Ryan Hanks is an angler whose fishing life spans two very different worlds, the freshwater of Georgia's Lake Lanier and the brutal saltwater pursuit of giant trevally in Australia. On this episode of the Tom Rowland Podcast, he tells me how he learned to fish one of the South's most popular lakes, what it is like to chase one of the hardest-fighting fish in the ocean halfway around the world, and how those experiences sharpen each other. It is a conversation about range, adventure, and the obsession that pulls anglers across the planet.
Ryan Hanks is an angler with experience that ranges from fishing Georgia's Lake Lanier to traveling internationally for big-game saltwater species like giant trevally in Australia. He brings a broad perspective shaped by both freshwater and demanding saltwater fishing.
Lake Lanier is a large, popular reservoir in Georgia known for its fishing, particularly its spotted and largemouth bass and striped bass. Hanks talks about learning the lake and what makes it a rewarding and challenging fishery.
Giant trevally, or GT, are among the most powerful and aggressive fish an angler can target. Hanks describes the physical, often punishing experience of chasing them in Australia and why they have such a reputation among serious anglers.
Hanks traveled to Australia to pursue giant trevally, a long way from his home waters on Lake Lanier. He talks about what drew him to that fishery and what the trip was actually like.
Hanks contrasts the finesse and familiarity of fishing a home lake with the raw power and intensity of saltwater giant trevally. He explains how skills and lessons carry between the two very different worlds.
Hanks talks about the obsession that pushes anglers to travel across the world for a single species, the challenge, the adventure, and the pull of testing yourself against the toughest fish out there.
One of my favorite things about fishing is its range, the same passion can have you on a quiet Georgia lake one month and bracing against a giant trevally on the other side of the world the next. Ryan Hanks lives in both of those worlds, and I wanted to hear how he moves between them. The contrast between Lake Lanier and chasing GTs in Australia is exactly the kind of story that reminds me how far this obsession can take you.
Lake Lanier is a big, busy, rewarding fishery, and learning it takes time. Hanks talks about how he came to understand the lake and the species it holds, and what made it a foundation for the rest of his fishing. Listen to how he cracked the home water in the episode.
GTs are among the most punishing fish in the ocean, and Hanks does not sugarcoat what it takes to land one. He describes the power, the intensity, and the gear that gets tested to its limit. Hear him take you into the fight in the conversation.
Going from a Georgia lake to Australia for a single species says a lot about the pull of this sport. Hanks talks about the adventure and obsession that drive anglers to chase fish across the planet. Press play to hear what makes it worth the trip.
Hanks finds that the finesse of lake fishing and the brute force of saltwater GT fishing each make him better at the other. He explains how lessons carry between two very different worlds. Listen to his full take in the episode.
The day after this conversation, what stuck with me was the range of Ryan's fishing life. The same person who knows a Georgia lake intimately also braved one of the hardest saltwater fish on earth, and he sees them as part of the same pursuit.
The deeper lesson is that the more kinds of fishing you expose yourself to, the better an angler you become. Every new water and species teaches something that travels back home with you.
Listen to the whole thing. It is a great reminder of how far this sport can take you.
The Tom Rowland Podcast brings you long-form conversations with the most accomplished anglers, hunters, conservationists, and outdoor professionals in the game. Listen to every full-length Tom Rowland Podcast interview.
Ryan Hanks is an angler whose experience spans freshwater fishing on Georgia's Lake Lanier and international big-game saltwater trips, including chasing giant trevally in Australia. That range gives him a broad perspective on the sport, from the finesse of a familiar home lake to the raw intensity of one of the ocean's hardest-fighting species. He represents the kind of angler whose obsession carries them across very different waters and around the world.
Full episode transcript. Section headings link to that moment in the video above.
Tom Rowland: What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the podcast today. We've got a great conversation that is of interesting angle. What in the world does giant trevally fishing have to do with large mouth bass fishing and tournament large mouth bass fishing? And that is exactly what's going on. There is a company, an Australian company, that is making lures that have been very effective in tournament bass fishing, largemouth bass fishing, and they're making quite a splash. I had two of my favorite conversations with these Australian guys, Mick Guthrie and GT Buster. Ben is an animal. These conversations were really cool. You can go find those conversations, by looking at up those podcasts for GT Buster or Mick Guthrie. Today's guest is one of their business partners, Ryan Hanks. He shows a lot of different things that we talk about, different lures as we're talking here. And, if you're just listening to this podcast on audio, and you're interested in seeing the lures and the way that he's rigging them and talking about them, you can go to Tom Rowland Podcast YouTube channel. Just search Tom Rowland Podcast on YouTube. It'll pop up, and it will be this episode with Ryan Hanks. You can see those lures and how he's rigging them if you get lost in the conversation, for the audio. So here's a great conversation with Ryan Hanks. Here we go.
Ryan Hanks: I'm Ryan Hanks, and this is the Tom Rowland podcast.
Tom Rowland: What's up, Ryan?
Ryan Hanks: Doing good, man. How are you doing?
Tom Rowland: Today? I'm great, man. I'm glad to have you on here. I was just telling you before, some of my favorite podcasts were with a couple of the other guys from from CAST and Ron Lee, Ben
Ryan Hanks: and Mick. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Ben and Mick. They those are wild men, especially Ben.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. Ben is, the only way Ben lives his life, he's like a pit bull. He's either a 100% going or he's sleeping.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. So he's, I've gone
Ryan Hanks: on some adventures with that guy. He's, he's pushed me close to the edge of my comfort zone quite a few times.
Tom Rowland: How did you even How do you even end up meeting somebody like that?
Ryan Hanks: I moved down to Florida. I used to live up in Georgia. I fish Lake Lanier a lot. And I was all into bass fishing. Artificials is my deal, right? And I got down to Florida and what I noticed was most guys are using bait down here. You know what I'm saying? That's the thing. And I wanted to still use, buy artificial lures. And I met up with a buddy at a tackle shop and he's like, You know, have you ever caught a snook? Have you ever caught a tarpon? They'll eat those big swimbaits. And pretty much after I met that guy, I was ruined for the next two summers. I think I was out fishing bridges and passes from Clearwater to Sarasota every night for snook, and I saw these guys on YouTube called CAST, and they were catching giant trevally on the Great Barrier Reef. And I was like, Yeah, I was like, That's exactly what I want to do. And, you know, I didn't do much social media stuff or anything like that at the time, but I wanted to I wanted to do what they were doing over here. So the closest thing we had was Amberjack.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm.
Ryan Hanks: So we went offshore. I filmed the whole thing throwing stick baits for Amberjack. And I remember I sent it to Ben Jones, GT Buster. And this is real funny. I didn't even know what an Instagram story was. Like, I was just totally tuned out of social media. Right? And I remember he put up a video of my video and he was like, Oh, the legend Ryan Hanks. And I felt like I was the man. Then once I got over there, I realized that they call everybody a legend every five minutes. So I wasn't as special after that. But I met those guys and I talked to them a lot about what it takes to catch a GT. They were super cool. They gave me advice on gear. And I basically, a couple years after that, melted a credit card and went on my first time ever out of the country to The Maldives. And I fished there and caught my first GT. That was an amazing experience. It gave me the travel bug. You know, I went on that trip only just I didn't even realize the culture shock I was about to see it and what it was like. And, you know, I went on that trip just thinking about the GT. And when we got there, had some really cool things happen. So we flew to Male, right, which is the capital. And we were gonna take a little charter plane out to Baa Atoll, but none of us could wait. We wanted to go fishing. We ran right into the ocean, and their beaches aren't really like ours. There's a lot of coral. And I ended up cutting my foot on a piece of coral and walking back in. And there was a local guy, and he said something to me. So I walked over to him and he pulled a squid out of his pocket. And he said to me, Do you have one of these for lunch? And I was like, No, I didn't know we were supposed to be out here catching squid. And he was like, Well, where are you staying? And I showed him and he said, Oh, well, I'll bring it by for lunch. And I think we ended up doing something so we weren't there. But immediately the impact that showed me here I am, if I went any further, I'd be closer to home around the globe. This guy doesn't know me from anywhere and he's willing to split his lunch with me. And so that trip really became so much more about the people. While I was there, I met a guy named Addie on Instagram. And he, him and his father build, find wood on the island on Baa Atoll to take European tourists popping for GT. And he came and found me where I was staying, and he invited me over to his house, Right? And when I say his house, I mean a shack on the end of a road. Right? And his father couldn't speak English, but I remember, you know, we were drinking out of coconuts because alcohol is illegal over there. Right? And I remember this moment. And his father, he wanted to see the fish of America. So of course, I'm showing him me and Tyler's big tarp and trying to show him all the big fish. And he tells Addie, he says, Tell him to tell him it's a very small fish. And I was like, Once again, we are on the other side of the world. Us fishermen are just the same. We're the exact same people. And, I remember the last night we were there, we went out to dinner and I was, I went up to the rooftop and I was looking out and they were doing the Muslim prayer over the intercom as the sun was setting. And I couldn't understand anything they were saying, but those were powerful moments. And it really just lit a fire onto me to to want to travel, to learn about other type of fishing Yeah. To do that stuff.
Tom Rowland: So that guy was he was finding wood on the island to make lures out of?
Ryan Hanks: Building He built a boat.
Tom Rowland: We built a boat.
Ryan Hanks: He built a boat, and then he would have guys come, and he would charter them around the islands around Baa Atoll, around the Atoll Okay. With XGT.
Tom Rowland: Did he have a motor?
Ryan Hanks: A little motor. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Okay.
Ryan Hanks: So we didn't fish with that guy. We fished with another operation we were there. But it was cool to see them be resourceful in in what they do. And they caught some incredible fish off that little boat.
Tom Rowland: He showed
Ryan Hanks: me a lot of pictures.
Tom Rowland: So he thought that the tarpon that you and Tyler Capella caught was small?
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. He was a big fish. Yeah. He was just trying to tease me and razz me like we all do as fishermen, and that was that was funny to me. You know what I'm saying?
Tom Rowland: So why did you pick The Maldives for the first trip?
Ryan Hanks: So I had some friends, a guy named Cortland and Brian. I don't know if you ever heard of a company called NLO. They make slow pitch jigs and stuff. And they would go on a lot of these trips, these sort of like bar destination popping trips. And I ended up linking up with those guys and they said, Hey, we got an extra spot if you want to join this trip. And so I jumped on it because it was a chance to travel with other Americans, other guys who had done this before. This was my first time ever out of the country. I couldn't have picked a further place, right? So you want the comfort of traveling with some guys you know and getting through all that. I think we flew Fort Fort Lauderdale to Dubai, Dubai to Male, Male to Baa Atoll. So it was quite clear. How long a trip
Tom Rowland: was that? What was the longest flight? Fourteen hours? I think I want to say it was seventeen hours was the longest part of the flight
Ryan Hanks: from consideration is first off, most of the time you're leaving from either your winter or your summer to their winter and summer. Yeah. So, and then also the jet lag. And for any of your guys listening on here, when you're fishing for a GT, you're normally throwing a Stella 14K to an 18K and a big popping rod all day. Let me show you. And lures like this size right here. Yes.
Tom Rowland: You know
Ryan Hanks: what I'm saying? And I mean, you can't tell from where I'm sitting. I have been going to the gym, but I've got quite the dad bod. So me, you'd be out in the sun coming from my winter throwing these lures, I mean, my arm would be numb. And then finally, that's when the GT would hit. And you- - Of course. You have 100 to 200 pound braid to a 200 pound leader, and you lock the top of that, and it pulls your body forward. So it was pretty wild.
Tom Rowland: Did you have good success catching the big ones on the first trip?
Ryan Hanks: So I did. I got very lucky. The first day I was there, I caught my biggest GT, and something we'll probably get into a little while later, was the way I caught that GT was pretty interesting. There was a guy named, there's a company called Siren Lures that makes sinking stick baits. They make a lot for bluefin up in like Cape Cod and everything. And I had one of his sinking stick baits. And what we noticed, the guys would throw the popper right up on the atoll, like right on the reef edge or on the coral. And we were getting like a few They would come up and follow it or you'd get a few blow ups. It wasn't super successful. And from my bass fishing knowledge and fishing on Lake Lanier, we fish points a lot, right? So, I waited my turn to get to that point and I threw that siren sinking stick bait just how back home on Lake Lanier we would throw a jerk bait over a point and catch a spotted bass and one slammed it. And so then we all started throwing the sinking stickbaits off points after that and got some good fish. So Nice.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. That was You know, the Jack Crevelle and the, and the GT are similar. And, like, when I first started fishing for Jack Crevelle, it was all on the surface. Like, that's what everybody said. You know, poppers and and popping flies and things that make lots of of noise and stuff. But then one of my friends is like, man, they they love jigs. Right? Yeah. They will eat a jig way better.
Ryan Hanks: Way better. They will hunt better. A way better.
Tom Rowland: I mean, it's
Ryan Hanks: We just like the top water because it's so visual, you know.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Of course. I mean, that's, like, super cool. I, didn't have that experience when I went for GTs on the first time. I went to I've I've fished a few places where they are, Christmas Island a couple of times.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah.
Tom Rowland: And, you know, I got to fish for some really, really big ones there, but they they wouldn't bite. Yeah. It can be tough.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. It can be tough. I mean, that that Maldives trip, I don't think we caught a ton that trip. Mhmm. When I got to go visit Ben and Mick in Australia, we caught a lot more.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. I bet. So I mean, God, those guys are, like, living on the edge. I mean, where where Ben was telling me about how he was going, as far as he could possibly get in the car and then going as far as he could possibly go in the boat,
Ryan Hanks: and like It's insane. No. But I I'm not exaggerating at all when I say that that they're the craziest people I've ever met. What tell me what
Tom Rowland: it's like to to leave The United States
Ryan Hanks: Damn it.
Tom Rowland: And go visit those guys. Having never met them in person, I'm assuming that that's how it went down. Right?
Ryan Hanks: So I've been there twice. They killed me the second trip, but I'll tell you, the first trip Well, see, they actually came here, I wanna say about five, six years ago. They visited ICAST.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Ryan Hanks: They came over with a company called FishAngler App, And I met those guys down in Fort Lauderdale, and we went and fished and caught peacock bass and snakeheads and stuff down there in the drain. So I knew them, and I already kinda knew how crazy they were. Plus, we were in a little I'm in an Instagram group with a bunch of other cast guys in Australia, and I can see the way they talk to each other. Yeah. So I did kind of, like, prepare myself a little. So what I'm saying about?
Tom Rowland: Before we before we go any further, I've done podcasts with both of these guys. So for anybody that's listening that doesn't know what we're talking about, did one with, Ben and his he goes by GT Buster. That is somebody that you definitely wanna follow on Instagram. Very interesting and entertaining account, but you can also listen to the whole podcast about that one. And then Mick Guthrie, is the other one that I did the podcast with and also a good follow on Instagram. So just not to have people be lost there. So
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. Yeah. So, when we went this past time, me and Tyler, we flew I mean, they literally killed me. We flew from Tampa to Denver. We had a layover in Denver. Flew to LA. This is all nonstop, by the way. We stopped there for an hour in Denver. We get to LA. It takes us two hours to get on our next flight. Flew fifteen hours to Brisbane. Okay? Literally, Ben picked us up from the airport at 05:30 in the morning their time. And I thought, my plan was, we're gonna go I've been there before, so I wanted to go to Downtown Brisbane and just kind of relax, eat some good food, try and get over the jet lag. They did not give me that option. He says, Oh, mate. We gotta beat a tropical cyclone, so start packing your stuff and rigging your rods. And this is literally after that flight. And we immediately, at 05:30 in the morning, packed up our stuff and drove twenty two hours north. Wow.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. And then we hours. That's like okay. We're headed to California.
Ryan Hanks: A 100%. That's like me that's like me sitting down here in Florida and, like, like, Oh, there's a good weather window up in Boston or something like that. Yeah. Let's jump in the car and go fishing. Yeah. And that's what we did. Wow. And then it took us, I think, that night So, it took us an hour or two boat ride to get out to the reef. The first night we found basically a sand cay. And they said, Hey, just so you know, we were sleeping in these things called swags. They love to sleep on those everywhere. It's basically a one man tent. And he said, We're gonna put the swags up, but be aware the tide's gonna overtake this sand cay at 04:30 in the morning, so be up at four with your bag packed. And we were literally walking like this. I mean, I looked like a zombie. And this was day one just to get out, you know? It really Within, I've had some experiences where it really pushes you to your limits, but I think that's a special thing, man. I think, and I'm not trying to get too deep about everything, but it's the same thing as what we're doing building a business or anything you want to achieve in your life. You've got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And being out of your element. But the reward you get from doing that, I mean, me being able to see the Great Barrier Reef with my eyes, I can take a million pictures and videos and show my friends it does no justice. Being able to see a GT eat a stick bait on top water or a coral trout, it's the reward for what you had to do to get there.
Tom Rowland: Sure.
Ryan Hanks: You know? Yeah. We fished with Ben one time and they take these little sportsman boats, 17 foot sportsman, out into the stuff that me and you would never do. We look at I mean, even the big boats here, you know, we run offshore in Tampa Bay, so we'll go 80 miles out to catch grouper, right? You know, and they're bigger boats. What they do with those boats is insane, man, because they have to have that size boat to be able to get down these little roads where they're pulling them so far. And I mean, we go out. I remember the first time we went out, there was two boats. I would see my buddy in this boat on top of the wave and it would disappear. And I'm just waiting, you know, for a GT to pull me in the water because you're unstable, right? Right. And Ben pulls up and he's laughing at me because he can tell I'm terrified. And he was like, when we look around, all of a sudden there is a baby whale by our boat, okay? And the mom starts getting mad that we're by this baby whale. So she is smacking her tail. And the tail is the size of our boat. And he just looks at me and goes, Oh. He starts laughing. He goes, It's getting a bit weird in the bait. You know? And I'm like, Dude, this is not getting weird. Like, This is a dangerous situation. He's like, Yeah. Right here my buddy shot a Marlin and got pulled two miles with a great white shark chasing him. I mean, they just live on the freaking edge that I can't even You know? And it was a cool moment though because back to what I was saying, I was terrified. I'm a be honest. I don't care if anybody listened. I was terrified. I was so out of my element. And then I was like, well, if this is the way that I die, what an epic way to die. So then I started casting harder and just like really embracing the moment. And and and that's life right there. I was living. You know? I probably that's the most alive I ever felt because of Ben Jones.
Tom Rowland: That is
Ryan Hanks: But he is a wild animal. And if he sees this, he's gonna laugh too.
Tom Rowland: He's a wild animal. I can tell that over the Internet thousands of miles away from him. Like
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. Yeah. Him and him and Mick are are like opposites. Right?
Tom Rowland: Are they?
Ryan Hanks: Mick is a civil engineer. He is very calculated. He is very you know what I'm saying? He plans everything. It's very meticulous. Ben is just a 100 miles an hour. Let's go. We'll worry about it later. You know?
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, he told me some stories, and he told a crazy story on the podcast about, I I think either his engine quit or he ran out of gas or Yeah. Something happened, and he had to, like, lasso this this marker.
Ryan Hanks: That's insane too. By where that's at, that's if they would have blown out, that's, like, in the Papua New Guinea, like, you're gone.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Gone. Completely gone. Like, there's nothing else out there. And he
Ryan Hanks: was like And they're savages in Papua New Guinea, by the way too. Sure. Like, you don't really wanna go there, and pull up on the beach.
Tom Rowland: No. I don't I mean, that I don't know. I I thought just like you, I'm I'm thinking about this, and I'm like, wow. That is that is incredible to be in that area. Like, they're the only few areas in the world like that. I've been to Australia. It's one of my favorite trips I've ever done. And, I did a mothership trip. You know, Australia is like Florida. Like, it it hangs off the North of there's a peninsula that hangs off the North like Florida hangs off the South of The United States and it gets to about the same, distance from the Equator. Right? So as you go north in Australia on this Carpentaria area, it looks more and more and more like South Florida because you're getting closer
Ryan Hanks: and
Tom Rowland: closer to the
Ryan Hanks: Equator. And
Tom Rowland: I I noticed that the the vegetation was similar. The, you know, the whole thing looks similar. So mangroves, I I mean, I'm like, this looks just like Florida. Yeah. Yeah. The further north I go, the more it looks like the Everglades, Florida. I loved it. I just thought it was amazing.
Ryan Hanks: Oh, that's what the difference
Tom Rowland: was that we flew in there, and Yeah. It got dark, and it's black underneath us. There's not a single light anywhere. No one's out there.
Ryan Hanks: Right. Nobody. It's
Tom Rowland: the craziest place, but I loved it. And then we went back down as we went back south, Yeah. We hit all these river mounds. And there's all kinds of fish in there. And what was cool about the fish in Australia, I thought, was that they're very similar. All the fish there have a similar counterpart here. Like the barramundi, I thought was very similar to the snook.
Ryan Hanks: That's exactly what I told them. Yeah. It reminded me of the snook.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. And then they had I mean, I went there with the idea that, I wanted to catch a permit on fly, their permit on fly because Yeah. At the time, maybe only a a couple of people had caught an Atlantic permit and then their Australian permit over there. And so I wanted I was like, wouldn't that be cool if you were the first one to ever do it? I don't think I was the first one to ever do it. But Yeah. Yeah. I was one of the one of the few that had even tried it, I guess.
Ryan Hanks: Tried it. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. They are a little bit easier to catch than our than our permit or at least they were
Ryan Hanks: that day. That's what that's what I hear from my buddies in fish permit here on the fly.
Tom Rowland: It was it was awesome and they were fun, but I actually thought that that fish was one of the least interesting fish once I was over there
Ryan Hanks: and catching all these
Tom Rowland: other fish. I was like, well, why would I wanna spend all my time on that one even though it's close to my heart? That's kind of the reason I went there. There were 50 other species of fish to fish for. It'd be like I went to the Florida Keys for the first time ever and only fishing for redfish.
Ryan Hanks: Like, 100% of the time, like, the keys. The coral trout, that's another thing. That's similar to our grouper. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Right. There's some really cool colors there. And by the way, if you ever get the chance to eat coral trout, the thing I would say is closest to is our scamp grouper here. It is amazing. It's the number one fish over there.
Tom Rowland: I don't
Ryan Hanks: think so. So if you go back and you do that, when We were just over there. We caught a coral trout and brought it to the sand cay and cleaned it and cooked it right there on the sand cay on the reef, and that was amazing.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Then the one, the other fish that was similar, they called it a Spanish mackerel. Yeah. But it was really more like a wahoo when you
Ryan Hanks: clean it. It's really like wahoo. And the meat's really good too. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: But then it kind of it was kinda more like a kingfish in the way that it bit and fought and
Ryan Hanks: Right. Right.
Tom Rowland: We saw some skyrocket and all this stuff. And but I was like, okay. Well, you know, Spanish mackerel, that's good tasting fish, but then we brought it back. I was like, wow. This is this is amazing. It's like, wow.
Ryan Hanks: They're strong fish. They're crazy too.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. So I'm gonna go back to Australia at some point. It's definitely on my list. I've got another trip coming up. I've already planned it for next year. And so many of these trips, like, these big giant trips, you end up planning them, like, not spur of the moment or, like, I'm gonna go in a couple months.
Ryan Hanks: Right.
Tom Rowland: Right. This one I plan for next April and, Seychelles. Gonna go to Seychelles.
Ryan Hanks: That's gonna be awesome. That'll be super cool, man.
Tom Rowland: I can take some of your lures over there with Yeah. Definitely. I wanna I wanna, you know, fish for those big fish over there too. A lot of fly fishing too.
Ryan Hanks: That'll be a beautiful place. Yeah. And that's that is like for especially with fly fishing, that's one of the best places you can go in the world to fly fish. Fly fish for GT. Yeah. All that stuff is there.
Tom Rowland: But I'm taking lures too.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. No. I hear you. I hear you. I don't blame you.
Tom Rowland: I think the problem with taking lures on trips like that is that a lot of times there's a weight restriction.
Ryan Hanks: Right. Right.
Tom Rowland: Get to take two pairs of underwear, a t shirt, a buff, and all your fishing tackle. That's all you get. And a toothbrush. You know? Exactly. Right. That's it. That's it. You gotta you can't take anything else.
Ryan Hanks: But I have found ways, what I do, after traveling a few times, I because I bring up my rods and reels with me on these trips. I get a Plano makes a It's called a jumbo airliner rod tube. And what's cool about that I've figured out a good trick if you haven't tried this and you're gonna bring your rods, get that rod tube and then wrap the majority of your clothes you're gonna bring on that trip in that tube and check it. So it's gonna give you more space in your bags. So if you wanna put your lures in your bags and not weigh them down Wait.
Tom Rowland: No. Tell me again. So you're wrapping them on the outside of this rod tube or inside?
Ryan Hanks: Inside. So I'm using them as protection. It's called the jumbo airliner by Plano. You can extend it really far. Yeah. And then, so to protect my rods, I mean, I just start with everything from boxers to fishing pants to shirts and wrap it all the way down.
Tom Rowland: There you go.
Ryan Hanks: And then that's what I check there. And so it gives you more room, whether it's more room in your carry on or your other luggage bag. And that's where you can put more lures.
Tom Rowland: Good good good tip right
Ryan Hanks: there. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's pretty awesome. And so Yeah.
Ryan Hanks: It works really well.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. But but you still have weight to deal with. Right. Right. Especially
Ryan Hanks: like jigs with jigs. That's that's the hard thing to bring.
Tom Rowland: Have you ever had any of that stuff taken away from you?
Ryan Hanks: No. We were, like, when I went to The Maldives, we were paranoid and just wanted to make sure everything went there and got there. Of course, when we landed in The Maldives, my two buddies' rods and reels, everything came out immediately, and I just sat there watching, and thirty minutes later, mine came out. Scared the heck out of me. So
Tom Rowland: I was just thinking about this. I hadn't thought about this for forever, but I have a friend in Australia and Bill Cliff. Shout out to Bill Cliff if he's listening to this, which he does occasionally. But, he was in Australia, and I flew into Australia. And for some reason, they took three of my fly reels. And I couldn't get them back. Yeah. And, so, like, at the time, I think they were, like, able and, you know, good ones. Yeah. Yeah. So I I left them there, and I I called my friend. I was like, hey, man. You think you could go pick these things up? Like, they're Mhmm. Pretty valuable. Yeah.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. And he went
Tom Rowland: to the airport and tried to get them and couldn't get them. But I can't remember the why they took them for me, but they took them
Ryan Hanks: Did you have them in your carry on?
Tom Rowland: Maybe. But they didn't take everything. Like, I had other ones. Year. Like, I was traveling with way more than three reels. But they took those three.
Ryan Hanks: Depending what you fly, some airlines won't let you have like, if I wanted to keep my reel and my carry on, they won't let you have anything with fishing line. They consider that could be a weapon you can strangle something. I've heard that. But it's not every single airline. So I just always check the reels with the line so I don't Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Play that game. Yeah. So tell me about this company that you're working with, CAST. It didn't They are Mocking. Mick and and Ben's company. Mick mostly. Right? Like, Mick owns this?
Ryan Hanks: Correct. So Mick's actually the founder. Ben became co owner after that.
Tom Rowland: Okay.
Ryan Hanks: And I'm also a co owner. Okay. And I helped them expand it over to The United States. And, you know, they had taken a trip here. When they came with ICAST, they went out and did some filming in Fort Lauderdale, caught sailfish, and it was their idea they wanted to bring their style of fishing really to America. They saw holes in the market where it's like, You know what? We could bring these, like the OGR stick bait. We could bring this over here. We do a lot of jigging that we do over here, slow pitch jigging. And that's kinda what we thought we were gonna do off of the rip, right? My background is doing a lot of bass fishing. Now, I did do a lot of saltwater fishing in Savannah, Georgia for a while, but I did a lot of bass fishing and I used to work for a company that distributed tackle all over Georgia. And this is kind of funny how this turned out. I had a good friend, Eddie Krauth, who was going on a trip to Venice, Louisiana to go catch tuna. And I said, Hey dude, you need to bring our OG stick bait over there with you. You gotta try and catch these on top water. It's a ton of fun. Right? And he lives on Lake Lanier, so we went out on Lake Lanier with the purpose of showing him how to use the OG and what you do with it. Well, he ended up catching giant spotted bass that day, and it was out fishing our other traditional lures we threw at that time. And I was like, And then I was going to leave town, and my buddy Franco called me, and he's like, Oh, what was that lure you gave Eddie? You know how fishermen are, right? And I was like, Dude, it's an OG. It's meant for saltwater and tuna. And he goes, Well, let me try it. So I said, Dude, I have one. I'll put it in your mailbox before I leave town. And he called me a couple weeks later and he said, I've caught my biggest five bass limit of spotted bass on this thing and the biggest striper I've ever hooked on Lake Lanier, and then I broke it off from the trolling motor. I want 10 more. And then a light bulb kind of went off. And it was like, I talked to Mick. I was like, We should consider downsizing these and approaching the freshwater market. That We didn't think we would make it there that quick. And we have received an immense amount of success from what I consider blurring the lines. And really, our company's focus is just blurring the lines between saltwater, freshwater fishing, taking different techniques from different sides of the world, implementing it here. And it's been very successful, especially in freshwater because there's so many tournament guys. Everybody wants something that the fish don't see a lot. So the way we rig our baits and do stuff is just very different. But we've been able to do it back and forth. So, the same baits I'm catching group raw down here, my buddies are catching bass up in Georgia and other places on. And that's really been our focus. So, we've done really well with that. Let me show you the size. I mean, this is normally This is a 60 gram OG.
Tom Rowland: Yeah.
Ryan Hanks: Right? So, that's what I brought my buddy Eddie to throw for tuna. And then now we've downsized it to a 20 gram, which this is what we use for bass fishing. Wow. And in America too, when we throw top water lures a lot, we walk the dog with them. That's normally a thing. And that's This is just something totally different. This creates a non mechanical motion, right? So it sits in the water more like this. And then when you sweep it or do two or three quick cranks of your reel, it's gonna bite down and do an S kick with a bubble trail and pop back up. And that non mechanical motion is just It's been awesome. And I've got some friends that have caught their biggest pass ever on this now. And they're hard for us to keep in stock, but we're doing really well with the OG over here. Would you be cool?
Tom Rowland: So those guys were They came up with that lure because they were catching, what, with it, GTS?
Ryan Hanks: 90 Raleigh. Yeah. So like the bigger size. Now this is a little bit different version of what I was holding up earlier. So like something that big. But like now this is what we're making. What? In America. But now we've taken this same thing here, caught snook on it. I take some of the little bit bigger ones. Catch blackfin tuna down here where I live, catch mahi, catch kingfish, amberjack, all that sort of stuff. So it's it's really cool. I mean, our product line, you can fish in saltwater and freshwater. You don't have to, like, say, oh, this is my saltwater gear. This is my freshwater gear.
Tom Rowland: Well, that's interesting because, I mean, for so long, saltwater gear is made for saltwater, but fresh and you can fish anything for that's made for saltwater and freshwater, but definitely not true the other way. Yeah. Yeah. You would take a saltwater lure I mean, a freshwater lure and even expose it to saltwater, and it's
Ryan Hanks: gonna be a rustling mess
Tom Rowland: in no no time at all and not at all capable of handling something as simple as a Jack Crevelle or
Ryan Hanks: a Barracuda or something. Yeah. What, what the guys did with the OG when they built this for, for GT fishing was let me try and show you this here. This lure, even the smallest ones we're using for bass, right here to right here, it has something called a through wire construction.
Tom Rowland: This
Ryan Hanks: is a car balsa wood lure. So, even if this lure was to snap in half, you're still gonna get that fish as long as you're not as good to this wire going through.
Tom Rowland: And
Ryan Hanks: then the other thing that we do, it has this rotating belly sole on the treble hook. Yeah. So now on a big bait, that fish can't use that bait as leverage to shake it off. It's gonna rotate on there. Wow. So we've incorporated some of the saltwater side, things into the freshwater with that. And then
Tom Rowland: you guys got soft plastics and everything else too?
Ryan Hanks: We do. Yeah. So we we, this I mean, I wanna give a big shout out on here too if he's listening to Tyler Capella.
Tom Rowland: So he focused he's a
Ryan Hanks: 100% saltwater. If you guys are him too,
Tom Rowland: you can listen to.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. Yeah. He's a he is a 100% he's one of the best tarpon fishermen. I think he's caught the unofficial state tarpon two years in a row down here in Clearwater in St. Pete. He's a heck of a fisherman. One of the smartest guys I know. Now, I don't wanna blow him up too much because he'll get a big head. But a lot of the techniques that we were emulating and he was seeing me do in the bass fishing world, he's like, Oh, we need to go try that for snook. Oh, we need to go try that. So we do a rig called the sneak rig on a soft plastic. And you'll see, probably the majority of the time, anybody who's throwing salt water with a soft plastic, they've got a little jig head on the front of the bait and then whatever their soft plastic is, that's how they fish it. Well, in freshwater, we came up with something called the sneak rig. Okay? This is our Prodigy swimbait right here.
Tom Rowland: Yeah.
Ryan Hanks: And each of them have a little chamber with a glass rattle in them. Okay? And in bass fishing, on post front calm days, it's hard to get those fish to eat a moving bait. You have to like drag a worm or do something. They just don't want to react to a moving bait that well. So we came up with this rig where we take the rattle out of this belly chamber, and right in there is a little tungsten nail weight. And now we've nose hooked the bait right here on the front, if you can see that. What that does, the separation of the weight and the hook, it allows this plastic to list, to really breathe. And it's a very natural presentation. And you can get a lot of bites doing that even on tough days. So Tyler was like, Dude, we gotta try the sneak rake for snook. And this was about two years ago, and it was early season for snook. I mean, you know they're tropical fish. They want it to be hot. And this was probably like, I wanna say mid March. Okay? So the water temperature's still low out on the beach. So he went and got, you know how guys black out their live well and they have the bat and they'll throw all the greenbacks out there to kind of get them fired up. He thought we would have to do that, and then we could throw these in there to catch them. Right? Well, they weren't reacting to when he was throwing that. They did not want to chase. They were still kind of cold and stagnant. And we took this little bait and casted it. They were sitting on the beach. We were out on the boat. Cass ate past them and just slow rolled it right by them. And I'm not making this up. On that day with Tyler, 20 fish on the sneak rig, zero on live bait.
Tom Rowland: Wow.
Ryan Hanks: And it was because we chose to think outside of the box. Do something different. I mean, that's what we're big on too, is just being very open minded. We do the same thing over and over and over and over again. You know what I'm saying? And Well,
Tom Rowland: a lot of fishermen do. That that, that rig, I've been using a rig like that, for a long time. Just with with Yeah. Like the Elaztech and the the
Ryan Hanks: Right. Right.
Tom Rowland: You know, it started out with the with when Strike King had their their first stretchy bait. Right? I can't
Ryan Hanks: remember what they
Tom Rowland: called it. But it was kind of a I don't know what that was called. It was it was something, but you could pull on it and stretch it kind of like the Z Man's got now. Yeah. Yeah. But I would head hook those and then throw them. And and basically, at that time, Strike King had one that had a lot of salt in the plastic. Right. And it had another one that didn't. And the one with salt was probably a half ounce heavier than
Ryan Hanks: Exactly. And the other one passed out of it. And so
Tom Rowland: I would just head hook that and throw it with braid and I could get so I would throw it so far.
Ryan Hanks: A 100%.
Tom Rowland: A 100%. So much further than I could throw a fly. Right? But in the same situations, fly fishing seemed to be the only way to get in there because when the if if you threw a big lure, it would land so hard that it would spook everything. And so this, we could throw it out there and, man, it just crushed. And I like it. Thing. So then I like you, I was like, well, that works so well. I'm gonna try it for all these other things, including, like, little bass. Like, if you go to a little pond and you have, like, a little a little, it's like a crappie lure, really. Like, it's like a it's like the tiniest soft plastic. And then you take, like, a tiny little little Gamakatsu hook and you head hook that, and you throw it really hard with the braid. It's almost like fly fishing, but you're you're Exactly.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Weight. And you can catch all these fish with that, but it has so much more action than that hook. Yeah. Do you I noticed that was a j hook. Do you ever use a circle hook with that, head hook?
Ryan Hanks: This is, like, I have not tried that. It worked. But I'm sure I'm sure it worked. No. I'm definitely sure
Tom Rowland: it works.
Ryan Hanks: This one was rigged up from fishing freshwater Yeah. For bass. This is a BKK predator hook, which is kind of like a wacky rig hook. But definitely you could take a circle hook in salt water, do the same thing, and then you're using a circle hook, which is what you're supposed to do. And it definitely works, man. Especially if you can chum things up on the top of the water. I mean, obviously in short,
Tom Rowland: but no red light. But that nail weight that you have, show me how that works.
Ryan Hanks: So let me show you this thing because it's pretty cool. What we did, when we designed these baits, we wanted to do something different. So we have a glass rattle in there, which is pretty cool. It's a bite trigger. It's something to alert. You know, if you've got like stained water or whatever, it's alerting that fish of its presence. But we use, let me try and hold this up for you. Here, I'll show you the pack. This will be easier to see. We use a, can you see that with your layer? Yeah. Threethirty two nail weight. This is a tungsten. Mhmm. Okay? The tungsten is smaller than lead. And so if you look right here on the bottom, right in here, we have a little, it's a cavity where the glass rattle was. And we take it out and we just slide, like you can see, that slides right in there perfectly. And so now, you've got your weight and your hook separated. And we play with that with a lot of our different soft plastics. That separation of the hook and the weight just creates incredible action.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, I hadn't tried the nail weight. Like, I I feel like I'm I'm restricted to, like I I hadn't even thought about that. Like, for Yeah. I don't know why, but I'm like, okay. So maybe we'll throw a gulp, you know, jerkbait or or any kind of jerkbait, really. But Right. You're kinda restricted to like, I need it to be heavy enough to throw the distance that I
Ryan Hanks: need to be. To the nail weight.
Tom Rowland: It might be too big of a of a weight for this or or too big of a bait for this particular situation. So either we don't have enough weight to throw it out there or, you know, we're using too big of a bait in some situations
Ryan Hanks: like bait. You should definitely give it a try, man. It's really cool. I wanna let me grab I wanna show you something really quick. Of course, coming from the bass fishing world, another thing that Tyler saw that we were doing that he was very interested in is a line through rig. And I don't see that I see it some in saltwater. I think you can buy a few baits that are pre rigged this way. But essentially, you can see this is a treble hook right here Yeah. Hanging off the bottom of the bait. And if you look up under here, what we have, the line goes through the nose. We've got a tungsten bullet weight right there, and then we have the treble hook. So he's using this for beach tarpon now, not the ones, you know, you gotta fish something like this for the ones in the passes that are down in the current. But this, once again, has such a natural swim to it. It's very subtle. And those pressured beach tarpon, he's able to get them to hit this. And what happens is when they hit this, the hook is in their mouth now, right? This bait slides up the line, and they're not able to use this bait as leverage or anything, and they've just got the hook in them. Wow. So it's once again, just going back to the idea of borrowing techniques back and forth between saltwater, freshwater fishing, and doing different stuff like that. I went out, right now in bass fishing, people are using forward facing sonar. That is the big deal, right?
Tom Rowland: Yeah, it is.
Ryan Hanks: And it's a lot of straight tail baits. And we make one called the Echo that we do the same thing on a hover ring, the separation of the weight and the hook. I got to go offshore. I never get to fish anymore. I just work. I got to go offshore this past weekend and I took one and I put it on a BKK jig head, right? We went out over a wreck and was able to catch fish, letting it sink down and working it really fast. And they don't ever see that out there. You know what I'm saying? If I saw any fish coming out busting, I could get right on it. And it's just like I said, being willing to be open minded, try different techniques, try different rigging methods. You'd be really surprised with the success you have. Yeah. In bass fishing, we make a little pink swim bait. Pink is the color, right? Yeah. And that is I've caught my biggest fish on it. And our number one sellers online, of course, is a white pearl and then what we call a blue back, like a pro blue color. Nobody You know, the pink is Everybody's like, you're not throwing that pink. And I'm like, I'm throwing it for the exact reason that you don't think I should throw it because they see those other colors a million times every day. And that little pink is the deal. It's just just once again being open minded and and trying to show them something different.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. I wonder what the fish even sees with that. Like, if it just looks
Ryan Hanks: I I don't know. Because I know what's the deal with red in the in the
Tom Rowland: I mean, they say that that that red is the first like, you'll you'll hear, like, red is invisible. It's not invisible. Red is just the first color in the spectrum that disappears at depth. So it turns black. Right? So red is really black.
Ryan Hanks: Right. Okay.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. And so when you had, like, red fishing line, they were marketing as it's invisible.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. They
Tom Rowland: Because red disappears. But what yeah. It it disappears. It just everything sees it as black. So I never I never really bought into that. Like
Ryan Hanks: Yeah.
Tom Rowland: But but red as a color on a bait is interesting because maybe it's just a different shade of black to the
Ryan Hanks: Different shade of black.
Tom Rowland: Maybe more more attractive or more more natural or or it has a different shine to it or who knows? Like, what Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. You you go with what works. Right? So pink is not that far away from red. I would think that if if that's, you know, at a certain level that the pink would, you know, somewhat disappear or change color. So what you're looking at is a hot pink lure. We've been using I used to like, for, redfish, one of my favorite colors also always was what I call bubble gum. It looked like bubble gum. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows what that looks like to the fish and especially who knows what that looks like in stained water?
Ryan Hanks: Like, does that make it a lot?
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, that's exactly it. They like it. They like it. Alright? Understood. But, you know, and and then you have all these different colors. But, I I mean, I think that the fact that that fish see different colors and you're fishing at different depths and different stained water is probably the greatest thing ever for for selling baits. Right? Because now you can make them in all these crazy colors, and
Ryan Hanks: you're selling it to the fishery as
Tom Rowland: much as you are to the fish. And who knows what the fish even sees. Right? Like
Ryan Hanks: That's right. I don't know. That's right. Man, I I really feel like fishing is it's so much timing and and where you're at and and being there when they're they're wanting to feed. You know? Yeah.
Tom Rowland: I feel like that all the time. Boy, I'll tell you what. When you have the right thing and and your buddy Yeah. Does not have that same thing, whether you're fly fishing or or spin fishing, lure fishing, bait fishing, whatever, the person that has the right thing, and it could be the lure that's a half an inch shorter than the other one, or it could be one that's a little bit heavier. It could be one that's pink versus red versus blue
Ryan Hanks: versus green.
Tom Rowland: Dude, it's amazing, though.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Like, and I'm not telling I'm not telling anyone listening to this something that they they don't know. It's like when you have the right thing Yeah. There is no better feeling in fishing than that. And everyone around you has something slightly different. And you are just crushing it.
Ryan Hanks: And you're just slaying.
Tom Rowland: You're slaying. You're like, watch. I'll throw it over my back and catch one. And you're like, oh, look. I caught one. Then people are like, what? Come on, man. Alright. So, Ryan, before I forget, I wanna do the hot seat with you, and, we we broke it up a little bit. So so I wanna find out, some different things about you, and it's a good way for the audience to get to know you better. These are kinda either or questions. It's almost like playing, what is that, Ben? What do you what do you play that? It's the either or, the would you rather. Right? Like, would you rather. Some some of them are like, would you rather. Some of them are just which which do you prefer. So the hot seat. Favorite fish to fish for?
Ryan Hanks: Giant Trevally. I knew
Tom Rowland: you were gonna say that.
Ryan Hanks: Oh, well, can I have two or not? You can have two. Yeah. Giant trevally and a spotted bass from Lake Lanier.
Tom Rowland: Spotted bass and not the striped bass.
Ryan Hanks: Yep. Spotted bass. A big like a four or five pound spotted bass will still make my hands shake.
Tom Rowland: What do you like so much about the spotted bass?
Ryan Hanks: I like I just Well, first off, they're very aggressive. They live over open water. They fish like a saltwater fish in fresh water. Lake Lanier is probably the best spotted bass fishery in the world, and we get some big ones up there. And dude, one day they can be on a 100%, then the next day they can make you feel like you don't know how you're fishing or how to fish. So, yeah, spotted bass. I'm sure And my buddies listening to this are all gonna give me a heck about it, but
Tom Rowland: that's What's the tactic for catching the spotted bass? The best your favorite way to fish for them?
Ryan Hanks: Oh, on Topwater. On the OG. Okay. Topwater for sure.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Cool. So favorite fishing destination that you have been so far?
Ryan Hanks: Great Barrier Reef with Ben and Mick and Tyler.
Tom Rowland: Uh-huh. Yeah. I can see why.
Ryan Hanks: That's a hard one to beat. I don't know if I'll ever beat that one.
Tom Rowland: Alright. Office, Parks and Rec, or Always Sunny in Philadelphia? Office. Okay. Would you have a reptile as a pet?
Ryan Hanks: Yes. I did when I was little. I used to have all sorts of lizards and stuff like that. So I could take another because it's not like the dog, you don't gotta take them out and do all this with them.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. I cannot. If you were going to try to survive on a desert island and you could take one tool, what would you
Ryan Hanks: choose? A knife.
Tom Rowland: Okay. You may have had that experience already with with Ben. What would Ben choose, you think?
Ryan Hanks: Oh, he wouldn't even think about it. He wouldn't even he wouldn't even be prepared. He would just be there and he'd say, should be alright, mate. Yeah. And of
Tom Rowland: of the 100 people that you can think of right now, Ben would probably be the last one standing on that island.
Ryan Hanks: Dude, the last days just real quick, and I don't wanna interrupt the questions, but one of the last days we were there, there wasn't a lick of wind and it was blackout hot. And I, Tyler was fishing with him most of the trip and I was fishing with Mick. So we switched boats the last day and I went to grab a water and I took this big old sip of it and it tasted like chemicals. And, I was like, Ben, what is up with the water? He's like, oh, it's something from the gas thing near it, but you'll be alright, mate. I mean,
Tom Rowland: that's literally what he's like. Something from the gas being near it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I had an experience like that when I was in Honduras, and and, we went bone fishing. And the guy, I had some fruit, and I think it was a orange that I had, and I couldn't get the peel off. It was real you know, like, sometimes they're really easy to get off, and sometimes they're really hard to get. Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan Hanks: So I took a
Tom Rowland: and I bit like, the the peel and Yeah. And then got it open and started started pulling on it. And the whole side of my face went numb. Like, all the way down into my neck, it started, like, in my shoulder, and I was like, what is going on? But there was some kind of chemical on that. I'll never
Ryan Hanks: do that
Tom Rowland: again. Like, you just forget about that, like, in in America that they don't allow that kind of stuff.
Ryan Hanks: We take a lot for granted here, man.
Tom Rowland: A lot. You never know. Okay. So you you would take a knife. Drive or fly? Say drive. Which is more important, and it could be in business or fishing or whatever? Mindset or skill set?
Ryan Hanks: Mindset. 100%. And
Tom Rowland: why do you say that?
Ryan Hanks: Because if you don't have a positive outlook, if you can't see the end goal, you'll never get there. You could be skillful, but if you let your mind and your thoughts and all that key in on you, you will never get past yourself. You're your own monster in that. You have to 100% believe in what you're doing and be positive about it. So your mindset, 100%.
Tom Rowland: Love it. Chocolate or vanilla? Vanilla. Text or call?
Ryan Hanks: Call.
Tom Rowland: Favorite social media platform?
Ryan Hanks: I guess Instagram.
Tom Rowland: Do you answer every comment or never look at them?
Ryan Hanks: Answer as many as I can.
Tom Rowland: Would you rather have a million now or 10,000,000 later?
Ryan Hanks: 10,000,000 later.
Tom Rowland: The most challenging thing about your job?
Ryan Hanks: The most challenging thing? Trying to wear a lot of hats at once. Trying to do Which I've learned that in order to be successful, you've got to delegate more. You can't do that. When we started this business over here, and it's tough. I have my business partners in another country, right? So trying to do everything since I'm here in America and being like the soldier on the front line just hacking away at everything when I need to sit up on the hill and be the general is like, Hey, if my army goes around this river, we're gonna win this war. So definitely that's the most challenging part is taking my hands off things that I want to have control of them because I'm very passionate about everything, but I need to step back and let other people handle that work.
Tom Rowland: This may be the same answer. One thing you've changed your mind on in the last two years.
Ryan Hanks: Actually, my responsibility level. Okay? Being responsible for a lot of things in my life and taking responsibility when I'm wrong about things. I can give you a good example. We got, we hired a friend to go and do some photography for us, right? And it was, we were actually shooting it for BKK Hooks as well. We use a lot of their product. And when we went out, you know, he's helped us. I want to try and help anybody in my circle elevate what they're pursuing to. And he didn't get the pictures we needed. There was this We caught three wahoo that day over on our coast, which is pretty crazy. They're kind of like unicorns over here. And there was a certain shot where he needed to get that shot. Right? And he needed to do some certain things and it just didn't happen. And so we sent it to BKK and they said, Hey, where's the shot with Aladdin with this thing? And he didn't have it. So I could say that, Hey, that's his fault. You know whose fault it was? It was my fault because I didn't go get the guy who'd been doing it longer who was a skilled vet in that situation. So, I can take the responsibility for that. So, my responsibility level raising on all aspects of life. My body, my health, my mindset, all that.
Tom Rowland: Have you read Extreme Ownership?
Ryan Hanks: I have not read Extreme Ownership.
Tom Rowland: Sounds like something I should do. Yeah.
Ryan Hanks: Does
Tom Rowland: it? You might have just given the cliff note version right there, but yes, 100% you should read that.
Ryan Hanks: It helps your conscience too. You know what I'm saying, Tom? Yeah. If you can then you can become to terms with things that you may have made like you've done some great things, but you've done some stuff maybe you regret. If you can be responsible for those situations, then you can kind of be at peace with them as well too.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, yeah. A 100% you should read that book by Jocko Willink. Very, very good book. And the audiobook is really good too because it has like some extra little things into it. If you're into reading audiobooks, you'll get as much out of it. I'll definitely check that out. Okay. So, one thing you've learned in the past year that's made you money?
Ryan Hanks: One thing I've learned in the past year, that's made me money. I don't know if it's I've learned in the past year, but to to have excellent customer service. Like I generally do care. Like I I feel like we could play a different game besides selling fishing lures to make money or in existence, but generally caring about your customer when they buy an OG because we have this massive responsibility to educate people. We're taking a lure that people aren't used to. If they have any questions, spending the time to talk with them, you know, so they're successful. They go out and have fun and it brings joy to their life. That's what I'd say.
Tom Rowland: Cool. A movie that makes you laugh.
Ryan Hanks: A movie that, I haven't seen a movie in a long time. All I do is work. A movie that makes me laugh. Gah. I can't remember the last time I laughed about a movie. What is the last movie I saw with that? I can't even think of one.
Tom Rowland: I can tell you what the number one response is if you What
Ryan Hanks: is what is that? What is the number one?
Tom Rowland: Step brothers.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. That's a good one. I can go with that. I did I did laugh in that movie.
Tom Rowland: More people have said that.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. That's a that's a funny movie.
Tom Rowland: And you can tell like when they when they say it and I ask them the question and it takes them off guard and they just go Step Brothers. They just don't even think about it. Yeah. Like, it's so funny. I remember when that movie first came out and this person that actually I like and have a I'm just surprised that that these this person is the one that said it. But, like, when that movie first came out, they're like, we went to see Step Brothers and we did not like it. It was terrible. Really? And I was like, oh, really? And then I see it. I'm like, what?
Ryan Hanks: What were you thinking? Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Even today, I wonder what she was thinking. Movie. Wow.
Ryan Hanks: I need it. Yeah. You gotta
Tom Rowland: have a movie. You gotta see a movie. One way that you think AI will change the future?
Ryan Hanks: Well, I think that it's going to it's going to replace a lot of people's jobs is what it's going to do. It's gonna put a lot of people out of work is what I would say.
Tom Rowland: Probably create a lot of people a lot
Ryan Hanks: of opportunities. It could. But I think it will. I think it I actually do think it will improve a lot of things and make them more efficient. It's just at what point when you take the human conscience or that deciding factor, the heart out of it, that it's really You know what I'm saying? I mean, I just sat here and told you about customer service and genuinely caring to help customers. You replaced me with an a on on the customer service thing. It's a very different situation, you know?
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Yeah. It is. I mean, it's it's an interesting question to ask because everybody's got like slightly different opinions. Some people's opinions are are like, you know, I don't know. Maybe could be skewed way more to the pessimist. Like, everybody's
Ryan Hanks: gonna lose their opinion. And
Tom Rowland: then other people are like, oh, it's gonna be the most incredible boom of of opportunity that we've ever seen. And it's just funny to kinda see where that particular one lies because I don't think it's something that people talk about a lot. And yet, it's right in the forefront and I think everybody tends to have a tends to have an opinion on it without necessarily something that they talk about. That's why I asked that question anyway. Yeah. Is there a book that you've gifted more than once?
Ryan Hanks: Not more than once. But I did gift a book to a guy who took me on a fishing trip. It was, The Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.
Tom Rowland: Okay.
Ryan Hanks: Anthony Bourdain's pretty much my hero. Alright.
Tom Rowland: He made a great TV show then.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. He just If you read his writing too, because I love the way he narrates his TV shows. His voice is just his cadence and everything. If you pick up one of his books, it's just you can hear his voice in your head when you're reading them. And I think he had such a cool life, man. He was the guy that was going and doing this traveling, and he wouldn't go stay at a very Americanized, upscale version of whatever that place was. He was down on the street having a drink and a cigarette with somebody down there and eating their local customs. I just think Anthony Bourdain is a cool dude.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. One piece of advice that you live by.
Ryan Hanks: Try and don't bring your past into every day that you do it. Let it go. Live in the moment. You know, accept what you've done wrong. Move forward from it. And and look just always look onward. That's what I think.
Tom Rowland: I love it. That sounds awesome. So are the guys coming in from for ICAST this year?
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. So Ben won't make it over, but Mick and our editor, Michael Wood, will be here for ICAST. So I'm really excited. I get to go show Mick kind of my world and we're gonna take him to catch tarpon with Tyler and then we're gonna actually take him up to North Georgia to take him to catch spotted bass, go offshore. We're doing a pretty awesome collaboration with the Saltwater Company over here on our OG. So that's gonna be released at ICAST and that's a huge deal for us. And it'll be fun. I wanna try Me and Tyler wanna give them some payback though. We're thinking, how can we make these? I don't know if we can defeat these guys. We wanna make them sleep at the bridge all night, like slip fishing, getting eaten by no-see-ums, and then immediately take them off shore.
Tom Rowland: Well, I mean, what the way you do it is you do things that that you're not willing to do yourself. So you just tell them, hey, I'm gonna drop you off on this little island or this chicky in the Everglades. We'll be back to pick you up tomorrow. You can fish all night, and and it's gonna be amazing. But, like, I don't know, man. I can imagine that the sand flies or whatever that
Ryan Hanks: I have there are really horrible. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: I can't imagine that they're worse than
Ryan Hanks: that they're worse than the
Tom Rowland: Everglades, dude. Like, in in July in the Everglades, oh, man. Yeah. I mean, you could get all the blood sucked out of you.
Ryan Hanks: That's probably what we should do with him. If he's listening, he's gonna laugh. But, no, I mean, that that when I went over there and we landed and drove twenty two hours, I don't think I felt like a human the whole trip. I never got over the jet. Like, I was just there. It was it was pretty crazy.
Tom Rowland: Just land and drive twenty two hours. Well, Australia is a big country, man.
Ryan Hanks: It is.
Tom Rowland: I mean, it's a big country, and twenty two hours, like, that's probably only getting you partially across
Ryan Hanks: the country.
Tom Rowland: But yeah. You did you ever think to say, you know, if you guys had told me to fly in somewhere else, I would have
Ryan Hanks: No. We we after that, me and Tyler were like, we're flying to Cairns next time. You guys can meet us.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Right. That's where I flew into, Cairns.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. We should have done that. We flew to Brisbane and then drove Brisbane to Port Douglas.
Tom Rowland: Dang. And that's what those guys do on the regular.
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. They're insane. Wow.
Tom Rowland: Amazing. Amazing. Well, I'd love to meet, Mick at ICAST. So, let's look at that for sure.
Ryan Hanks: But we should definitely do that. That'd be awesome.
Tom Rowland: Alright. Well, cool, man. I didn't even get to talk to you about striped bass, but we'll we'll do that another time.
Ryan Hanks: Definitely, man. I appreciate you having me on here.
Tom Rowland: It was a great day, man. Good good stories. Alright, Ryan. Thanks so much. And, let everybody know where they can find your stuff and how they can follow you.
Ryan Hanks: Castfishing.co and then at cast fishing co on Instagram.
Tom Rowland: Okay.
Ryan Hanks: Also, Ryan Hanks Fishing.
Tom Rowland: Alright. Ryan Hanks Fishing. And then for the other for the other guys, g t Buster and what's Mick's?
Ryan Hanks: Yeah. G t Buster on Instagram and at mcguthrie.
Tom Rowland: At mcguthrie. Right. Lots of really great stuff. I mean, those guys are those guys are creating some great content down there. And and, you know, if you like fishing here, you probably would love to go fishing in Australia. I mean, they got that Great Barrier Reef. It's just the most
Ryan Hanks: incredible thing. I encourage everybody, if you could go anywhere I mean, and I don't wanna get a long discussion about this, but when I was there, they said that reef probably has about seven more years with the coral bleaching. And so anybody listening to this, if you've been waiting or wanting to do a trip, you need to go see that with your own eyes because there's nothing else in the world like it. It's just absolutely insane.
Tom Rowland: It is, man. It is amazing. And I only saw a tiny fraction of it. Yeah. I don't know. It was pretty awesome. But anyway It was. Hey, it was great having you on, Ryan. Thank you very much. And we'll see you at ICAST.
Ryan Hanks: Alright. Thanks, Don. Have a good day, man. Appreciate you.
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