:11:30] Speaker 1: All of the above.
[01:11:31] Speaker 1: You know, when the fins up, they're more kinda more slow moving.
[01:11:35] Speaker 1: But a lot of times they stay they'll glide into the slick very quickly.
[01:11:38] Speaker 1: They'll just shoot in.
[01:11:39] Speaker 1: It looks like a it looks like a big missile.
[01:11:42] Speaker 1: Sometimes you think it's like a like a porpoise.
[01:11:43] Speaker 1: It's like what the hell is that?
[01:11:44] Speaker 1: And then that that was that's the make one.
[01:11:46] Speaker 1: They'll circle the boat and then they'll kinda assess the boat and then they'll kinda go hover out the slick and then you'll I'll I'll eyeball them.
[01:11:52] Speaker 1: Right?
[01:11:53] Speaker 1: And then we'll go ahead and and make the cast on them.
[01:11:55] Speaker 1: What does
[01:11:56] Speaker 0: the nest look like?
[01:11:57] Speaker 1: What's that?
[01:11:58] Speaker 0: What does the cast look like?
[01:11:59] Speaker 0: Like, if a if a shark is circling the boat, how are you instructing your angler to like, do you cast when the fish is not there, or do you are you waiting for it?
[01:12:08] Speaker 0: Like, you know it's gonna circle back in.
[01:12:11] Speaker 0: Do you want the water before it gets there, or are you trying to place it in front of
[01:12:15] Speaker 1: it?
[01:12:15] Speaker 1: I'm trying to I'm I I want the client to find the fish and they're big, they can find them.
[01:12:20] Speaker 1: Find the nose, throw the fly 10 feet in front of them.
[01:12:22] Speaker 1: Just put it out there.
[01:12:23] Speaker 1: Let it sit one strip and then they'll come over and grab it.
[01:12:26] Speaker 1: They miss it, we'll do it again.
[01:12:28] Speaker 1: Now, if you get a shark and and Makos get pretty hip to the game pretty quick.
[01:12:32] Speaker 1: Like, if you pull something away, they're like, yeah, this isn't quite right.
[01:12:34] Speaker 1: Like, so what I'll do is I'll I'll do the bait switch.
[01:12:36] Speaker 1: I have a hookless teaser.
[01:12:38] Speaker 1: Right?
[01:12:38] Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's a marlin skirt with a with a bonito belly strip put shoved inside of it, then I'll bait and switch them.
[01:12:44] Speaker 1: So they'll so when I do that, they move further away from the boat.
[01:12:48] Speaker 1: They're more cautious.
[01:12:49] Speaker 1: I'll throw that out there.
[01:12:50] Speaker 1: I'll put it right in front of their nose and then that triggers and they're like, oh, man.
[01:12:53] Speaker 1: Then that that'll get that light switch turned on
[01:12:56] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[01:12:57] Speaker 1: To kill and then after that, it's like just throw the fly out there.
[01:13:00] Speaker 0: Would find a fish with a spinning rod or a conventional rod?
[01:13:02] Speaker 1: I use a conventional rod.
[01:13:03] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:13:04] Speaker 1: Like an eight and a half foot jig stick.
[01:13:05] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:13:06] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[01:13:06] Speaker 1: And sometimes those casts are very I mean, super long.
[01:13:08] Speaker 1: I gotta really throw it out there.
[01:13:10] Speaker 1: But once I roll that teaser and it's a real art to get that thing right where you need it, their eyes lock in, they they get on it, and then it's like you start you really reel that thing.
[01:13:19] Speaker 1: You start slow and then you reel it back really fast.
[01:13:22] Speaker 1: And then, man, then then they're they're they're gonna kill something.
[01:13:26] Speaker 0: So are you Then you have Are you trying to rip that out and replace it with a fly or
[01:13:30] Speaker 1: you just We do we do both.
[01:13:32] Speaker 1: Sometimes you don't have to do that.
[01:13:33] Speaker 1: You just get them on that teaser and then the when you pull it away, they're looking around for the teaser and you throw the fly out.
[01:13:38] Speaker 0: Sure.
[01:13:39] Speaker 1: So but, yeah, it's and on my Instagram, I think I've got some videos of those things like charging the boat.
[01:13:44] Speaker 1: It's it it it's pretty cool.
[01:13:46] Speaker 1: But it's neat.
[01:13:47] Speaker 1: It's it's a great What's
[01:13:48] Speaker 0: your Instagram?
[01:13:49] Speaker 1: Oh, Conway Bowman.
[01:13:51] Speaker 0: But that's just it.
[01:13:52] Speaker 0: Conway Bowman Yeah.
[01:13:53] Speaker 0: No underscore nothing like that.
[01:13:54] Speaker 0: Just add
[01:13:55] Speaker 1: I I think at Conway Bowman.
[01:13:57] Speaker 1: I think that's it.
[01:13:57] Speaker 0: Okay.
[01:13:58] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[01:13:58] Speaker 0: I'll look it up.
[01:13:59] Speaker 1: Shows you
[01:13:59] Speaker 0: Make note.
[01:14:00] Speaker 1: How tech savvy I am.
[01:14:02] Speaker 0: We'll make sure we put it in the notes.
[01:14:04] Speaker 0: And if somebody wanted to go fishing with you, what would they do?
[01:14:07] Speaker 1: Just go to, you can go to Instagram or just go to, conwaybowman.com.
[01:14:12] Speaker 1: And that's my website.
[01:14:14] Speaker 1: My number's on there.
[01:14:15] Speaker 1: You can email me through that.
[01:14:16] Speaker 1: And then, yeah.
[01:14:17] Speaker 1: We'll just, we'll get you out there and we'll have have folks engage with the greatest, you know, saltwater predator on earth and you're gonna catch it on a fly rod.
[01:14:26] Speaker 0: I'd love to come out there and do that.
[01:14:28] Speaker 1: You gotta come out, Tom.
[01:14:29] Speaker 1: I'm sure we talk
[01:14:30] Speaker 0: San Diego.
[01:14:31] Speaker 0: I think I think San Diego is a just a cool place, man.
[01:14:34] Speaker 1: That whole Just a cool place.
[01:14:35] Speaker 0: Southern California from La Jolla all the way up to maybe Long Beach.
[01:14:39] Speaker 1: Oh, it's great.
[01:14:40] Speaker 0: I haven't spent a ton of time there, but I did a seal fit thing in Encinitas.
[01:14:44] Speaker 0: And That's
[01:14:45] Speaker 1: where I live.
[01:14:45] Speaker 0: Oh, man.
[01:14:46] Speaker 0: You live in Encinitas?
[01:14:46] Speaker 1: I live right there.
[01:14:47] Speaker 1: Yep.
[01:14:47] Speaker 0: I was one of those crazy people that was marching around with a with a telephone pole in your neighborhood.
[01:14:52] Speaker 1: Oh, you're kidding me.
[01:14:53] Speaker 1: Holy smokes.
[01:14:54] Speaker 0: With Mark Devine, Yeah.
[01:14:56] Speaker 0: I love the town of Encinitas.
[01:14:58] Speaker 1: Oh, it's and it I love it.
[01:15:01] Speaker 1: It Isn't it great?
[01:15:02] Speaker 0: So much of, like, a Western town, like, a like, a Driggs, Idaho or Yep.
[01:15:07] Speaker 0: A Victor or, like, even, like I don't I don't know.
[01:15:09] Speaker 0: It just I just loved that place.
[01:15:12] Speaker 0: And He's got
[01:15:13] Speaker 1: a great vibe.
[01:15:13] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:15:13] Speaker 1: And now
[01:15:14] Speaker 0: he's up in Carlsbad.
[01:15:15] Speaker 0: But, that place is just super cool.
[01:15:18] Speaker 0: I mean, it kinda reminds me of Key West too.
[01:15:20] Speaker 0: Like, a Little bit?
[01:15:21] Speaker 0: Yeah.
[01:15:22] Speaker 0: I mean, I don't know.
[01:15:23] Speaker 0: I just love that place.
[01:15:25] Speaker 0: And, I went out there two or three times to do the seal fit thing, and then, but I never I never got to do the makeup thing.
[01:15:32] Speaker 1: Well, now you gotta come out, do the seal fit thing, and I'm telling you, Tom, you gotta come out and do it.
[01:15:37] Speaker 1: You would you would you would really appreciate it encountering encountering oh, gosh.
[01:15:42] Speaker 1: Anytime.
[01:15:42] Speaker 1: Just let me know, and we'll we'll we'll get ahead of it.
[01:15:45] Speaker 1: I love it.
[01:15:45] Speaker 1: We'll do it.
[01:15:46] Speaker 0: I I I need to, take my wife on a, on a trip.
[01:15:51] Speaker 0: We've gone out there, and we had a great trip, to Southern California before.
[01:15:56] Speaker 0: We just had a grandbaby.
[01:15:58] Speaker 0: Oh, nice.
[01:15:59] Speaker 1: She
[01:15:59] Speaker 0: just graduated college.
[01:16:01] Speaker 0: She's getting married in two weeks.
[01:16:04] Speaker 0: And so after that, we're gonna be looking for, like, something to do to
[01:16:10] Speaker 1: Let's go.
[01:16:10] Speaker 0: Celebrate.
[01:16:11] Speaker 0: So, yeah, man.
[01:16:12] Speaker 0: Southern California sounds amazing.
[01:16:14] Speaker 0: So you're saying July and August are good months for for your fishing?
[01:16:19] Speaker 1: So it's May, June, July, August.
[01:16:20] Speaker 1: And and I get them all the way through the November.
[01:16:23] Speaker 1: October can be a really good month too.
[01:16:26] Speaker 1: And and and you have other shots, you know, you may get a shot at some tuna also then.
[01:16:30] Speaker 1: You know, because they'll come through the slick then.
[01:16:32] Speaker 1: But Yeah.
[01:16:32] Speaker 1: It that that doesn't happen all the time, but this definitely can be there.
[01:16:36] Speaker 0: Well, I wanna go laser focused for the Conway Bowman way.
[01:16:39] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[01:16:39] Speaker 1: That's all I wanna do.
[01:16:40] Speaker 1: I don't wanna mess with tuna.
[01:16:41] Speaker 1: I want stuff that eats tuna.
[01:16:42] Speaker 1: I don't I don't I don't fly fish for bait.
[01:16:46] Speaker 0: That's funny.
[01:16:47] Speaker 0: That's that's awesome.
[01:16:48] Speaker 0: I love it.
[01:16:49] Speaker 0: Well, man, great catching up with you.
[01:16:51] Speaker 1: Yes.
[01:16:51] Speaker 1: It
[01:16:51] Speaker 0: was a a fantastic conversation.
[01:16:53] Speaker 0: People are gonna dig it.
[01:16:54] Speaker 0: And, man, I'm I'm gonna definitely stay in touch and we'll see if we can plan a trip out there.
[01:16:59] Speaker 1: It'd be so great to have you on
[01:17:01] Speaker 0: the boat.
[01:17:02] Speaker 0: I would love it.
[01:17:02] Speaker 0: Alright.
[01:17:03] Speaker 0: Conway Bowman.
[01:17:04] Speaker 0: He's a legend.
[01:17:05] Speaker 0: Check him out and, go fishing with him if you're into Mako sharks, which you should be.
[01:17:11] Speaker 0: They're gonna Love it.
[01:17:14] Speaker 0: Alright.
[01:17:15] Speaker 0: Alright, Conway.
[01:17:16] Speaker 0: Alright, buddy.
[01:17:16] Speaker 0: Thanks.
[01:17:17] Speaker 1: Talking to you.
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