The Trosset Family: World Records and Raising Kids to Be Captains

Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 273 with The Trosset Family.

Introduction

Tom Rowland: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show today. Got a fantastic opportunity to talk to a legendary family, the Trosset family, and not just one of them, but all of them. We've got RT, the dad, who is a legendary sport fish captain. He's caught 239 world records, as well as a ton of other things, tournament victories, legendary catches. I mean, the guy is like a book. He's almost mythical. He's caught so much, but he happens to be a good friend of mine. He's also a super nice guy.

Tom Rowland: His two boys: Chris is following in his footsteps and also getting very innovative. He's got an excellent reputation in the Florida Keys as a sport fishing captain as well. And his brother, Robert, owns a dive operation in Key West called Finz, F-I-N-Z. And that is also a great opportunity for you to get under the water. But these guys have a tremendous amount of knowledge. We're gonna learn about where they came from, how they got started, and what they're doing today. Alright. Stand by for a great conversation with the Trossets.

Tom Rowland: Alright. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. There's a special family down in Key West that I'm friends with, the Trossets. Everybody knows the Trossets. But I've had RT on the podcast, and now I get the whole family. And I'm happy to have Chris and Robert junior also joining us today. So, guys, what's up? How are you guys doing?

RT Trosset: Pretty good. We're surviving the coronavirus and been getting to do a little fishing with friends and stuff, so it's been a good time.

Fishing the Keys During the Shutdown

Tom Rowland: So what's that been kind of like? In your time, RT, you've probably seen the Florida Keys kind of shut down or be temporarily closed for hurricanes, of course. We've all seen that. But have you ever seen anything remotely like this?

RT Trosset: Nothing like this. There's dead streets. There's hardly anybody on the streets. People are being pretty good about it. Now there's a few people going out to the beaches and stuff, but yeah, I've never seen anything like it. It looks like old mother earth is getting a breath of fresh air. If you could even say that. But I mean, the traffic and fishing pressure and everything all over the world, I think, has been held up.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. For sure. It's really tough. I know it's been tough on a lot of the fishing guys. It's tough on everybody. I don't know when your eyes were open to the fact that this was kinda real. I was watching it kinda happen in Washington, and they were closing down a few things. And then, man, I was like, well, when they closed Disney World down, that's when I knew this is a real deal. And then about the next day, that's what happened. Once I saw Disney World close, I knew this was something we'd never seen before.

RT Trosset: It was about the March, and we were starting to get some cancellations with people just worried to travel. And all I could think is once the hotels shut down, if that happens, we're done. We might be able to squeak a few charters out if they're still open. But once that happens, it's real now. We're out of business for a while.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's tough. But you say that you are getting to go and fish on your own, and what about commercial fishing? Is that happening?

Robert Trosset: So there's a little bit of commercial fishing going on. I see a couple of the guys going out, getting yellowtails, just the basic stuff. But it's actually been pretty tough to sell because most of the restaurants down here are closed. There's no real market to get rid of the fish. So a lot of the guys are going once, maybe twice a week instead of once a day.

Tom Rowland: Right. And that's a big difference between a hurricane that would close down the restaurants in the Keys or a certain area of the Keys. Like, if we got a bad hurricane, it might be bad from Key West to Marathon, but then the Upper Keys would kinda be okay. This is different because now not even the places in New York, where the big fish houses would be selling. All of those restaurants are closed too. This is kind of a global situation that is unprecedented. You just hear different things like commercial fishing. You probably don't think about that. There's no market for the fish because there are no restaurants open.

Robert Trosset: Right. Most of the fish is consumed in restaurants, not in homes. So it's just by chance that those guys are out of work as well as everybody else that's down here pretty much. It's just the very basics, just minimum going on to survive right now.

Tom Rowland: What has it been like for you to go out fishing with friends? I've been following on Instagram. I've been seeing you guys catching some tarpon and going out and fishing with friends. Is it like going back, RT, to twenty, thirty years ago where there's nobody on the water?

RT Trosset: Well, the other day when we went out, there were quite a few boats out, but it was all guides. But the fishing was really good, and I think the fishing has just been phenomenal. It's a shame that we're not open for business because we have just been hammering fish every time we go out. Whatever you wanna do has been good. It's kinda like the old days. You don't have a bunch of jet skis running around the island now, or running around the backwaters and stuff that would actually affect our fishing. It's made it a lot more laid back. It quieted down a lot quicker than you would expect.

Tom Rowland: When you say that mother Earth is getting a breath of fresh air, what do you think this little downtime — I always try to look for the silver lining in anything. And yes, everybody's struggling right now, but what do you guys see as the upside as far as the fishery's concerned, as far as the fish or the spots or any of that is concerned?

RT Trosset: It'll definitely take some pressure off of certain spots, I think, for an extended period of time that usually we're not gonna have, especially in the springtime. This is prime time. Usually everybody's fishing every day this time of year. So we'll see how that affects next year's fishery or even the year after. Maybe a few extra spawning fish might stay in the water and stuff like that.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. For sure. It'll be interesting.

RT Trosset: That's my thought exactly. It's amazing without all the noise. There's no airplane noise. There's hardly any traffic. It's really like — not a ghost town, but you could tell that everybody's been affected. The silver lining is probably — I hope the people who didn't get to come, hopefully they don't lose all their money in the stock market and all that. We're fortunate. I think we have a pretty good clientele that will make it through this alright. So I think it's gonna be a boom in business as soon as we get back out of this.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I would think that everything's gonna come roaring back because you have this pent up demand. Everybody should be doing the things that they wanna do, and nobody's able to really do them right now. So I think there's gonna be a real pent up demand, and once this blows over — I don't know how long that's gonna take — but once it blows over, I think that everything's gonna come roaring back. And then the fishing, just like after a hurricane, probably would be better than we can expect.

RT Trosset: Yeah. I think it's like that. How's your diving going, Robert? You've been out a few times.

Robert Trosset: Yeah. Well, amazingly, the water quality, the fish life is all right there. There's no other dive boats going out, really. Just personal stuff, people going sightseeing. So you see a lot less pressure on major dive spots such as the Vandenberg and the big reef sites. So it'll be a good break for those sites to be able to kinda come back a little bit, get another start building up the species and corals and fish and stuff, to try to get a root to grow again. Because we've had a lot of unfortunate events in the past few years with water temperatures and discharges, groundings that have kind of been a big detriment to our reef system.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I guess the other breath of fresh air that mother nature is getting is that the cruise ships have stopped running completely. Right?

RT Trosset: Yeah. I noticed, even a week and a half ago, they had already been shut down for a little while. And just the water quality in the harbor — they churn it up every time they come in the harbor. And that not happening for two or three weeks, it's been a lot clearer there. I could see bottom in the harbor one of the days, and that hasn't happened in a long time.

Tom Rowland: Wow. That is incredible.

Two Paths: Fishing and Diving

Tom Rowland: So we were just talking about Robert diving. You guys all grew up with your dad as a legendary sport fishing captain. I'm kinda interested, especially with Robert, how you took the dive path and then Chris took the fishing path. How did that happen for you guys?

Robert Trosset: It was such a lifestyle for us, just out on the ocean. My dad loves fishing, so we'd always go fishing. And I love fishing, and Chris loves fishing, of course. But I really took a liking to being in the water rather than on the water. You get to get in there and experience what's going on face to face rather than trying to feel what's going on through your fishing line and through what all is happening on the surface. So I took a good interest in the underwater part. And I'm kind of a real technical person, so I like tasks and learning and little events like that. The diving is real technical as far as learning your stuff, doing your things right, following the rules. So it kinda led into what I really enjoy.

RT Trosset: We all dove a lot. At first, a lot of snorkeling, and there was a lot of lobster diving. I don't think we did a whole lot of spearfishing to begin with. But he would just wanna stay in the water all the time. We'd wanna go, "Let's go plant fishing now, we already got them up" or something like that. So yeah, he was always into the water part of it. And Chris is an accomplished free diver — he could do some damage on a lobster when it's his turn.

Tom Rowland: Oh, I'm sure. And I've seen lots of his posts on Instagram. And I'm sure that Robert is quite an accomplished angler too, but it's just interesting to see the different paths. I see that with my boys, who were raised in Key West as well. One of them likes hunting way more than the other one, and the other one likes fishing way more than hunting. But they like both, and they're accomplished at both things. But I think back about when they were growing up and different little things that happened, that all of a sudden the interest was sparked in my oldest son, Turner. His interest was sparked on an early hunting trip where he killed a little spike whitetail. And man, that just did it for him. He was just like, "Yeah, that's what I like."

Tom Rowland: And the fishing was something that was there for you all the time, but this was different. It was something that was different for him. And then from that point on, he just was all about the hunting and then went on to go to Montana and get all into elk hunting and even do a little elk guiding out there. And if someone were to ask, does he like hunting or fishing better, I would definitely say hunting. And then my other son's a different way. I was just kinda wondering if there were things like that that happened with you guys — Chris choosing to keep diving and spearfishing as a hobby where you use fishing as a profession. That's kind of an interesting thing because sometimes when you take what you love and you start to do it as a profession, it changes things a little bit. And some people protect their passions, and they don't wanna do that for a living. Have you guys ever thought about that with the diving or the fishing?

Chris Trosset: With fishing with me, it's definitely what I love more than anything. Diving, I like to get in the water every now and then. But even from an early age, my dad had told me, don't burn yourself out too much on fishing, especially if you wanna do it for a job. Might ruin it for yourself. And I've never even come close to being able to do that yet. Every day I get up to go for charter, fun fishing, whatever, it doesn't matter the weather or anything. I'm just excited to go. So I'm definitely lucky that I enjoy it this much.

The First Boats: Raising Captains

RT Trosset: Chris, and Robert both, has always loved the fishing part. I remember what really, I think, put him over the top with that was when he got his own boat. He got a Silver King, and he was using my boat. They'd use my skiffs. Actually, both of them would, but Chris would do all the fishing in the bay boat and the skiffs, and I remember them going out. I see these pictures on the Internet of an eight foot lemon shark in the boat, and they're holding its mouth open. I'm not there, of course. I have no idea. You're either 11, 12 years old maybe. I'm going, "What? How the heck? What are you guys doing out there?" "Well, don't worry about us, dad. We got it." But the best thing with Chris — when he got his own boat, you couldn't keep him around the dock. He's out all the time. And I know he loves it that much now because on his days off, he'll go fishing every day he can. If it's good weather, he'll swordfish, or he'll be out fly fishing with Jared and his buddies. And then Robert has had a boat since he was 10, and he did the same things. That boat was very special to them. They had their own bay to run around in. And Robert, on his days off, a lot of times they go dive, and they can't wait to get down to the Tortugas or do something special.

Tom Rowland: So when did you decide that the boys were ready for a boat? You're in the Keys, and obviously they're going fishing with you all the time. My kids were waiting on the seawall when I'd get back from the charter, and I'd keep extra bait in the boat. And then I'd take them out for a couple hours, and I felt like they were doing well and kinda knew what was going on, but it's still the ocean. There are storms. There are situations. How did you decide that it was time for them to be cut loose, and how did that work?

RT Trosset: Well, the first thing that happened is Robert was in a Gator Club dolphin tournament when he was 10, and he won a boat motor. He won the tournament — a 45 pound dolphin he caught. It was a 100 horse, and I think it was a 20 foot Carolina Skiff. It's a big boat. So I sold it and got a motor. The first motor was a 15, and it was on a 12 foot Carolina Skiff. And they used to run around the bay, so I gave him all kinds of responsibilities. He'd take his buddies out, but they all had to wear life jackets. If they didn't have the life jackets on, the boat was going away. And I watched him bring the kids back. One kid said, "No, I'll put my life jacket on now." But Robert just said, "No, you ain't getting my boat taken away, so get out."

RT Trosset: And I think the day that I realized that Robert was really ready was I see him out in the bay, and he's stuck. There's something wrong. And then I see him messing with the gas tank, and he tips the gas tank and pumps what little bit of gas is left in the tank into the motor, and he got his way in. I was watching him from the porch, and I said, "Well, he probably should be allowed to go out of the bay now." He can think his way through these projects, emergencies that come up. Should've never run out of gas in the first place, but at least he figured out how to get back. So that was the time I decided he was really ready to go by himself. I also took him over to Shark Channel, fishing for tarpon a lot, so that they would get their time. They would drive back at night, in the dark. So they know the water pretty good. I can't tell you how many times I'll cringe when they're driving down the edge of the mangroves, because to get in our place, you have to drive right on the mangroves. I'm always grabbing the wheel. But I said, I think they figured it out. Chris and Robert always loved to go to Shark Channel and target fishing, so I just had to turn them loose. You guys were 12 by then, or maybe a little younger — 10 or 12. Robert was 12. And they still love fishing Shark Channel, so that's awesome.

Tom Rowland: Well, that's a pretty special spot. So, Chris, what about you? What did your first boat look like?

Chris Trosset: My first boat that I owned was the Silver King. I had asked numerous times for a boat when I was younger, and my dad just kept saying, "Just use mine. You can just use the skiff. We don't need another boat." So then finally, I think I was 18 or 19 when I bought that boat, mainly to start guiding on and start to make some money at it. So it was nice having my own equipment then and being able to take that boat and make some money on it. And then I bought my first offshore center console, a 29 CC. And that really opened doors up. That was when I could afford to go out every day in the big boat, and there weren't many days that I was on land.

Captain's License and College

Tom Rowland: So what year, or how old were you guys, when you got your captain's license?

Robert Trosset: 18 to the day.

Tom Rowland: 18 to the day, both of you?

Chris Trosset: I was a little bit after 18, but it was pretty close.

Tom Rowland: So that's the youngest that you can get it. They'll give it to you when you're 18 if you can pass the test. As a person growing up in the Florida Keys, other people might look at that as when you can drive a car, or when you're 21 you can drink liquor. But the 18 for the captain's license, there are a lot of Keys kids that have that kind of as a goal. So did you have aspirations immediately of making money at 18 through fishing or diving?

Robert Trosset: So not so much right away as making money, but just as creating a lifestyle, of non-work — kind of having fun every day you go to work kind of way of living. I had part time jobs and other things I did in line with being a captain, running fishing charters, running dive charters, whatever it was for the day. But it was really opening up the opportunity to just start something. And I didn't really know what I wanted at that moment. So I went to college for a few years, ran charters in the summer, came back, went back and forth until I finally fell into the dive world.

RT Trosset: You graduated college.

Robert Trosset: Yeah. I did graduate.

Tom Rowland: So when you go away to college and you've got this thing that you could always come back to and you're looking forward to it, what do you choose to study in college? Do you have that as a kind of, "I'm gonna try to study something that would help me with this lifestyle that you're building," or did you have other thoughts?

Robert Trosset: I started out in engineering. I found out I did not like math that much.

Tom Rowland: That's a lot of math.

Robert Trosset: Oh, yeah. Didn't realize that at the beginning.

Tom Rowland: I thought you drove a train when you were an engineer. That's how much I knew when I got to college. They were like, "You're gonna be an engineer." I was like, "Man, a lot of people wanna be engineers. I never even see trains that much." I was that naive.

Robert Trosset: I kind of fell into business. Graduated with a business degree, and that really helped out quite a bit. But it was more of the hands-on real world experience that I was getting, running different aspects of the family business and the mechanic aspect of it. Fixing motors, fixing bilge pumps for everybody. Worked at Home Depot. Learned a lot about just how things actually work. So I didn't know what I wanted or why I wanted it, but everything just kinda worked into place with what I was doing.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's cool.

RT Trosset: He was meant to be in business. He always wanted to have a business, and he has a Finz dive shop here in Key West, and he sells tackle. But his first business was a 10 by 10 building off to the side. I don't know if you remember that over at the Hurricane Hole, but it had a dive flag on it. He'd rent his boat out of there. He sold masks and fins and maybe a couple of spear guns. It was almost like it wasn't a business, but it was. And when he got the opportunity to take over the tackle shop upstairs there at Hurricane Hole, he went into it wholeheartedly, and he's made a heck of a business out of it now. It's fantastic to see that.

Tom Rowland: That's awesome. So, Chris, you start out in a Silver King. Did you always have your sights set on moving to an offshore boat when you were able to raise the money to get one, or was there some sort of transition there?

Chris Trosset: As long as I can remember, I had wanted to be a fishing guide. Even from a young kid, that was always my goal. I've always enjoyed offshore fishing more. There's just so much more variety. So much more can happen. So it was definitely more of a stepping stone having that boat, something I could afford to go out on and really afford to start a business in. I think I paid $500 for the boat and motor when I got it. So that was pretty easy to get into. But offshore has definitely always been the goal — running a center console and doing all the stuff that RT has been able to take us to do as kids, and being able to do that on our own now.

Learning From Dad, Innovating Beyond Him

Chris Trosset: The cool thing is, you know, he's taken a lot of stuff that I've taught him, but he steps it up a notch with his own — he puts his own flare onto things, and he sees things a lot differently than an old man like I do. And by having that fresh vision, of course, he's next to me every day. I learn a lot of stuff from him nowadays.

Tom Rowland: But don't you think that's the same thing that Bob Montgomery was saying about you? It's like, I think if you get a fresh new perspective on the same knowledge, you're always gonna see a jump. And these boys were fortunate enough to see what you were doing. You grew up — they grew up with you setting over a hundred world records off the ocean side dock, seeing all of that happen, and then start thinking about, "Well, when I get there, this is how I'm gonna do it." And some of it probably worked and some of it probably didn't. At some point, you're probably like, "Man, dad really knew what he was doing, can't figure out a way to do this better." But there's also many other things that they probably did figure out much better ways to do.

RT Trosset: No doubt. Chris has swordfished the daylights out of that. He's really way better than I would ever be at that. And he goes to places that I'm saying, "Nah, I wouldn't go there today," but he's got the right — he's always doing the right thing. He's always getting on the fish. He's a heck of a fisherman now. I'll tell you what, he's gonna be one of the best ever to live in the Keys. So I'm pretty proud of it.

Tom Rowland: Chris, do you have anything like — when your dad was coming up, one of the big things was setting world records. He was in an environment over there at Oceanside Marina with Delph and Jose and Kenny Harris, and all these guys are doing some incredible things, which really drove innovation. There was some competition to set all these records, and sport fishing really took off from that dock and from those individuals. There were a lot of things that came to be that we now think of as just conventional ways of doing things. Is there something that drives you, like the records were driving them? Do you like the tournaments, or do you like records, or do you just like to charter? What is it that drives you right now?

Chris Trosset: I definitely think that I always try to push it a little further — instead of just catching fish on dead bait or live bait, being able to catch them on a plug or a fly or something like that. Unfortunately, the record thing is not quite a thing of the past, but it's definitely not what it used to be down here. Even from seeing my dad's old clients — they would show up with all their own gear and have 12 pound, 10 pound, eight pound rods designated for certain fish and know the fish they wanna catch. And nowadays it's a lot more just meat on the dock and fill the freezer and that kinda stuff. But I try to show people the other side of it and show them how to fish better instead of just filling the box. That kinda keeps me going a little further. Gets me to run a little further on my trips and put a little more effort in, catch more live bait and things like that.

How the Business Has Changed With Technology

Tom Rowland: One interesting thing would be a cool perspective to hear from all three of you — from an older perspective to a dive perspective to a younger fishing perspective — is how this business, this lifestyle, has changed with technology, particularly social media, and particularly how you're getting trips. When you started, RT, it was a whole different thing. You showed up, you had to pay your dues at Oceanside. I'm assuming you started getting referrals from some of the other guides. That was probably the best way. When I started, it wasn't very different than that. And then today, it's a completely different world. You guys got any thoughts on how that's changed and what you see these boys doing to generate their business that you never even considered thirty years ago?

RT Trosset: Oh, yeah. When I first started, my business was first just hand-me-downs, get a charter here and there. Then the word-of-mouth — people would say, "Well, we had a great time with RT, let's go back," and then their buddy would come down to fish. And like you're saying, I grew up in a great environment that was made for fishing. We had the Met tournament, and there were big fishing clubs in Miami. They were all participating, trying to catch the biggest fish on the lightest tackle. And I got in there right at the base of that a little bit later than it started, but I fell right into that. What I wanted to do is keep taking the people, keep taking them out for their big fish on light tackle and try to win trophies for them in the Met. And we have the Key West Fishing Tournament, which is still running, but it just doesn't have the want of participation. Most people do that tournament just because the captain said, "Hey, you got a good fish, let's turn it in." Whereas I had everybody from Miami coming down, and that's all they wanted to do. They just wanted to win the master angler. And they would spend thirty days a year into something like that. So I got tons of business that way.

RT Trosset: And then, well, I'd answer the telephone, and it — you had to spend so much time on the phone just to get one charter. I'm sure you remember that.

Tom Rowland: Absolutely.

RT Trosset: And finally I started answering the phone on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I'd return my calls. And that worked for a while because people still really wanted to go fishing. But with the advent of the cell phone and websites and stuff, I noticed quickly that if I didn't call somebody back immediately, two hours later they'd say, "Oh, we found somebody else on the Internet." And so it got to be where, really, you need to answer your phone in the boat if you really wanted to get more charters.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. That was such a big difference. When I started, I'm around guys like Simon Becker and Marshall Cutchin and these guys that are very busy. And I'm not busy at all, and they would offer the referral. And I was always careful not to call back too soon because you'd seem desperate. You wanna let it sit for like a day. And then, "Oh, yeah, I just got in. I got so many messages, sorry, they got piled up." And you could kinda play it off that it wasn't gonna be your third charter of your entire career that way. But boy, the advent of the cell phone changed everything, and now it's a race to call back. But then it'll be interesting to hear Robert address this too with his business background. After the cell phone and the websites, what did you see then, RT?

RT Trosset: Well, that's it. I'm really bad at Facebooking and doing the Instagrams and stuff. So we've got Trosset Outdoors, where all three of us do it, so we post quite a bit on that. Chris does most of it. So that way we kinda equally share our experiences with everybody, and they could pick who they want to book with. If they wanna do the diving, or if they wanna go with Chris or I. A lot of guys pick Chris. He's a lot stronger. He can pull the anchor better, I guess. But let Chris talk about the nowadays stuff, because they are marketing themselves, and your sponsors.

Chris Trosset: Yeah. It's definitely an awesome tool nowadays. You can really show what's going on to people instantly. They can see what you're catching that day. And I think a lot of the trips that we get from it are kinda last minute. They see a pile of fish that we caught, and they're like, "Oh, I wanna come do that," and send a message on social media and book a day or week out. So it's not a huge part of my bookings yet — I pick up a trip here and there. A lot of it's still word-of-mouth and referrals. But it's definitely growing for myself, to keep me busy. Another great thing about it is just keeping track of what's happening up the Keys, where the sailfish body is at, how far down have they made it, have they seen any bluefins migrating yet, or how's the fishing in the Gulf. You can keep tabs on people pretty easily nowadays.

Wild Sightings: Tuna at the Bridge and Stranger Things

Tom Rowland: Speaking of that, did you see the video of the tuna off the bridge? It looked like Seven Mile Bridge, but it could have been Long Key Bridge.

Chris Trosset: Yeah. The very next day — I was actually watching it, and that's been a big goal of mine, is to hook one of those fish when they're swimming through. And the next day, I think we saw one of the schools they saw. It was off of Marathon. There were like 20 or 30 fish, and I'm pretty sure it was the same school, and we got a few good shots at them. We were all rigged up ready to go and just didn't get a bite on them.

Tom Rowland: What do you guys think is going on? What's happening when those tuna are coming into that incredibly shallow water and you see them at the bridge like that? Why is that happening?

RT Trosset: He just got lost there, I think. They're going up to the Gulf to spawn, and eventually they gotta turn north, whether it's through Rebecca Channel or even Key West Harbor or west of the fort. He might have just taken his turn a little early. There's been a few swordfish caught up around Florida Bay over the years. I think they caught one at Channel Two Bridge six or seven years ago. They just get lost, I guess. They're actually eating. I know Ralph Delph caught one way, way long time ago, but then Skip Nielsen caught one on the flats, on the edge of a flat.

Tom Rowland: A swordfish?

RT Trosset: A swordfish. Yeah. On a mullet. Ninety pounder or something. And they caught one at Channel Two Bridge — I don't think they were guys, they were just locals, snapper fishing or something. This thing rolled up, and they caught it somehow.

Tom Rowland: That's definitely one of the stranger things that I've heard about. The strangest thing that I think I've seen — fly fishing for tarpon around Seven Channels, I see two what seemed to be about 40 pound dolphin coming down the ocean just like the tarpon. And I'm walking, and I see something coming. I tell my angler, "Okay, we got two more fish coming, but they look weird." I don't know, it's like, is that a permit? What is that? They get closer and closer, and I'm like, "Damn, those are dolphin." They swim right by the boat. I start pulling after them. They go up into one of those channels just like that tuna was doing at the bridge in the video. These two big dolphin just go up in the channel and kinda mill around a little bit, and then I couldn't keep up with them anymore. But that's one of the strangest things I've seen. I just figured, like you said, just lost, I guess. It's weird because they seemed perfectly healthy. But what are the strangest things that you guys have seen? RT, you've gotta have some wild ones — a swordfish off the edge of a flat, that sounds pretty weird.

RT Trosset: Yeah. I think one of the weirdest things I've ever seen out there was — what kind of fish was that? Oh, the oarfish. I was out in 2,000 feet of water dolphin fishing, and I see this thing on the surface. It looked like a mylar ribbon. It's 10 feet long. I drive over there, and I tell my mate, "Gaff that." And even when he pulled up on it, it was so shiny. It was unbelievable. And he gaffed it, and he squealed like a little baby, "This thing's alive!" But it really wasn't. A pilot whale had surfaced near us when I saw that, and evidently he had bitten its head off, and then there were puncture wounds down the side of this thing from their big old round teeth. We took it in, and I don't think anybody ate it. We were thinking we'd try it, but that fish was too weird to eat, I guess. They have like a bunch of teeth in their mouth. This one didn't have his head, but that was a weird thing. What about you guys? What are you seeing?

Robert Trosset: I'm seeing all kinds of weird stuff on the bottom. You really get to see the behaviors of fish and how they're different than you think. I see these fish coming in and trying to just nibble out a piece of bait. You think, "Oh, it's gonna do that every time?" Well, they're not. A lot of times they're coming in full steam, and they know exactly which one's gonna get it. So that's an interesting thought on fishing and how to really go after the fish.

RT Trosset: Two or three years ago, we were fishing in the Quicksands, catching these permit that were schooled up on a wreck, just a giant number of them, more than we had ever seen there. And we had fished them for probably two or three weeks and no sharks on them. Nothing. So it was really great, easy to catch them, easy to land them. Then one day I get there and I'm looking for them, and I can't see them anywhere. It's a giant school — you could see them from half a mile away. I'm looking around, and finally I realize they're balled up around this wreck. They looked like they were part of the wreck because they were so close to it. Like a ball of sardines where they're all swimming back into the school. And these are $15, $20 pound permit. And then all of a sudden this porpoise comes through and just hits them with its tail, like you see on National Geographic. Shoots them into the air, and one of them gets knocked out and another porpoise goes over and grabs them. And that happened for about half an hour, forty-five minutes. They were just pounding these things against the wreck. And eventually they got what they needed and the fish got off the wreck and went back to normal life, and we caught plenty of them that day. But that was something different than I had ever seen.

Tom Rowland: I've never seen a porpoise prey on permit. That's pretty cool.

RT Trosset: The first splash I saw, I could've sworn it was a shark that came through, and then I saw them come up, and they were knocking them into the air like a killer whale would do to a seal. It was impressive.

Tom Rowland: Wow. You always think that maybe you've seen most of what you're going to see out there, and then something like that happens. It's different every day. There's something new all the time.

RT Trosset: Yeah. We were fishing at Flamingo one time, and we see all this confusion up on the flat. There's a bunch of baby tarpon all up there trying to huddle together, and same thing — porpoise flying up there eating eight and ten pound tarpon. Their backs were out of the water. They could barely swim in that water to get to them, but they were tearing them up. They must have eaten four or five of them that I saw. So you never know what things are gonna eat or how they get a chance at it.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's crazy. There's so many different things. Anyway, getting back on the social media thing — one of the things that happens with social media is that people see these crazy things, and everybody's got a cell phone in their pocket now, so they happen to get it. If somebody told you they saw a tuna off the bridge, you'd be like, "Probably a big jack crevalle, probably didn't know what he was talking about." But then there's a video. You're like, "No, that's a huge tuna, right off the bridge." I saw this video of a crocodile up around Flamingo that had a pelican in its mouth and swam right by the bow of this guy's boat. That was pretty cool, because you always hear people talk about stuff like that. Like, "I saw a shark take a wading bird in the Marquesas." Man, I'd like to see that sometime, but then you see this video. Like, "Damn, look at that thing, ate that bird."

Building the Dive Business Online

RT Trosset: Well, Robert's probably the one that does the most with the websites and the marketing, because he's got the dive shop. So maybe he'll play a little bit about what you're doing there.

Robert Trosset: So from my standpoint, I have a big business background. I went heavy into online. I think that was the key. So we do Facebook, Instagram, that kind of stuff, but also a beautiful website put together. And I started that as soon as I could, as soon as I started the business. Because everybody searches online right away. You can get your stuff out there with the social media, with videos and pictures and Instagram, but you gotta reel them in and give them a lot of good information about what you're doing and what they can expect when they come to actually see you. So we kinda laid everything out on our website of exactly how we do things, what we dive, what to expect, which has really helped. And I went early into online bookings, I think, for the water sports and fishing industry. So we were able to book online and have people not even wait a second to know that they could go out with me — go out diving, go out spearfishing, or whatever.

Tom Rowland: And right from the beginning, did you set that up to where it's totally automated?

Robert Trosset: At the very first, we couldn't fully automate it. So it was more of a "Hey, you wanna book this day?" It kinda looks like it's automated, but it sends us an email.

RT Trosset: And says, "Okay, we'll get back to you on it."

Robert Trosset: But it felt like you were getting an instant response. Like it was done and booked and ready. And then we'd work with your schedule and try to get you into it. But now it is 100% fully automated to schedule live. If the day is booked, it's not even on the calendar. So that's really helped a lot. We get tons of bookings without ever meeting or talking to the customer — email, and it's just, bam, they come up. They show up on Monday, and we're out having a great time with them.

RT Trosset: So that's the biggest thing, going from coming up answering the phone and getting word-of-mouth to this automated booking. It's pretty cool. You just — if you're sitting there and it pops up, they book today, they pay the deposit. But my biggest thing was, well, you do need to talk to people a little bit and let them know what's going on. You wanna get a feel for what they wanna fish for and stuff. But it works out pretty good this way. We usually end up talking after they book it. That's just one of the hardest things for me to adjust to.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, you were one of the guides that basically at one point seemed booked for life. You got this customer base that keeps coming back. Now you're getting more and more particular. Not necessarily you, but just a guy that is in that situation of being very popular, a lot of word-of-mouth. Now you're very careful — you don't wanna just take anybody. At the time of the records, you want people that are looking to do the same type of fishing that you're doing, and now anybody that books the day is who's going. I can see why you would fight it. That's a big difference, but it also eliminates that race to answer the cell phone, or to the point of, "I gotta fish in range today because I don't have a trip for tomorrow." So I need this phone to ring, as opposed to "I'm going to where the fish are," whether that's in range or out of range. Doesn't matter now because they can just book. Right?

RT Trosset: Yeah. We usually go the distance we gotta go.

Tom Rowland: Well, you do, but not everybody does.

RT Trosset: Yeah. For some people, that is a consideration. They're looking for that next trip. So, fortunately, I have a captain now, so some of these trips that get booked online, he's gonna take them. I don't really wanna fish every day, especially if it's somebody I don't know. I do wanna fish, but I could be a little more choosy that way.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I think you've earned that.

RT Trosset: Well, thank you.

Tom Rowland: So for the fully automated booking, you guys do that, all of you, for the whole Trosset Outdoors? You can book diving or fishing, either one?

Robert Trosset: Absolutely, on one of our websites.

Tom Rowland: Did you learn how to build that website, or all of a sudden after a while there's some third party plugins that you can use to create that for you?

Robert Trosset: So in the beginning for me, I kinda built this thing with help from other people because, obviously, I didn't know what I was doing. But now it's so easy. It's just drag and drop little modules into the website and everything's set. It's a lot more functional now too, rather than when I was trying to figure out how to code this website and put it all in. And everybody else — Chris and my dad — have also built their own way of doing it too. They're not using quite the same modules as I am because their business is a little different. They wanna go a little more personal, with how they interact with people. So I think both of them will call and talk to everybody pretty much before the trip, whereas with diving it's kind of, you expect to go diving a certain way. So I can be a lot more hands off with the bookings itself, and more hands on when they actually get to the boat, when we get to our adventure and fun.

The Perfect Day on the Water

Tom Rowland: Cool. So as we kinda bring this to a close, we've got some pretty cool stories, but I wanna ask a couple of questions. Now that there aren't any tourists down there, and when you get to go fishing with your friends — a lot of times guys will hold something back a little bit. Like maybe it's nighttime tarpon fishing, or maybe it's going to a certain spot that you kind of keep for yourself or family. Something kinda special. I'd like to know, when there's nobody out on the ocean, if you had your choice of going to do whatever you wanted to do, what would it be?

Chris Trosset: It's just like any other day, I think. Whatever is happening, there's so much that goes on. Like the last few days, we spent one day on the Atlantic side catching tunas and sailfish and mahi and stuff. The next day we ran into the Gulf — and these are both trips with buddies, and my dad fished that day as well. We both ran out in the Gulf and caught tunas and giant mangrove snappers and did all the Gulf fish and the shrimp boats. So it's really about what's happening. I think tomorrow or the next day we're gonna go flats fishing because the weather looks a little nicer. We're gonna try to stick some of those tarpon that have been showing up. We're not picky usually. We're looking for the best. We'll run a little farther sometime, just because we can handle it. A lot of people can't take the boat rides down to the Tortugas. But you can pick the weather and choose. As you know, all the fishing down here, you could be on it every day. Instead of, if it's blowing 20 out of the north, you don't wanna go fly fishing for tarpon, you probably wanna go out on the reef or out in the Atlantic and do something with the tunas or kings or maybe even wahoos or sails. So that's kinda it.

RT Trosset: I know Robert — the first thing he likes to do, I tell him, is go to the Tortugas.

Robert Trosset: If I'm going anywhere, I'm going to the Tortugas. It's just such a special place that there's nothing like it. It's what I would imagine Key West was in the old days, forty years ago.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Has anybody been able to spearfish any of those big tuna coming through?

RT Trosset: Usually the season's closed by the time they get here. I think we're in the same season as North Carolina, like when they catch them off Cape Hatteras. You might be able to even get a chance at it, but they swim so fast. It'd be a quick shot. They're going ten, twelve miles an hour, traveling. You have to get up on a deck, almost on a plane to get around them. If you see them too late, you go way up ahead of them, then try to drop the bait into them. But it's a pretty difficult thing to do.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I would imagine that it is. But it seems like maybe there's more around. We start seeing them underneath the bridge. To me, that seems like there might be a few more around than normal, but maybe there's just one that's lost and makes himself famous on Instagram. I don't know.

RT Trosset: Might just be Instagram too. You can just see everything a little more easily.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. For sure.

RT Trosset: Everything's published like you were saying. Everybody's got a phone. So you're seeing those once-in-a-lifetime sightings that you'll never see or probably never will see, but somebody did — which is always kinda wild.

Great Whites in the Keys

Tom Rowland: Same thing with the great whites. I see these videos of the great whites. Do you guys see any of those?

Robert Trosset: Oh, yeah. I've seen them. Two years back, we were out and had the divers just get out of the water, and somebody called me over. And we went over and saw it, found it right away. It was swimming on the surface, and I asked all the divers on the boat, "Anybody wanna get in the water with them?" Nobody raised their hands, so we went for a little different spot.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I don't think I want to. I don't even know if I wanna get in it with a cage. I saw one of those things go into the top of the cage. That was another Instagram video that went super viral — the thing comes in and ends up in the cage with the guy. That did not look like something that was on the schedule in the morning. That looked terrifying. It would be an incredible experience to see an animal like that in the water, but I don't know if I wanna do that.

Robert Trosset: It's definitely an impressive animal, I could tell you that. I would not be in.

RT Trosset: I've hooked two off Key West, and I've never landed one. Well, I actually only hooked one of them. The other one never bit. But he chased a 25 pound blackfin right up to the side of my motor. This is way back when, and the tuna was just trying to jump in the boat, really. I had to have a 50 pound rod ready, and I put it out and baited a thousand pound animal when he ate it. Fought it for ten minutes, and we pulled the hook.

Tom Rowland: Wow, that's pretty cool. Now at that time, how long ago was that?

RT Trosset: That was when I had my CCs. Probably the nineties.

Tom Rowland: So in the nineties — for a while, people would be kinda like, "There's not very many down here." But then I talked to some commercial fishermen, and they're like, "No, there are." And I even knew people that had teeth from ones that had been caught, whose names will remain anonymous. I was just kinda surprised, like when Chris Fischer comes down and he tags them, and then you can track these things coming through the Keys, how many there were compared to how many were tagged. And then all of a sudden you start seeing this thing coming through, and you're like, "Well, they're obviously here." I don't spend enough time offshore to have any realistic expectation that I'm gonna see one — maybe twenty or thirty days a year — where you guys are out there every day for years and years. Do you think they're just around more than they have been all the time and they're just an animal that we don't see very often? Or do you have other thoughts on that?

RT Trosset: I think they've always been around. I think we just have more boats on the water, so you're getting a few more sightings. And I know off Hilton Head, South Carolina, there's a huge population. I say huge, but there's a guy up there that catches probably a dozen a year.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, I know. I've been trying to get him on the podcast. He's a little resistant.

RT Trosset: Yeah. He doesn't like to talk about it. I'm trying to get to go fishing with him. I got a client that knows him, and he's trying to get me. They do it in the wintertime mostly. I think it's January and February.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I'd like to go.

RT Trosset: Be very interested to get on, but he resists. He don't want anybody to know his spots.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I don't — I'll never go back there, and I don't even need to be the one fishing. I just like to go there and see it happen.

RT Trosset: Well, if I get it hooked up, I'll bring you with me.

Tom Rowland: Alright. That sounds like a deal. I'll go, and I won't even touch the rod. I just like to see one. And I don't necessarily want it to be in a cage. I'll be on a boat. I'll be plenty happy on the boat.

RT Trosset: We'll break out Chris or Robert to do that.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. They could be the underwater diver.

RT Trosset: The line winder.

Tom Rowland: Oh, they could be the line winder. Yeah, that is the heavy work. Robert can get in the water and take pictures and video. Chris, we'll leave it to Chris, the young gun. He'll find them, you wind them.

Closing: How to Reach the Trossets

Tom Rowland: Anyway, alright, man. Well, this was awesome, guys. I really have been wanting to get you guys on because I knew that there were gonna be some awesome stories, and you guys are just a legendary fishing, diving, outdoor family. We didn't touch on hunting. I know that you guys all do a lot of that as well, but it's an honor to have you on. And I really hope that this all blows over and you guys get back out there real quick with a full book of business on both the fishing and the diving, and get back at it. If people wanted to get in touch with you, how would they do it?

RT Trosset: I'm rt.spindrift@gmail.com, or Spindrift Fishing is my website. And my phone is (305) 797-5693.

Chris Trosset: For me, Chris Trosset, you can look up Reel Fly Charters on Facebook or Instagram. Also, reelflykeys.com.

Robert Trosset: Well, if you wanna go diving, definitely call Finz Dive Center — that's with a Z. Or you can just go right online and book it, finzdivecenter.com, and we'll get out. You can also follow us on Trosset Outdoors, Instagram and Facebook. We're constantly putting new stuff up there. So check us out, follow the family, and show your support.

Tom Rowland: Alright. That sounds awesome. I could tell you, I took my boys with RT, and that's a trip that they still remember. When we caught those mutton snapper off the Marquesas, those boys still remember that. That was a great day because that was something they never got to do.

RT Trosset: I remember that day. We had a really nice time.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And who did we take with us — Jared — through the cast net one time in a 25 knot wind and caught bait. And if he hadn't made that throw, we'd have caught zippo for the day. Still remember that. He opened that net pretty much into the wind. I was very impressed.

RT Trosset: Not bad for a flats guide.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, not bad. He had one shot, and literally the bait was tough that day. Very, very tough. And if he hadn't made that shot, I think we were about to call it, for lack of bait. We had been searching for bait for a long time, so he made that day for us for sure. And then once your dad had the bait, he knew exactly how to crush the fish. There was no problem there. But man, sometimes that bait, that's the deal. I guess the bait this time of the year is also getting quite a reprieve from the pressure.

RT Trosset: Yeah, they have. We've been lucky. There's still some bait around. They usually are pretty much gone now. But we have been getting our share of it, so it's made our fishing even better. Chris took me to a spot where we had mangoes up with the live baits, and we were having eight to 10 pound mangroves jumping in the air, eating these flies. All you had to do was hit anywhere near where they were blasting with a fly or with a plug. I caught a nine and a half pounder, I think, on a little Sebile lure. And then they went back there the next day without me and went and broke another world record.

Tom Rowland: Wow. A fly record?

RT Trosset: Yes. I took out Nathaniel Linville's wife, Cat, from the company. She's a tremendous fly fisherman, and she caught a five pound mangrove on six pound tippet. Just to hook a mangrove that big on flies is pretty hard to do.

Tom Rowland: I know it is. That's really impressive.

RT Trosset: The impressive thing was when we went to another wreck, and she caught two — one was 21, and one was 21 and a half pound amberjack on six pound tippet and fly. And that tied the record. Both of them basically tied the record.

Tom Rowland: Wow. How many records does she have now?

RT Trosset: I think she only has three. Because I haven't caught one for almost a year. But that made 239.

Tom Rowland: Two thirty nine.

RT Trosset: Two thirty nine.

Tom Rowland: Right on. That's pretty impressive.

RT Trosset: It was nice to get another one, finally. I thought I was losing my touch.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I tell a story about you. One time, I was at one of my earliest Redbone tournaments, and this is when my eyes were opened. Somebody was asking me about tournaments and stuff like that. I was like, "Yeah, you should definitely do tournaments, because you get in there and you realize that you're not as good as you thought you were. And there are other people that are a lot better than you, and you can learn a lot from every single person that's there." And they're like, "Like what?" And I was like, "Well, the first Redbone tournament I ever went to, RT Trosset gave away a trip and he guaranteed a world record." And I was like, "What? How do you possibly guarantee a world record and you're gonna give it away to just anybody?" That just blew me away. I don't know how you were planning on doing it, but I was pretty impressed.

RT Trosset: Done it a couple times. One trip I auctioned at IGFA, and it was, you get to fish for world records until you catch one, or you can just fish five days. And the guy bought it. Second day, he caught a 280 pound bull shark or something on, I think it was 20 pound test. And so I said, "Hey, you could still fish some more if you want." He says, "Hell no. I've done what I wanted to do." He went on about his way. Had a good time.

Tom Rowland: There you go. That's funny. Alright, guys. Well, thanks for spending a little time with us today. And if you guys wanna go fishing with a legendary family, or diving, call up the Trossets. You got their information. You won't be disappointed. Alright. We'll see you guys later.

RT Trosset: Thanks a lot, Tom.

Chris Trosset: Thanks, Tom.

Tom Rowland: Alright. See you.

Tom Rowland: And that was the Trosset family. Man, RT — legendary. Chris, following in his footsteps and then preceding him and doing some new and innovative things, and Robert taking all that knowledge and taking it under the water and diving. If you guys wanna go with them, you got their information. You can find them in the show notes, and you won't be disappointed. Like I said, the Trossets are a great family, a great bunch of people, and you'll enjoy the fishing as much as you'll enjoy the company. Alright. Until next week, we'll see you later.