Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 1015 is a conversation with Turner Tenney, the gamer known as Tfue, who reached the very top of competitive Fortnite with around 11 million Twitch followers before walking away in 2023. At 28 he calls himself retired, and these days he is just as likely to be 120 miles offshore daytime sword fishing as he is streaming. We get into what it took to be the best out of hundreds of millions of players, why he quit at the top, and how a boat turned fishing into his next obsession.
Listen now: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · Press play in the player above to watch.
Tfue is the online name of Turner Tenney, an American gamer and streamer who became one of the most popular and dominant Fortnite players in the world during 2018 and 2019. At his peak he had around 11 million Twitch followers and 11 million YouTube subscribers, with more than 1.7 billion views. He stepped back from full-time streaming in 2023. Now 28, he spends much of his time fishing out of the Tampa Bay area and posts to a fishing channel called Seafue.
Tfue is Turner Tenney. He grew up in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida, and competed as a professional gamer from his mid-teens, first in battle royale games like H1Z1 and then in Fortnite. His brother started making money on YouTube before he did, which is part of how he ended up building a career online.
In the episode, Turner says he grinded for so long that he simply got bored, and that he only wants to stream a game he genuinely loves. He had already signed long contracts with Twitch and Amazon and made a fortunate amount of money, so he does not feel he needs to play anything he is not passionate about. He still comes back when a game grabs him, but he is open that he will leave again when the love for it fades.
Yes. Turner fell in love with fishing after he bought his first boat, and he now runs a fishing channel called Seafue that he says is one of the fastest-growing fishing channels around. He did not love fishing growing up, preferring to skimboard and surf, but having a boat changed everything. He splits his time between gaming and fishing depending on what he is fixated on at the moment.
Turner mainly fishes the Gulf out of the Tampa Bay area. He does inshore work for tarpon, snook, redfish and trout, a lot of beach and pass fishing, and offshore deep-drop sword fishing, which is his favorite. The nearest Gulf swordfish grounds are about 120 miles offshore, so those are serious, committed trips. He has caught a 200-pound yellowfin tuna and dreams of a 1,000-pound swordfish and a bluefin tuna trip up north.
Turner started getting paid around age 16 and was earning roughly 1,000 dollars a month as a professional H1Z1 esports player at 18. After Fortnite and the COVID streaming boom, he signed major Twitch and Amazon contracts and made what he describes as a very fortunate amount of money, enough that he considers himself retired at 28. He notes the top of the industry today can earn far more than when he started.
Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 1015 with Turner Tenney is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and iHeartRadio. The video version is embedded at the top of this page.
I came into this knowing the headline numbers, and I want to thank Ariel for hooking us up. Turner was the number one Fortnite player in the world out of a player base bigger than almost anything in sports, and then he walked away from it. What pulled me in was not the gaming résumé. It was that a 28-year-old who has already done all of that is now spending his days chasing swordfish more than a hundred miles offshore. I wanted to understand how one person ends up living both of those lives. Press play to hear it in his own words.
When that many people play one game, the odds of being the single best feel crazier to me than the Olympics. Turner is honest that timing and a head start mattered as much as anything. He had a background in battle royale games almost nobody else had when Fortnite arrived, and he was young, with the reflexes the very top of the game demands. He also has a specific take on the narrow age window where a player actually peaks. Listen to how he breaks down what separates the best from everyone else.
Turner does not romanticize quitting. He talks about streaming eight to fifteen hours a day, ending the content way too fast, and burning out on a grind built for people who only play a couple hours after work. He had the contracts and the money, so he gave himself permission to only do it when he loves it. There is a real cost to being that fixated on one thing, and he is candid about it. Hear how he thinks about walking away in the episode.
Turner did not even like fishing growing up. He surfed and skimboarded, and he figures he just was not very good at it. What changed was a boat. Once he could get on the water and go, the whole thing opened up, and his love of boats and fishing now run hand in hand. He walks through the run of boats that followed, including one so fast he decided it was downright dangerous with friends aboard. Listen to how the water took over.
The nearest swordfish grounds in the Gulf are about 120 miles from the dock, and Turner leans into that. The upside of going that far is that almost nobody else does. He fishes it with a commercial buddy, daytime dropping for swords, and he is open that the true giants are hard to come by where he runs. He also has a number in mind that would make him hang it up. Hear what a real offshore sword trip takes, and the fish he is chasing, in the player above.
This was the part I did not expect. Turner argues that competitive gaming has a higher skill ceiling than almost anything because the knowledge is an open book. Get beaten and you can study the other player's exact games and copy what worked. Fishing is the opposite. Beat somebody in a tournament, walk up and ask what they were doing, and you get nothing. He thinks that secrecy is part of what makes fishing fun, and part of why it is so hard. Listen to him lay out the difference.
Listen to the full conversation: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or watch in the YouTube player at the top of this page.
What stays with me is how lightly Turner wears all of it. He was the best in the world at something hundreds of millions of people do, he retired at 28, and he talks about it like it was a long shift he was lucky to get. The part I keep coming back to is the switch to the water. He found a new thing to be obsessed with, and it happens to be the thing I have built my life around.
If you have kids who game, this one is worth sitting with. The same focus that makes a top streamer is the same focus that makes a serious angler. It is just pointed at a different screen, or no screen at all.
Press play in the player above, or grab Episode 1015 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Turner Tenney (Tfue) · Seafue · Ariel · Bugha · Alex Applefield · Hikaru Nakamura · Kai Cenat · IShowSpeed · Jynxzi · Peterbot · Donk · Fortnite · H1Z1 · PUBG · Arc Raiders · Twitch · Amazon · Indian Rocks Beach · Skyway Bridge · San Salvador · Exuma · Bahamas
Turner Tenney, known online as Tfue, is an American gamer, streamer, and content creator from Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. He rose through competitive battle royale games and became one of the most popular and dominant Fortnite players in the world during 2018 and 2019, building audiences of around 11 million on both Twitch and YouTube. After stepping back from full-time streaming in 2023, he turned much of his attention to fishing the Gulf of Mexico, from inshore tarpon and snook to offshore daytime sword fishing, and now documents it on his Seafue channel.
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