Robert Arrington — Building Deer Meat For Dinner on YouTube | Tom Rowland Podcast

Transcript

Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 4 — Robert Arrington

Tom Rowland: I'm Tom Rowland, and this is the Tom Rowland podcast.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast today. If this is your first podcast, this is an excellent one to start on. It's one of the best ones we've ever done. If you're a regular subscriber, I think you're gonna really like this one. I asked on social media for some suggestions, and I also put the email address out there that we have for this show, podcast at Saltwater Experience. Those come directly to me. And I asked for suggestions, people that we should sit down with. And more than any other suggestion, actually, an overwhelming response was to try to track this next guest down, and I did. And you guys were right.

Really, really, really enjoyed this conversation that I had. The guy's name is Robert Arrington. His handle on YouTube is deer meat for dinner. He has 844,000 people. He's got an army of people that love his stuff. And you know what? I sat down with him, and I see why. The guy is passionate. He's grateful. He's thankful, and he is more than any of those things, he's knowledgeable. He grew up in Florida. He had good mentors around him, and he learned a lot.

So we're gonna get to deer meat for dinner right after I tell you this. As always, we're brought to you by Waypoint TV. It's funny that Waypoint TV would be bringing you an episode about a YouTuber, but who knows? Maybe there'll be a place for Robert and Deer Meat for Dinner on Waypoint TV one day. Anyway, while you're watching YouTube, if you get tired of watching cat videos, you can go over there and watch nothing but hunting and fishing videos. After you finish watching deer meat for dinner, go give Waypoint TV a try, and you can get it on any device — your Roku, Apple TV, your iPad, your tablet, your phone, your computer, any device. Waypointtv.com. You can go there and get way more than 2,000 episodes from more than 60 different producers. It's growing every day.

Alright. Now on to this great conversation with Robert Arrington. He's deer meat for dinner. You're gonna find out why he calls his channel Deer Meat for Dinner. You're gonna find out all kinds of stuff about Robert Arrington. And if you are a Deer Meat for Dinner fan that wants to know more about this very enthusiastic, knowledgeable host, man, I'm glad you're here. I hope that you'll go check out some other ones because I've been able to sit down and talk to some people in this project. This was really an experiment, right? The podcast. I love podcasts. I have a lot of people I wanna sit down with, and I have been incredibly impressed at the stories. And really, I'm enjoying this podcast way more than I thought I would, so I wanna keep doing it. So drop a review on iTunes. Let me know. And if you're a Deer Meat for Dinner subscriber, I'm glad you're here. I hope you go check out some other episodes that we have and share this on social media. Let's get it out there. Alright. Here comes deer meat for dinner. Enjoy.

Tom Rowland: Welcome to the podcast today, guys. By popular request, I have caught up to an exceptional man that is known far and wide on YouTube by the handle deer meat for dinner.

Robert Arrington: Yes, sir. As they all say, deer meat.

Tom Rowland: That's what they call you, deer meat.

Robert Arrington: Man. I'm down on the river or driving down the truck. Honk, honk, deerie.

Tom Rowland: Alright, man.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. Vegans yelling, deerie. You know?

Tom Rowland: Do you have any trouble with the vegans online? Sometimes they can be a little bit aggressive.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. No. I have one video. It was actually the fifth video ever made skinning a gator. And it gets a little bit of hate, but the hate goes away. It doesn't percolate. It just — someone will blow up and get all angry, and then it just goes away because we have a real culture of respect on my channel.

Tom Rowland: I was gonna say that, man. You've got an army. You've got 844,000 subscribers. And these guys, girls, people are big fans. I mean, you have created an army of supporters.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. And I have a lot of friends that YouTube and are in this industry. I call it an industry. It's a life for me, but it is an industry because we make a living at it. But everyone's always worried about getting more views and getting more subscribers. If you ever watch my videos, I never really tell people, hey, subscribe. I do thank them for sharing my videos and whatnot. I thank them for the support and the encouragement that they give us, but I'm happy for everyone that I have now. If I stopped gaining subscribers and just kept what I have right now, I'd be very blessed and very happy. So I try to be very content with what I have. And when you're content with something, it's very good to you. It feels good to you. You know, if you're not content with it and you're always wanting more, wanting more, wanting more, then it really is never fulfilling.

So I tell everyone, hey. They're like, you're almost to a million. I'm like, yeah. But look. I just passed 800,000. I'm so happy just to be here. And I'm always thinking — you know, what am I gonna do? What's my next video? Like, right now, only thing I'm worried about is hanging out and talking with you. I've watched your stuff for a long time. Thank you so much for your kind words towards me.

I've watched you guys. I think your format with Saltwater Experience and Into the Blue and those shows — really intimate, very, very well produced, which not all outdoor shows are. You are amongst the very best.

Tom Rowland: That's also very kind of you to say. One of the things that I have — when we got such overwhelming response, I asked everybody who they'd wanna see me interview and got a whole slew of list of names. And I have been keeping a list of names ever since I started doing this project of people that I admire, people that I respect, people that I think are cool, people that I don't know, people that I think I could learn something from, and that's really what this is all about. I like to learn. I've got what I call a white belt mentality. I feel like no matter how long I've been doing this, I feel like I could learn from somebody that just got started yesterday. I feel like there's always something to learn.

And so when I start looking at your stuff, one of the things that resonated with me right away — two things, actually. One, family. Two, is that you carry yourself with gratitude. Like, you say that a lot. Man, feel great to be out here. I'm so thankful for this. I'm so thankful for that. How does that happen for you? Is that a conscious thing that you have gratitude for where you are?

Robert Arrington: I believe it has a lot to do with how you're brought up and what you're brought up doing. And we were brought up with manners. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma'am. And as a kid, heck, I'd have been perfectly content with a bucket of dead shrimp and a cane pole on that dock. I'd figure out how many sheepshead were around each pole and how many mangrove snappers were there. And if they weren't biting, I'd catch a hard head catfish. It didn't matter. And I say this on my channel all the time — it's about getting the bite. So I love blue marlin fishing and daytime sword fishing and tarpon fishing, but it doesn't matter if I'm catching a cichlid on a beetle spin or a blue marlin in Costa Rica — you've got to figure out how to get the bite. And how do you get that bite? That to me is awesome.

And so no matter where I am or what I'm doing, I'm really excited to be there. There's millions and billions of people all over the Earth that never get to spend a day doing what I do. I know the vast majority of my subscribers, unfortunately, won't get to do the things that I do, and I'm getting to make a living doing it. So you know what? Every single day, I wake up in the morning, I say my prayers. I say, Lord, thank you for today, and thank you for the opportunities that you give me, and I'm gonna make the best of it today. I never worry about tomorrow. I only worry about what I'm doing today. And when you live like that and when you are thankful for what you have, you appreciate what you have, and it all means more.

Tom Rowland: Well, that was a — I consider it to be a big shift in my life when I came across that concept of purposefully living with gratitude, being thankful for every breath you're taking, being thankful for every step you're taking. This one guy told me this little thing that he does every morning. And I started bringing it into my life, and it is — you step out of bed, the first foot hits the ground. You say thank. Second foot hits the ground. You say you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All the way to the bathroom to brush your teeth or whatever you're doing.

And, man, I started that a long time ago, and what it does is it sets you at a place for the day that you are grateful for that step. You're grateful for just waking up, and it has been profound in my life, and I love to see it with others. And often, people that live lives like you do or like I do, you get a lot of opportunities to go outside. They say, familiarity breeds contempt. You know, if it's too familiar, I don't wanna do that anymore. If the fish is too plentiful, I don't like that fish anymore. You know? So to stay grateful and thankful for every opportunity, I think, is really good, and I think it's a huge, great message that you're putting out to your audience.

Robert Arrington: Well, I appreciate it. So Bonitas do breed contempt in me, though. Because they are absolutely too plentiful.

Tom Rowland: But you could say that if you went up to the Northeast that they are the most prized species.

Robert Arrington: I know. I know you did a video with Josh Jorgensen or a podcast with him. And when you were talking about that, I was thinking, goodness gracious. Josh and the bonitas — we go fishing. He's like, man, look at all — and I'm like

Tom Rowland: Oh, he talks about it. He talked about it for a long time about the difference between Northeast and down here. And if those people came down here, they wouldn't believe what was going on. And he had an interesting idea that I never really heard — is that people don't like the most available. Like, whatever's the most available, whether that's Jack Crevalles, Bonitos, Barracudas, whatever. But that's an interesting thing that happens. But I think if you're living with gratitude, you can have one slip of a bonita. Don't like this. You're allowed one fish that you don't like.

Well, let's talk about the way that you grew up because you're saying you grew up with manners. You're a self-proclaimed Florida cracker. Right? 100% cracker to the bone. So tell me what a cracker is from a cracker. What does a true Florida cracker consider a cracker? Because a lot of people that live outside of Florida have another idea what a cracker is.

Robert Arrington: Okay. True Florida crackers — well, we'll back up, and I'll tell this really quick because we don't have four hours to do this. Back up to Ponce de Leon when he came to Florida looking for — or came to The Americas looking for the fountain of youth. They brought a couple ships, 500 cows, 500 horses. They were Andalusian cattle — small, really tough, could deal with anything. They offloaded over in Port Charlotte. As they offloaded, they were getting set up. They got ambushed by Indians, Native Americans. He was actually shot in the calf by a poison arrow. They left the cattle, left the horses, jumped back on the ships, and headed to Cuba. That's where Ponce de Leon died — in Cuba.

So all his cracker — all his Andalusian cattle, Andalusian horses went wild. And, I mean, think about what Florida looked like before anyone was here.

Tom Rowland: It's like your ranch, basically. Right?

Robert Arrington: Yeah. It looked like my ranch with mosquitoes the size of ospreys. And so all the cattle started breeding, becoming wild. Well, then, you know, the US government was like, okay. Here's the deal. Whoever wants to go down there and just tame that land, go for it. Well, when they came down and found all the wild cows and wild horses, they started setting up huge land tracks. And, I mean, there's huge land barons in Florida to this day that originated then. But they didn't have the manpower to do it. So then they reached out to anyone. Hey. Anyone who wants to come down here, we'll give you a little homestead. We'll give you some land, and you come down and hunt these cows.

That's why cattlemen in Florida will never be known as cowboys. They're always cow hunters because that's how we originated as cow hunters hunting the cracker cows and the cracker horses. So they came down and were just tough, tough men, and we really utilized a cow whip. Most place, they call it a bull whip. In Florida, it's a cow whip used by a cow hunter. And if you imagine working cows, it's gonna be brutally hot, mosquitoes, just really tough, and it's so thick. So if I'm pushing my cattle here, if I'm working around this cypress head here and three of my buddies or two of my buddies are over there, I don't have a cell phone, so I can't text them.

And so you're constantly pow, working that — you know, pow. Like a really good cow hunter, it's just amazing how they can just pow, just throw it. Pow. And as you're working your cows and riding your horse, they'll drag that whip in and pow. Well, your friends can associate with where you are. They know, oh, he's there. We'll push around this way. We'll catch up with him there. I believe a lot of it had to do with mosquitoes also. You know what I mean? Cow.

But then as you're bringing the cattle in, you'd hear the moose of the cows. But all the women, you could hear that cracking sound from miles away coming, and they would know, here come the crackers, because they were known by the sound of the cracking of their whip. Well, then they'd start gathering up some cornbread or whatever meat was available, maybe stewing some swamp cabbage, making sure that was good and hot, have meals ready because guys would get in. They wanna get some food back on the trail working. There wasn't a lot of time to lollygag.

And so that's where cracker came from. And that was hard, hard work, and it was very respected work. And so to be the son of a cracker or the grandson of a true cracker — my grandpa, all he did was cut lighter knot fence posts for a nickel apiece and cow hunt. That's what he did. That's what my mom grew up doing — trapping otters and coons and possums and gators and whatnot. And so to have that heritage and have that lineage — it's a badge of honor to me.

Tom Rowland: So how much time did you get to spend with your grandfather?

Robert Arrington: Tons. Tons. Tons. Yeah. He passed away about five years ago. And from six —

Tom Rowland: So wait a minute. Five years ago — when was he born?

Robert Arrington: 1921. So in 1921.

Tom Rowland: Well, it would be later, I guess, when he's actually working and doing all of that. So he's probably 25 years old doing that. Right?

Robert Arrington: 11, 12, 13 years old. Yeah. He had no education. Once you're old enough to ride a horse and crack a whip, that's what you — he had no education whatsoever. His education was far beyond books and writing. Well, the natural world.

Tom Rowland: And then you spend time with him, and he shows you how to work the land. He shows you how to do the things that you're doing on your videos because I'm looking at these videos. And, man, you're cutting off hog balls. You're making swamp cabbage, and you're trapping stuff, and you're taking everything, and you're creating a meal out of it, and you're living off the land as other people did with the comforts of a stove and stewed tomatoes and all of that stuff. But you're doing this in a way that you're cooking everything from toadfish and puffers to hogs and deer. And I mean, I hadn't seen you eat a possum, but you trap them. So that's all knowledge that comes from your grandfather.

Because when I'm watching this, I'm like, how old can this guy possibly be? I mean, how old are you?

Robert Arrington: I'm 41.

Tom Rowland: So 41. I'm a little ahead of you. I have gathered some skills in my time, but I'm quite impressed with the breadth of environmental knowledge that you have and how you're skinning a gator one day, you're caping a hog the next day, you're spearfishing the next day. You're doing all of these things, and I'm thinking, how has this guy developed these skills in 41 years? And what you're saying now is that all came from your grandfather. Is that right?

Robert Arrington: No, sir.

Tom Rowland: Oh.

Robert Arrington: What came from my grandpa is the ability to do your best today. The only thing in the world he knew was the Bible and the back of a horse and treat your family like they're everything, treat your friends with respect, and to do your best today. And so, you know, he showed me some things, like we skinned some soft shell turtles together and cut some swamp cabbage and whatnot. But I really learned how to cut swamp cabbage from my good friend, Cliff Berg, who is another old cracker.

But I try to learn something every day. And you alluded to it earlier — I know I've been hunting and fishing my whole life, but it doesn't matter if someone's only been doing it for a little while. They may see things from a different perspective and actually have a new take on it. And you're like, that's really cool right there. Because we look through our glasses that we've been seeing the world in our way. But every day, I'm dealing with someone, talking with someone, having a conversation with somebody. I try to learn something every day. And my mom says, boy, you got a mind like a steel trap. I'd remember things, and it's applied knowledge. If I do this here, then all of a sudden you'll be doing something over here, and you're like, oh, that'll work right there.

Tom Rowland: I mean, I don't know if you do this, but I'll read business books that help me with fishing. I will read some other kind of book that helps me with something else because you're taking these concepts and you're like, that's interesting how he thinks about that. And what if I did that over here? Would that work? Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's a massive failure. But it's worth a try. Do you try to apply those different things? Like the things that you're learning on the land, do you try to apply those to parenting? Do you try to apply those to business? Do you try to apply those in different places? Because the natural world is a great teacher, I think.

Robert Arrington: 100%. So I can tell you this. I don't read any books. Like, I don't read any books. I read about a chapter out of my Bible every day. That's just what I've been doing my whole life. But I learn a lot in the wild. So I'll tell you this, and I try to apply this all the time. So we have 3,000 acres just to the north here. That's our ranch. And if you have a crackhead doe, she will raise a crackhead fawn. And what I mean by that — we call crackheads does that just are panic stricken, paranoid, blow at everything, stomp at everything, run around, just they stress out everything else on the land, and their fawns will grow up exactly like them.

But then you have a good old doe that is just an awesome doe, and she's smart. She's smart as a tack. And she's calm, and she's smart, and she just takes her time. She will raise a fawn the exact same way. And so with my children — you're a dad, aren't you?

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've got three kids. 20 year old, an 18 year old, and a 14 year old girl.

Robert Arrington: Dude, what stress can a child — I mean, it can be terrifying and stressful. But, you know, I always think about them old does that are always calm and collected and smart, watching what's going on. They raise their children the same way. And so I always think the most important job in the world that I have — or any parent has — is raising your children and taking care of your family. So I always try to remember the old doe that's calm, collected, keeps everything under control because that's the way I want my kids to grow up.

Tom Rowland: And you see that the one that stomps and blows and stuff like that either gets taken down or —

Robert Arrington: Gets shot a lot.

Tom Rowland: They get shot, get coyoted, get something. Right? I mean, that's the lesson. But there's so many lessons from nature that I'm sure that you're bringing into your family. So tell me about your family. How many kids do you have?

Robert Arrington: We got two children. I've got Aria, who's my two year old daughter, and Emma is almost nine months old, and my wife is Sarah. She's awesome. I mean, she's just an amazing mom. She's an amazing wife. Super, super good girl. And she's taken a huge sacrifice with being a mom because she's like one of the most avid outdoorsmen you'd ever meet. I mean, hunting, fishing, diving. First day I ever took her snorkeling, she jumped in the water like she'd been doing her whole life. She can legitly go free dive 30, 40 feet, like, no problem, and she grew up in Wisconsin. But she is so dedicated and passionate about being a mom. And to me, that's the most beautiful thing ever. And, you know, as the girls are almost big enough where we can do bigger and better things — ask my mom or her mom, like, how you think you want good for a little bit? We're gonna slip off and do this. But she's really been — she's been amazing. It's amazing to watch her.

Tom Rowland: How does a guy like you find time to get out of the woods or the water long enough to meet a girl like that?

Robert Arrington: That's a pretty cool story. I was — I guide a lot of alligator hunts. And so if it weren't for alligator hunting, I would've went broke, man. When the economy turned bad and whatnot, people still wanted to go gator hunting. And just when I was at my woods end, someone would call and book a gator hunt, which was always — that was a blessing. And the owners of AMS Bow Fishing contacted me and said, hey. We'd like to go on a couple alligator hunts. So, yeah. Sure. They come down. Tough hunt, but we caught the first night, like an eleven five or eleven six. Nice gator, and we took a bunch of pictures. And they were uploading it on Facebook, so we became friends.

Well, she was on their pro staff in Wisconsin as a bow fisherman. And so I get this friend request from this beautiful blonde haired girl. I'm like, well, I hope she's a real human because she sure is pretty. And so I started stalking her, you know, poaching through her photos and sent her a little message, and we started talking. And ten days later, I said, you know, I wanna go look at a piece of property in Iowa. She goes, we'll fly into Madison. I'll pick you up, and we'll drive over there. So ten days later, flew to Wisconsin. We spent the weekend together. She quit all her jobs. We started traveling all over the country deer hunting, and she moved to Florida having never seen it. She tells her mom and dad, hey. I'm gone. I'm going to Florida. They thought she was crazy.

Tom Rowland: Did she make that decision in February?

Robert Arrington: She made it — like, I mean, we met in October. By November, she was like, I'm going to Florida.

Tom Rowland: It hadn't even gotten really cold yet.

Robert Arrington: No. It was the peak of winter. I'm going to Florida. It was immediate and without hesitation. She came down here and has embraced the Florida life, like, just — I mean, she knows it so well, whether we're out on the buggy on the ranch. She has a channel called Deer Mom that she sort of vlogs and shows the kids and whatnot. But she's — man, you'll see her out in the boat crabbing, lobstering, whatever. She's wide open, full throttle.

Tom Rowland: And so we raised three kids in Key West. We had no family support. Is she having any issues with that? Is her family back in Wisconsin?

Robert Arrington: Her family's in Wisconsin, but her mom and dad — her mom is down right now visiting, and her mom and dad are still married as well. My mom and dad are still married. They live about a mile and a half from us. And so my mom comes over all the time, and we do have plenty of support. But Sarah — she's pretty hardcore. She has some kids with her all the time, and she does take them over to my mom and whatnot, but she's a good mom.

Tom Rowland: That's a good thing. I have a similar wife with, man. She took good care of our kids, and we made big sacrifices to make sure that she could stay home with them. One of the best decisions that we've ever made together was to do whatever it took to make sure that she could stay with the kids because a lot of kids these days are not getting that.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. It's a huge problem, man. Yeah. Huge.

Tom Rowland: So tell me about deer meat for dinner, because I know that when I first met you, you may not remember this, but long time ago, we met at ICAST, and you had something going called Respect Outdoors, and I remember that. And then what happened? It came and went?

Robert Arrington: Yeah. So, you know, I don't know how well your audience understands the whole time-buy concept on TV. So TV — outdoor TV — although it's pretty much run its course and is dying on the vine as we speak, over the past decade or more, you go into a channel like Sportsman Channel or Outdoor Channel or whatnot, and you buy your time slot, and you buy your commercial space, and then you produce a show and go out and sell your sponsor, your commercial ads, and pay your airtime, and then pay your production, and pay all this, that, and the other, and then try to keep a little bit left over. That's your profit.

Well, I went out, and Respect Outdoors was exactly what Deer Meat for Dinner is. It was just me out doing what I do — hunting, fishing, cooking. It was exactly the same thing, although YouTube has brought out a lot more just spontaneous realness because I can do so many more of them. I'm not doing 13 or 26 episodes. I do two or three or four a week, and it's just much more natural. But the concept was the same with Respect Outdoors.

And all of a sudden, me and Sarah get together, and I'm talking with the networks about what my contract's gonna — how much I was gonna owe them for airtime. I'm thinking, man, every time I get a new sponsor, it seems like my airtime goes up equivalent. I'm making no money. I'm working around the clock, and I'm broke as the 10 commandments. And so I was sitting in my kitchen cooking deer meat, a cast iron skillet with a couple back straps sliced up, and I was thinking, okay. I can't do this. What am I gonna do?

And a good friend of mine, Greg Musenidis — Greg, if you hear this podcast, I love you, brother. You mean the world to me. He's like, man, you need to do YouTube. That's where it's all going. You gotta do YouTube. And I thought he was crazy, but I started looking at it. And I said, alright. I'm gonna start a YouTube channel. I said, what am I gonna call this thing? I said, what do I really love in this world? As I'm cooking a cast iron skillet full of deer meat, I'm like, well, heck. I like deer meat. That's for sure. And I said, tell you the truth. And I'm talking out loud to myself. I said, tell you the truth, I really like deer meat for dinner. And I'm just totally joking with myself, and I look on my phone — deermeatfordinner.com — and it's available. I'm like, oh, man. I'm like, hey, honey. You got any space on your credit card? She goes, a little bit. I said, well, I need to use it. I'm gonna buy a domain name. And she's like, you've got to be kidding me. I'm like, no. No. I think this will be cool. Deermeatfordinner.com. That sounds awesome.

And so we just started going, started going, started going and making videos, and it took a couple years. Now I was doing other things — guiding gator hunts, then I got into being a captain again, running a big sport fishing boat. But it started to grow and grow and grow. And once we started picking up steam, I remember laying there in bed talking with Sarah going, honey, this ain't a joke. We have — this is bigger than TV ever was. This is what I dreamed TV would be. And so now we've embraced it. And over the past year, we've gone full time into YouTube, and it's just exploded in opportunity.

But, again, I try to live for today. I'm — ask me what I'm gonna do the rest of the day. I have no idea. I have no idea what I'm gonna do. All I know is I'm gonna do this with you today. Once I get done with that, then I'll say, alright. Now what's next? But I'm very focused on one thing at one time, and that's how Deer Meat for Dinner is. I'll look around at the weather. Well, looks pretty good. It is pretty calm out right now. You could run out, go fishing in the ocean, or I don't wanna be on the ranch because there's no wind. It'd be hot as blue blazes. So everything that I do is based on the weather and how I feel at that moment.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And you are equipped. We're sitting right here in Jupiter, which, man, I don't know how I missed this place for a long time. But over the past few years, you know, I came up here and fished with Ryan Nitz. He introduces me to the place. I see this amazing snook fishery that you have. Then, just recently, we shot over to The Bahamas. We come back. That's what I'm doing on this trip. And I'm like, Jupiter's right there. Again, here's Jupiter. I come through here. Black Tip H is here. You're here. Ryan Nitz is here. Davis Bennett is here. All these people that I know are here, these cool people. You've got this 3,000 acre ranch here. You're hog hunting and deer hunting and doing all this cool stuff. And I seriously don't know how I missed Jupiter. I went right past it to Key West and never stopped. But this place is amazing.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. It is amazing. Take Jupiter — let's use the lighthouse, for example. Go to the lighthouse and take a string and go 100 miles and do a circle around it and see what you can do.

Tom Rowland: Well, that's like what I always say about Yellowstone National Park. It's like people are like, where's the best trout fishing in the world? 200 mile radius around Yellowstone National Park. You just stay in that circle and don't leave, and you're gonna be fine. You'll never run out of things to do. And that's very similar to this and also very similar to like Key West or Duck Key or something like that. If you do that, you got all the Everglades. You got all the offshore. And there are very few places like that. Louisiana is a place like that where you have this amazing offshore fishing, the amazing inshore fishing, the amazing hunting, the amazing freshwater fishing, the amazing opportunities around there. I guess North Carolina kinda comes to mind, or Maryland is another place kinda like that. But they're few and far between. And even in Maryland, the run offshore is so huge.

But here, man, this world that has opened for me now at The Bahamas of just realizing — you know, when you're in Key West, The Bahamas seems like you might as well go to Christmas Island. You might as well go to Canada. I mean, it just seems like a long way away. But we did it, and we run across and have an amazing experience over there. I've been to The Bahamas bonefishing and stuff like that, but never in our own boat, never doing things like that. It's beautiful. It's amazing. It's awesome. The people are fantastic. It's another, like, a foreign experience. You're in a foreign country. There's different currency. There's different food. There's different people. There's different dialects. There's different everything. I loved it. And you've got all of that here.

So you're equipped to do so many things from here. And I'm assuming you've got boats, you've got cars, you've got swamp buggies, you've got — what? How are you equipped?

Robert Arrington: Oh, you know, it's kind of humbling to think. We have a big tour RV, big, old, huge RV that's all wrapped out in Deer Meat for Dinner.

Tom Rowland: I saw a picture of that. You still have that?

Robert Arrington: Oh, yeah, man. I'm not getting rid of that thing. And then we have a real cool buggy. I literally rebuilt the buggy and a Rambo at the exact same time.

Tom Rowland: What's a Rambo?

Robert Arrington: The boat right behind us. That '27 Rambo.

Tom Rowland: Okay.

Robert Arrington: And I've taken that to The Bahamas over 60 times back more. Just running over. I mean, you wanna talk about being spontaneous? I will jump on the boat right now and shoot over there without even thinking about it. In hand. Roll.

So, yeah, I'm very spontaneous. I have the boat. I have the buggy. Got the RV. I got a camp. My camp is totally off the grid, runs strictly on generator power. Me and my wife both drive Chevy Silverados, and we're building a new home out in Jupiter — well, I'm building a home. Everyone, it's in Jupiter Farms. You're wondering where it is? I kinda let that one flip. Stalkers.

We're building a new home right now, and it's been like a newfound thing pretty much everywhere we go now. We have fans. It doesn't matter if it's in the hospital or Publix or everywhere you go or driving down the road. There's our fans, and that's such an honor. And it's a new reality of how do you deal with that. You know, I try to spend time with everyone. Sarah's like, we can't spend an hour with every person that says hello. But it's awesome. And so I just try to utilize my gear, my tools, and my ability to bless a lot of other people.

I'm getting ready to start this thing where I just roll up wherever. The jetty. Hey. What are you doing? Catching any fish? No? You wanna — let's get on, let's go. Because those are people you can learn so much from. They're out there on that jetty or out on that bridge or just wanna go do something.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. What are they doing? Who are they? Why — I mean, this is their time. This is what they choose to do. They're out there by themselves. It's an interesting story on every one of those people.

Robert Arrington: Absolutely. And so the more time I can spend with people like that doing things like that, the better.

Tom Rowland: You know what'll be really cool? Is when you roll up on somebody on that bridge, and you're like, hey, man. I got a livewell full of bait. Come on. Get in. And he's like, dude, why would I wanna go over there? And you're like, hold on a second. Hold on a second. What are you doing? And he's like, I'll tell you what. Why don't you come up here, and let me show you how I'm catching these giant snook underneath this bridge? They're giant snook under that bridge? What? I didn't know that. Yeah. And he's like, yeah. Why don't you leave your camera in the car because I don't want everyone else to know about it. And then that's that white belt mentality. You learn —

Robert Arrington: Ryan Nitz. What the person you just explained is Ryan Nitz. Like, that joker has scales. He is proper.

Tom Rowland: I love Ryan Nitz.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. He's a little clown.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. He's one of my favorite guest shows that we've ever done, and we don't do a lot of guest shows because, you know, I mean, you're doing this. The whole crew, the next person that comes in, especially sports stars or something like that. There are tons of people I would like to invite on the show. Tons of them. But when I contact them, they have this window of, well, could we go get it done in twelve hours? Maybe. But then we end up with a half finished show, and it's no good. It never sees the light of day. So, honestly, we've stayed away from guests.

But Ryan, you know, this world of Instagram — and I've talked about this a bunch of times — is how I found you, how I found Ryan, how I found Davis Bennett, Black Tip H, my friend Graham Talo, my friend Melton Hill Bill, all of these people that have turned into fishing and hunting buddies. Then I'm looking through Instagram like, this guy likes to do the same kind of stuff I do. Man, I'd like to learn how to cut off hog balls like that.

Robert Arrington: Well, we'll go cut one then.

Tom Rowland: I'm all about it. I wanna talk about that because I was watching that, and I gotta tell you, I've never cut hog balls off. So I wanna know about that because we don't have — like, I spent a lot of time in Tennessee, and the hogs haven't made it up there. So I don't have experience with hogs. I didn't grow up with hogs. I don't know anything about it. A little further south, those guys have a lot of experience with hogs, but I don't. So one of the videos that I like of yours is making a boar a bar. So explain that to me. Like, what happens there? A wild pig has balls. They're a boar.

Robert Arrington: That's right.

Tom Rowland: Why do you want to make them a bar?

Robert Arrington: Well, so take our ranch, for example. We have to manage the hog population, and I don't wanna just randomly go out and kill a 100 boar hogs and throw them away because they stink terribly.

Tom Rowland: Okay. So that's where the confusion with me lies. The wild boar is so lean. It's just very —

Robert Arrington: Imagine what you smell like if you were fired up like beyond life and hadn't worn deodorant a day in your life. Right after workout. But you've never worn deodorant a day in your life, and you don't take showers ever.

Tom Rowland: And you're all in mud.

Robert Arrington: And your whole life is about beating up other boar hogs and breeding as many sow hogs as you possibly can. That's a boar hog, and they are vile. I mean, they'll stink up your whole house. Now you can kill a small boar hog.

Tom Rowland: Meat good, though? If you were to go through the process of cleaning it, is it edible?

Robert Arrington: Not a big one. Okay. But now on the flip side, if I take my dogs out or if I set a trap and I catch a boar hog, in a minute, I can cut him. It's a very small incision, grab them, and they're big. A good sized boar hog, his old gonads would be as big as a grapefruit.

Tom Rowland: Grapefruit.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. Or a big lemon, you know, like a big old lemon for sure. Take it, make a small incision in it, and each one of them will be in their own little sack over here, you know, and make your first cut, pull it tight, make your second cut, pop it out, and rip it off.

Tom Rowland: So they're ripping it off. That's what I noticed there. And I was waiting for you to cut. No. That you didn't cut.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. Right. So you just squeeze that out and just went like this, and it's gone. Pull it right off, and it'll go —

Tom Rowland: Like Velcro? Like pulling a key lime off a tree?

Robert Arrington: Yeah. But think — so the vessels and whatnot that they have in there, if you just pull it off, if you rip it off, they'll pull tight. And literally, when they pull and they get tight and they don't bleed, like, literally, when you cut him — showed that on your video. It was cool. There's no blood anywhere. And within all the time, I catch the same boar hog. So I catch him in the trap, cut him, let him go, and I'll catch that joker again. I've caught one five times. Every time I set the trap, I catch the same boar that I've already cut out of that trap.

So now once he's cut, immediately they immediately stop looking for sow hogs. I don't know if I can say it, but I always say — say anything. I say, they stop chasing ass and start eating grass. But, you know, a boar hog will have a big shield. It's called a dermal layer. It's actually bone growing into their skin, and it's a shield. It's crazy. They'll lose that. Once they have — once they lose that the hormone, they'll lose their shield.

Tom Rowland: Really?

Robert Arrington: They'll put on a layer of fat, and they go from being the worst eating wild game in the world to the best eating wild game in the world. Take a 200 pound bar that's got an inch of fat on him. The meat is better than any store bought pork you will ever, ever see.

Tom Rowland: Well, I can believe that. I'm not a big fan of store bought pork. I just — I mean, bacon, who doesn't like bacon?

Robert Arrington: Communists.

Tom Rowland: Communists. That's exactly right. Bacon is the candy of meats. That's awesome. And you can buy store bought. You can buy either this, whatever. All bacon is good.

Robert Arrington: Right.

Tom Rowland: We agree there perfectly. But I think that pigs and hogs are interesting because I've heard other people talk about, you take a domesticated pig and you let it go out into the wild, and they change into a hog. Well —

Robert Arrington: Do they?

Tom Rowland: What's your experience with that?

Robert Arrington: So — and I can show you some really — like, on our ranch, I could show you some really good wild hogs that are — they got a big long nose, big flat forehead, super big shoulders, real small tiny hams, small rear ends, and they're just bad news. They're wild. Now you take a domesticated hog and turn him loose. He may get mean. He may get angry, but it's still gonna be rounded off.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I mean, it's like the guy that hadn't worked out until he's 60. He might get there. You're doing pretty good work. But he's still gonna be kinda rounded off. But the thing that I was hearing about is that they go from being this pink, almost hairless deal to going out. They do — they start growing different hair. They start — you don't see that?

Robert Arrington: That's not true. No. That hog's gonna have that hair, however that's how he is. His personality might change in the wild, but he's not gonna change. His characteristics aren't gonna change. That's a fact.

Tom Rowland: But a pig doesn't go to a hog. I mean, a domesticated pig that gets loose isn't going to turn into some semblance of that.

Robert Arrington: No.

Tom Rowland: Okay. Are those wild hogs gonna just beat the crap out of him when he gets out there?

Robert Arrington: Yeah. But me and my little brother, Gabe — I have one story about this. Out — fifteen years ago, me and my brothers, we hog hunted all the time with our dogs. Gabe had a dog named Red Rock. I had Spot — two proper dogs, good sight hunting dogs. There's the hog. Turn them loose. Pow. Catch him. This guy calls us from, like, a development out here and locks a hatch. He goes, yeah. We got a hog out here messing with our horses and whatnot. And so he gives us the address. We drive out there. I'm like, dude, you're like in the middle of a development. He goes, yeah. The hog — there's a lot down there. Hog walks down this road, goes into our horse pasture there, and fights with our horses and eats all the horse. I'm like, dude, there ain't no way. He goes, yeah. He'll be here at 5:00 today. I said, I'm a bring my little brother. We're gonna check this out. So we got 5:00. Here comes this big old white boar hog walking down the road. I'm like, you wanna see how we fix him?

Gabe's holding Red Rock. I'm holding Spot. Easy boy. That hog beat the brakes off both our dogs and ran right back into them woods where he came from. We went and got other dogs. We never found that hog again. Never. Me and my brother, we've caught thousands of hogs. Me and Gabe still talk about that hog to this day.

Tom Rowland: That's your white whale.

Robert Arrington: Baddest catch dogs you've ever seen got their eyes beat shut by this hog, and he walked off. Like, don't mess with me, guys. And so — but he looked like a domesticated hog that went wild. So I'm not saying it's impossible. It's just not likely that you turn an old domesticated hog loose, and he becomes a serious wild hog. But if you take a domesticated sow and she's gonna get bred by a wild boar hog, and then her piglets will look more and more wild. And then those piglets will get bred with wild, and it'll be more and more wild.

Tom Rowland: Now what if you took a boar and you put him in a pen and you feed him what the other hogs do? Is he going to become more and more domesticated while he's alive? Not his offspring, but that particular hog. You get him out of the woods. You get him out of eating the wild stuff. You put him on the standard feed or whatever you're feeding the pigs. Is he going to undergo a change?

Robert Arrington: This is what change he would undergo. He would probably settle down a little bit because he's a bar. He's gonna settle down. He would definitely put on a lot of weight, but he would probably lull you to sleep. All of a sudden, one day, you'd say, oh, man. Old pork chop, you're doing so good. You jump in there to pat him on the head, and he'd cut your leg wide open and throw you out of the pen.

Tom Rowland: That instinct never leaves.

Robert Arrington: They ain't leaving. Not happening. It's not. I cut a little bar hog in my trap two, three months ago. I caught him. He was so small. His donuts weren't as big as a big pea. Cut him out. I've caught him several times since, and every time I catch him in the trap, he's like, how's it going? Corn. Just me. More Ed. We're good. Just me. He don't even squeal around. I grab him, set him out of the trap. I'm like, dad gum it. So I'm gonna put a tag in his ears so no one kills him.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. He's a cool hog. That's cool. Let's talk about gator hunting, man, because you have an amazing amount of gator experience. Right?

Robert Arrington: Yes, sir. It can be great.

Tom Rowland: How do you become a gator guide?

Robert Arrington: Well, you just — I gotta give a shout out to Brad Gibson, Lee Lightsey, Wade Lightsey, guys that I really started hunting with. I was still in TV then, and I knew it was some cool shows. I had gator hunted, just not properly, before then. And so then come along the public hunt, which is from August. We went out, did some hunts, and I saw right away. I was like, oh, man. I have enough fishing experience. I thought I'm built for this. And so I started getting my own tags and started hunting a lot, and then I had people all over that would see my pictures. Hey. We wanna go. And I say, well, let's book a trip. And so as everything with TV completely died and then the economy dropped out, I had no money. Then I had enough experience and enough clients that I could sell 30, 40, 50 hunts.

Tom Rowland: And where do you do these?

Robert Arrington: Anywhere. So in Florida, they have a lottery system, and there's probably a thousand different zones. Pretty much every body of water will have tags allocated for it. And you go through the lottery process, whatever you get awarded are your tags. Now it's also — I do some things here. So, like, let's say I sell 50 hunts, but I only have my two tags. Then I'll go out and find other people who have tags in that area, and I'll pay them for their time and pay them for their tags.

Tom Rowland: They have to go with you.

Robert Arrington: They have to ride along with me, and my clients get what's called an alligator trapping agent license. Totally legal, 100% by the books. And we'll go out, catch the gators, kill the gators, tag the gators. Once they're tagged, they're my client's gator. So it works real well.

There's a variety of different ways. Sometimes we'll hunt them with a crossbow with a line attached to it and a float. Sometimes we use bow and arrows. Sometimes we'll throw a snatch hook. Sometimes we'll drop a bait, although the bait cannot have a hook in it.

Tom Rowland: So they just hold on to the bait like a blue crab and you just bring them up and then shoot them?

Robert Arrington: No. They'll swallow the bait, and then a lot of times, a big gator is gonna go into deep water. A small gator is gonna bury up in the willows and whatnot. And you'll sort of get around to him, figure out if he's the gator you want. And if he's a big gator, ease him up. I'll put a hook into him or a harpoon dart into him and kill the gator. I made it sound very simple. There's a lot of work that goes into that. But Sarah and I, we've done it piles and piles of times. Every hunt is different. Every night is different.

And it — I've taken a lot of — you know, it's not a cheap hunt. It's pretty expensive hunt. And I've taken people that have hunted all over Africa and all over Southeast Asia, and they're like, this was the craziest thing I've ever done in my life.

Tom Rowland: So you're just going out in, like, a John boat?

Robert Arrington: No. No. We have a 24 foot skiff that's custom made. It's built specifically for it.

Tom Rowland: Lights?

Robert Arrington: Yeah. Well, I'm very into complete darkness with a very, very dim light. I'm all about very dim. So on every body of water that you'll ever see, somewhere from that body of water, you'll see a streetlight, or if it's super dark, you'll see a star. I want my light to be so dim that it appears to be a streetlight or a light in the distance.

Tom Rowland: Makes a lot of sense.

Robert Arrington: Although it's actually me being very close to them. I mean, we could talk for two days about gator hunting.

Tom Rowland: Well, I don't know anything about it. I wanna do it. And what made me wanna do it the most is watching you skin the gator and using every piece of meat and seeing the carcass when it's done. And the ribs — like, that's what really — I was like, man, I wanna do that.

Robert Arrington: Well, you're not gonna have to wait long. We'll apply for tags, and we'll hunt this year.

Tom Rowland: Let's do it. Because I got two boys that crazy about hunting.

Robert Arrington: Easy.

Tom Rowland: I wanna do that because I love eating stuff. Like, there's certain things. I love duck hunting. I mean, I love duck hunting. It is really fun.

Robert Arrington: You don't like to eat them.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And so it kinda — you know, I'll choke them down. But I love eating. I love hunting something that is really good to eat. I love fishing for something that is really good to fish for. And that's the thing with fishing — if you don't wanna eat it, you just throw it back. Right? And it swims off, and everybody's good. But in the hunting, there's this finality. And then it's like, if I'm not gonna eat it, then it just took something out of this whole thing for me. And it's — you know, I'll have a party, and everybody can come over, and we'll have the bacon wrapped duck. And, you know, you're an awesome cook, and I wanna talk about your cooking. But maybe you can tell me how to cook a duck to where it tastes better. But duck and geese both — I have just — I mean, I've tried a lot of different recipes. Pretty much tastes like bacon with something in the middle that you don't really wanna eat. I'd just rather eat the bacon.

Robert Arrington: Yep. Keys to cooking duck are: A, clean — a lot of people will let the — you know, duck's insulated, so he's got a lot of heat wrapped up inside his body. So they'll let him sit on the front of their boat until two in the afternoon. So they've already heat rotted them that way.

Tom Rowland: Even if it's cold? Because, like, where we're hunting, it's very cold.

Robert Arrington: Okay. So you're in Arkansas or something. Okay. Even still, you'd be amazed how warm they are on the inside. We hunt here in Florida, so it'd be 85 degrees on a good morning. Not quite that warm, but you know what I'm saying? Clean your ducks as soon as you can. Put them in a good saltwater ice bath. The saltwater ice bath will cool them down real nice. The salt will start to extract some of the blood out of them. But the key is to make a really good brine. Your brine — so you can take fresh herbs, honey, cinnamon sticks, salt, black pepper, boil that down, a lot of brown sugar. You're gonna make this beautiful brine, and then get the brine out. Let the brine cool down. Throw them — like in Arkansas, wherever you are, take all your duck breasts, man. Make you a big, huge brine. And as you're killing all your ducks, just keep throwing them breasts in your brine, and just let them sit in there for a day, two, three days, and they'll start taking on the flavors of the brine. And so instead of it having that liver type flavor and that chalk, it'll start having a much more eloquent and robust flavor.

Tom Rowland: Couple days in that brine. Now somebody told me a recipe about duck, and it was similar that you marinate them in kerosene, and then you flambe them.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. Yeah. There you go.

Tom Rowland: So how did you become the cook, the chef that you are? Is this out of necessity? Is this trained? What is this?

Robert Arrington: Necessity is the mother of all invention. That's right. I reverse engineer everything. I'll see something, or I'll get an idea, and then I figure out how to make the idea. I'll see a picture of something. Or if I'm in a restaurant and I taste something, I'm like, crap. Now I gotta figure out how did they get that. Someone made it. Someone made that. So I gotta figure out now how I can make that.

And I use a lot of Everglades seasoning. That's pretty much made. That'll help anyone be a better chef or cook. And it goes back — whenever the first mate job I ever had, I was working for a captain named Captain Rusty Nixdorf on the Speed Merchant. And we're going over to Bahamas Blue Marlin Fishing, and he says, go over to Grand Slam, pick up a case of mullet, this, that, and the other, split tail mullets. I show up to Grand Slam. You know, I'm a young kid.

Tom Rowland: How old?

Robert Arrington: 20. And before then, I was — that was my first real sport — I had been on some other little sport fish, that was my first sport fishing job. And Rusty was a serious captain that would not take any lip at all. He'd hit you with a gaff upside the head. And so he tells me to go down and pick up a case of split tail mullets, mackerels, this and the other. And they were like — I don't even remember how much. Let's say it was $500 for that case of mullet. I'm like, no, dude. I don't want anything rigged. I just want mullet. They're like, yeah. That's what they are. They're seven dollars and fifty cents each. I'm like, alright.

That's an idea. Go back to Rusty. I said, Cap, if I catch all the mullet and figure out how to make them split tail mullets, you pay me. He goes, if they're as good as those, I'll pay you. I'm like, hot diggity. Came out here, started firing a net, catching silver mullets, brined them up. Took me probably 10 or 15 baits to really figure out how to split the tail perfect, cut the rib cage out, break the backbone, make the notch in the head, pull it all out. Once I got them flat, heck, man. Then on, I was catching all the mullet.

Tom Rowland: It's a lot of money for a 20 year old.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. You make an extra $200, $300, $400 here and there. That's awesome. And so that's like how my life has been. How do you figure out — oh, well, if I can do that, make a little bit of extra money, or if I wanna go on this trip or if I wanna go do all this, my job now pays my bills and pays this, that, and the other. But if I want something extra, I gotta do side jobs. And I got that from my dad. Like, my dad is a subcontractor. He owns a big bobcat business, and he and my brother have it together. And dad was always about his side job. Side jobs paid for all our vacations and paid for all of our extra stuff. Side job was extra work that you did to make extra money to do extra things.

And so now, it's, oh, we're building a new home? That means I've gotta start adding in extra videos. I gotta do extra work to pay for extra things. And people that feel entitled to everything, like, oh, I should just have this — I don't relate with them at all because we aren't entitled to much in this world other than the opportunity to breathe and work and get out there and earn it. And so I try to show that on my channel. I don't want anything for free. I wanna earn what I've got.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's a great attitude and one that's rare in this world today with some people. But the hard work and dedication — I like that story because with those side jobs and with the mullet comes the understanding of where those mullet live, comes the understanding of then if they're mullet, there's probably snook, maybe tarpon. Then you are — while you're doing the offshore fishing, you're learning the inshore fishing because if you know the bait, you know the fish. I mean, is that an ancillary benefit to that that you've learned late that you found later? Like, I know where the bait is.

Robert Arrington: All along. Where do you find hungry people? At restaurants and grocery stores. Okay. So if I was trying to catch a hungry human, I'd go sit up in front of Jetty's restaurant on the river there, or I'd go sit out in front of Publix with hot dogs. But you wanna find fish, find bait. So go hunt bait. If you're out there fishing offshore and you're not marking bait anywhere, you're probably not gonna catch anything. You understand?

Tom Rowland: Unless you've got all the bait with you, and you can create a bait.

Robert Arrington: But then you're doing something special. But I spend a lot of time in the water. Free diving has been a huge part of my life. And so the more time I'm in the water watching what fish are doing in the water and how they react in the water really helps you when you're out of the water.

The cooking — cooking is just — I do not wanna kill anything I can't eat. Deer are too beautiful. If I didn't love — I would say deer meat is, like, I don't know, my favorite food in the world. I just love deer meat. Like, I just am addicted to it.

Tom Rowland: More so than — I mean, you have some elk experience. Right?

Robert Arrington: I've — yeah. I've killed elk. I do like elk.

Tom Rowland: But deer meat.

Robert Arrington: That's it. I just love — man, a good — like, my mom. Whenever I was a kid, I always hunted out in the backwoods. It was about a quarter mile, half mile to the southeast of our house. I hunted with a BB gun. I'd kill every squirrel, dove, quail, anything I could find with that BB gun. But I'd bring them back to the house, clean them up. We'd freeze them. And when I got enough to make a big pot of food, we'd make a big pot of food. But anytime I was out there, our predominant wind is out of the Southeast. If I could smell her pan frying deer meat, it was like, oh, heaven tonight. Go home. She had just take it.

Tom Rowland: Hunt's over.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. We're going home, boys. She had salt and pepper it, roll it in flour, and pan fry it in a little either bacon grease or oil or whatnot, and it just tasted different when she did it. And to this day, if I go over and she's cooking dinner, I'm like, there's just nothing in the world that tastes better to me than mama's pan fried deer meat.

And so I love — I think it's a lot about respect to the animal. When I catch a fish, a lot of people, especially that don't know any better, they catch a fish. There's a cooler full of ice there. They just throw the fish in on the ice. He flops around on a bunch of ice cubes, and it really doesn't do much. Make a nice ice brine, throw the fish in on the ice brine, locks them up really quick, cools them to the core, come home, take a really good sharp fillet knife, make perfect cuts. And now you have fish that was caught, well taken care of, cleaned perfectly, and now I have a canvas. Okay? So now I take the canvas back to the kitchen and make some kind of artistic painting. And it's just — it's about full circle.

Tom Rowland: Well, let me ask you that. Is that because when you're talking about this, there's this passion of the whole process. Is there one part of that process that you are enjoying more than the other?

Robert Arrington: No, sir.

Tom Rowland: That's what I thought.

Robert Arrington: No, sir.

Tom Rowland: That's what I thought, and that's what comes through in your video. And I don't know if you mean for it to — but the way that you're talking about that is about the whole process. It's about catching the bait. And catching the bait is just as much fun as now you're moving out to wherever you're gonna fish. And now you found the fish, and that's exciting. And now you bait the bait. You throw it out there. You catch the fish. That's exciting. But then there's this whole, oh, I've gonna — and then I'm gonna take care of it perfectly, and it's going right in this ice bath, and it's gonna be perfect, and then we're gonna go home. You know what I'm gonna do with this?

And that is very similar to my friend Scott Walker, who's the host at Into the Blue. And when he catches something, he's already, like, it's already turning. He's like, I got some cracker crumbs for you, and I got this, and my green egg is — I'm gonna call my wife, and she's gonna start the green egg. And it's like all in there, and he knows. He's got it all going. He's like, Saturday is your day, buddy. And I got friends coming over to watch the game, and you are the star attraction. And I just love that.

And somehow, like, I love eating the fish, and I love doing all these things. But somehow, I have missed that enjoyment of actually cooking. And maybe that's because I married a wonderful southern woman who loves to cook and takes care of all of us and does that. But that's what I think really comes through in your videos — is this — you call it — you title your videos catch, clean, cook. And I think that's one of the reasons — I mean, do you think that's one of the reasons why you're having such success with this channel? Because if it was just catch, maybe. There's lots to catch. Right. And there's lots of catching. Maybe there's some cleaning. Maybe there's some cooking. But the way that you're doing this — and I really think that's the secret to your success on this — is that you enjoy and respect and appreciate the entire process from — maybe you don't like washing the dishes, and maybe you don't like scrubbing the boat, but from here to there.

Robert Arrington: Have people been telling you about me?

Tom Rowland: No.

Robert Arrington: Okay. Well, you nailed it on the head.

Tom Rowland: No. I — you know? And this is one of my favorite podcasts yet because I don't really know a lot about you. But it's almost like when I met Graham Talo and started spending time with him. And if you don't know Graham Talo, we could be triplets. Like, I mean, it's — I met him, and I'm like, dang, dude. Like, I think we're brothers from somehow. Like, I love you, man. And so Graham and I go fishing, and we go turkey hunting, and he's just got this unbelievable passion. And it's like, man, I don't hang out with a lot of people that got that same passion, that same deal.

But that's one of the things that I like about this conversation is that I really don't know that much about you, but it's what you see is what you get. And you can't fake passion. You can't fake interest. You can't fake enthusiasm. You can't fake knowledge. I mean, you can't like — I'm watching you, and I'm waiting when I'm watching these videos. I'm waiting for you to just not do it right, but you're cleaning a gator with the skill of someone who has cleaned thousands of gators. You're doing all of these things. That's what I was impressed with. I'm like, this guy's a real deal. Like, yeah. I don't know anything about you. But just from the videos and talking about you, I mean, you seem like the real deal.

Robert Arrington: Well, I appreciate it. There's so — a lot of y'all that are listening to the podcast and that watch the videos, there are things I — I am like a very unorganized human. I have to make — I have to go to great lengths to make things easy to keep organized and to keep clean. My wife is amazing. She cleans my office for me. She'll clean out my truck for me. She does — I mean, I'm like — I'm like the boat going down the river. I leave a wake of disastrous mess behind me.

Tom Rowland: And I know some other people like that too.

Robert Arrington: Yeah. So I leave this crazy — I'm — and I have this thing. I leave stuff in my cooler all the time and forget about it, and she's like, honey. I'm like, oh, god. What did I do? I know I did something.

Tom Rowland: Well, this will sum up my friend Graham Talo in one story. He goes and he has taught these fish how to eat this bait, and they're gonna be there. And he has created this fishery out of a fishery that didn't exist before, and he does it by catching shad, taking them, transporting them. It's a massive project. He's covered — in the first time I ever meet him, he is covered in scales like the Tin Man. He looks like the Tin Man, and I'm like, wow. I already like this guy. He's totally covered in scale. Hey, man. How's it going? I've been up since two. We're all set. Let's go. I'm like, damn. Perfect. This is — and there's just this reeking of you might as well have left the bait in the cooler overnight and opened the lid. Right?

And so Graham goes home to his wife, and she's like, Graham, get in here. And he's like, what, honey? What is going on? And she says, I can take a lot of things, but I can't take this. And she pulls his blue jeans up, and she goes, these went through the washing machine, and there's, like, a pocket full of shad. And so that's him all the time, every 24/7 — just, he might have a — he might be turkey hunting, and he's got a pocket full of shad because it's just a constant. He's just always — if he's not turkey hunting, he's over here looking at these fish. And if he's not doing that, he's over here looking at these deer. And if he's not doing that, maybe he's trying to hog hunt or he's trying to do this or he's getting ready to go yellowfin tuna fish. He's just 24/7 going, going, going. You guys remind me a lot of each other.

Robert Arrington: Graham, wherever you are, brother, we gotta set something up.

Tom Rowland: We're hooking up. We're gonna go gator hunting. I think that's what we should do. Go gator hunting with Graham. That would be amazing.

Robert Arrington: Well, we can hog hunt on the ranch beforehand. We can hog hunt, have big time there, and then in the afternoons, go gator hunting. That'll be piece of cake. No worries whatsoever. And this has been a lot of fun.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. It has been. I really enjoy these conversations because you just get to know people in the industry, and I figure if somebody's doing the same type of thing, chances are you're probably close to the same type of person. I don't know. I don't get along with everybody, but I try to be. I mean, in this world, you need to try to be friends with everybody.

But just a couple more questions. So you look like you — you're fit. You're staying in shape. Are you doing that purposefully? Life is my gym. Is that right? You're just hunting. See, there's Graham Talo again. He just runs 15 miles to go check on the turkeys and check a trail cam, and then he's back out. That's it.

Robert Arrington: You know? People are like, hey, Rob. You look like you lost a little bit of weight. Yeah. Lighten the camp.

Tom Rowland: Went to The Bahamas.

Robert Arrington: Oh my goodness. It's, you know, free diving. From now through summer, I'll free dive a lot a lot a lot. Free diving.

Tom Rowland: That'll do it.

Robert Arrington: Constant up, down, up, down, hardcore in, out. Go, go, go, go. Most people don't realize when you're on a boat a lot, your body is shifting and adjusting for weight change constantly. That's why someone new gets on the boat. At the end of the day, they're literally like you just pulled the plug out of them.

Tom Rowland: Wiped out.

Robert Arrington: Wiped out. Wiped out. And so I try to stay fit, mentally, physically. I try very hard to separate. So YouTube is our full time job. It's a full time lifestyle making videos, doing what we do. And over the past few months, I've really started to make conscious efforts to turn it off at times. Turn the phone off, put everything away because, you know, my daughters, Ari and Emma, and my wife, Sarah — you only have a certain amount of time together, and tomorrow is not promised to anybody.

So I try to turn it off and just look at them and appreciate them for that day. Like, Emma's eight or nine months now. She's never gonna be nine months again. I gotta enjoy these days with her. If I'm holding her and she's looking at me, she's got these two little cute teeth. I let her bite on my fingers and tickle her. And with Aria, I always tell her the doctor has to look for the tickle bugs. And I actually try to really consciously look and, like, absorb those memories because they're fleeting, and they're not gonna last forever. And I don't wanna get ten years down the road and go, man, I wish I would have done more of that.

And Sarah, she's such an encouragement to — hey, honey. Let's do this, or let's do that, or, you know, look at Aria looking at you. And so I try very hard to do my best with YouTube, but at the same time, my biggest mission in life is to be a father and a husband. And so how to turn one off and to really focus on being the other.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, there's no better mission in life than that. That's in my opinion, that's your duty as a man that has a family — is to take care of that family and do the very best you can for the family. And there's a fine line and a balance between doing what you need to do to take care of your family financially but also to take care of your family emotionally and to be there for the support and to be there for always. And that's the real balance. And it's like, you start putting too much over here, and this suffers. You start putting too much over here, and this suffers. And it takes a special person, and it takes a special time management, I think.

And what it turns out to me is, like, when we set this up, you were like, you a morning guy? I'm like, if he only knew. Like, that's where the hours come. Like, you're not getting more hours later in the night. Maybe when your kids are your age, but when they — and let me tell you something, man. I got three kids. I'm a little bit ahead of you in age and in kids, but my son's gonna turn 21. My other son just turned 18. He's getting ready to go to college, and all of a sudden, both are gonna be gone. And my daughter's 14. And I can remember you talking about those two teeth and the whole deal. And I just when you said that, I had these flashes of every one of my kids with that same little deal. And then my oldest son, he lost his two teeth really early. Actually, something happened. They had to pull his front two teeth, and he didn't have two teeth for years. Like, he just had this smile, like, yeah. All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. Well, that happened for about five Christmases. So he had that, but I just had that flash of all of that. Like, wow.

And, man, I'm telling you, you are dead on that it is fleeting. And, I mean, people ask me all the time, like, how was your kid? I'm like, 20 — I mean, did I just say he's 20? Because, man, it seems like just exactly yesterday that I was doing that. But maintain that, man, and stay on it. And I was gonna ask you that, how you are managing that. But one thing is that you seem to be comfortable bringing your family into the YouTube. And then that allows you to design your life to where you can be doing all of these things. So making videos doesn't necessarily mean no family time. Making three videos a week instead of two videos a week doesn't necessarily mean that you're away from the family. But is that a conscious decision between you and your wife that your family is going to be part of this whole online persona?

Robert Arrington: Yeah. Whenever we started, whenever it all started, it was about Sarah and I's life. And as Ari and Emma have come along, it's become about their life, and it's about our family. And that's what I think one of the biggest problems in this world right now is the lack of family structure, the lack of solid parenting, being there, the support. And I know what it's meant to me, and so I'll do everything in my power to have a solid family structure in my home where we sit down and say blessing and eat as a family and do things as a family. That's number one.

And then we have support. You know, my cameraman, John McRoberts, is a great guy. He's a huge part of our family and does what we do and fits in seamlessly, and he takes a huge burden off of me. Sometimes he buries me in footage, and I tell him we don't need five hours of footage. We need an hour of good footage. He's like, well, I might miss something. I'm like, well, don't miss anything. Just shoot what you gotta shoot. And we have a very brotherly type relationship banging on one another.

But it all goes and comes. My favorite saying with Sarah is the ocean's not always calm. Ocean's not always rough. Okay? When the ocean is rough, we look forward to the ocean being calm. When the ocean is calm, we're gonna enjoy it and realize that it ain't gonna be calm forever. So you're gonna have ups and downs. If it weren't for the valleys, all the mountains would just be flat. So when you're in the valley, you can look up and you can appreciate the beauty of the mountain top. When you're on the mountain top, you can look down, you can see the valley and realize how far you've come, and then try to be humble and appreciative of where you are and how you can see. You can also see where you've come and how many other people might be in valleys.

And I'm a very emotional guy, and so I bear the burden of my friends and subscribers — you hear these heart wrenching stories. You're like, man, dang gum. It's tough. So I try my best to do my best and to appreciate where I am, what I have.

Tom Rowland: Man. Awesome, dude. I don't know if we could ever end a podcast better than that. You are — you know? I love it when this happens because I have an idea of what I'm gonna encounter if I see somebody. But one of the things that I like so much about this podcast is when are you and I ever going to have a chance to sit down for an hour and fifteen minutes, one on one, no phones, no interruptions, to really connect. And this is how people used to connect, and this is how you connect in the deer blind. This is how you connect in the duck blind. Like, you're sitting there talking. Nothing else is going on, and that's really missing.

But, honestly, man, you — you're a beast. I love it. I love your attitude. I love what you've created. I wish you all the best in it. If I can help you in any way possible, I'm there for you. And I'm gonna take you up on the gator hunt. I'm bringing Graham Talo.

Robert Arrington: That's big. Bring them boys too.

Tom Rowland: I will, buddy. That's nice, man. Thanks so much for doing this, man. It was really, really great. I know that my audience is gonna love it. I hope you push it out to your audience. They're gonna see a different side of you, a couple stories they've never heard before.

Robert Arrington: Awesome. You're the best.

Tom Rowland: Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Wow. Robert Arrington. Man, that dude knows a lot of stuff, and he's very enthusiastic and grateful and thankful. And that was a great interview. Great podcast. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did, let me know. Podcast at saltwaterexperience.com. If you got other guests that you think would be as good or better than Robert Arrington as a podcast guest, let me know that too. I'd love to hear if you have some suggestions like that. Robert Arrington was a suggestion from our audience. It worked out beautifully. He was an awesome guest, and I look forward to doing that alligator hunt with him. Bring my friend, Graham Talo down because, man, those guys are like brothers. Anyway, we've got other great guests coming up. Ryan Nitz, Davis Bennett, and way, way more. So stay tuned for that. Hit subscribe, send me an email, and I'll see you on the next one.

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