Tom Rowland | Ask Me Anything on Fishing, Content & Life | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 871

Tom Rowland Podcast — Episode 871: Tom Rowland

In this episode: whether offshore trolling motors are becoming standard, the forward-facing sonar controversy in tournament bass fishing, how to find and hire the right guide in a brand-new area, keeping bait alive and hardened for tournament day, and why consistency is king in fitness, parenting, and life — in the exact words spoken.

00:00 · Cold Open

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01:36 · Welcome Back to Ask Me Anything and the Free Knot Guide

Tom Rowland: What's going on, everybody? This is the Tom Rowland podcast brought to you by Star brite. We're really happy to have Star brite, and we might actually even be talking about them a little bit today. This is a a show that we haven't done in years. A question and answer, ask me anything type thing, I simply put out a, text to area code (305) 930-7346. That's the text thread that you can always, ask me questions, And I sometimes ask new questions, and that's what I did today along the same concept being good at fly fishing, gear fishing, and bait fishing. Variety is good, stretching is essential. Oh, that was my answer. We had questions about fishing, about guiding, about working out, diet, all kinds of stuff.

Tom Rowland: We're gonna start with the fishing ones. And so we've been doing a lot of stuff here at the podcast. One of the things is the knot guide. We have been tying knots and testing them for over a year now, so most of the how to Tuesdays have been about knots and testing them, tying them in different ways, and we've been keeping keeping track of that. Typically, what I'll do is I'll tie a knot. I'll try it. I'll I'll tie three of them, and then I will test those to get an average breaking strength. And the results have been pretty interesting. I found them very interesting. I thought you might find them interesting as well. Many people have asked if I could put those together, and that's what we did.

Tom Rowland: With Ben's help over here, we, put this together in a knot guide, and that is available for free to you at tomrowlandpodcast.com. Or you can go to any of the social media platforms, Tom Rowland podcast on Instagram, and you can look at the link tree, and there is a link that you can click that'll take you directly to the place where you download that knot guide. And what it's designed to do is to see the exact breaking strength of one knot, and then you look at another knot that's for the same purpose and maybe it's the one you tie, but this one's way stronger. So you can decide if that's what you wanna do. May and some of these knots, you know, are way stronger but way more difficult to tie.

Tom Rowland: So the idea is that you could look through this whole list of knots. You could decide which ones you are comfortable in tying, and maybe you see one is seventy five percent and one is 95. If you start using the ninety five percent one, I'm almost gonna guarantee that you're gonna catch more fish or land more fish. So that's what it's there for. It's for you. It is a resource. So here we go on some questions. We're gonna start with the fishing ones. So I've also found it really cool that on the text thread, you can see someone's name, how old they are, and where they're from. I've also included that because it's kinda cool to see how many people are from all over the place. We have people from other countries, actually, that ask questions.

04:37 · Offshore Trolling Motors: The New Standard

Tom Rowland: So Eloy Rodriguez asked the first question. He is 56 years old from Laredo, Texas. He says, how about trolling motors on offshore boats? I seem to get looks on my 2027 Tidewater with twin two fifties. I use it a lot on jetties where trolling motor is useful, but others say you don't need it in deep water. So this is a really good question because trolling motors over the last, let's say, five years have become not only something that people use offshore, but is becoming the standard. And the reason it's becoming the standard is because not only is it a good idea to use these trolling motors offshore, but companies are making them longer and longer.

Tom Rowland: And the reason why you would need a longer trolling motor is if you're on a bass boat, you only need a short trolling motor because the bow is very close to the water. You're also, typically in water that is not terribly, rough unless you're fishing the Great Lakes like I see some of the bass pros do where the entire bow of the boat's coming out of the water. If the trolling motor is longer, you can keep the, head and propeller of the trolling motor underwater. So as you move to a bigger boat, the bow is higher and it is rougher. You need a longer trolling motor. Power Pole is making one that is 72 inches, which is pretty long.

Tom Rowland: Other models out there are making them a 108 inches that are specifically designed for offshore, applications, and what I'm noticing is that I'm seeing more and more and more of them. So what we would have to do and I really like any kind of, technology advances that allow us to do something that we weren't able to do before. It just wasn't the type of fishing that we could do before because it it was really difficult. So imagine that we're in 300 feet of water. In order to anchor in 300 feet of water, which a lot of captains in the Florida Keys and other places do that, you're gonna need a lot more line than 300 feet of line.

Tom Rowland: You're probably gonna need, I don't know, six times that much, five times that much so that you can actually anchor. You get on the bottom. You'll have some scope. It'll come up. Well, that's fine to do that, and but your boat has to be capable of holding that much line, which is a lot of line. And the bigger the boat, probably the more line and the more chain and the bigger anchor. And then the trick is that you're gonna have to pick that up. In the Florida Keys, we've come up with a technique where you attach an anchor ball to the line, and then you run the boat up the anchor line and kind of around. You're not running over the anchor line. You're just kind of running back around.

Tom Rowland: And that actually the big heavy ball or the big buoyant ball lifts the heavy anchor up off the bottom at least a lot a long way. So you're not pulling this heavy anchor from 300 feet of water, and that'd be, like, 1,200 feet of line to do that. So that's really hard, but it also takes a ton of time even with the buoy. So what happens is you get to a spot, you mark some fish, you think I'm gonna stay here for a while, you drop the anchor, and then if you if it's not as good as you thought it was gonna be, you're gonna only be able to stay there for or or you might just say, well, we're just gonna have to make this work because I'm not picking up that anchor.

Tom Rowland: Or maybe I'll pick that anchor up, but I'm only gonna pick it up maybe once or twice. And so with the trolling motor, you can go to the same place, put the trolling motor down, and you can fish. It will hold you in that spot. And a lot of these trolling motors, the new Power Pole one and many of the other ones have an anchor mode on them. So you can get to where you're going. You can hit this button on the on the, remote control or on the trolling motor itself, and it will hold you by GPS position exactly where you are. So no matter how hard the wind's blowing, no matter well, sometimes it can blow too hard for this, but if if the trolling motor can hold you in that spot, it it will continue to correct and hold you exactly where you are.

Tom Rowland: So what this means is that if the fishing is not as good as you were hoping it was gonna be there or maybe there's too many sharks there and every time you're catching a fish, it's getting sharked, which is a very common occurrence right now, you can just simply pick the trolling motor up and and move to another spot as quickly and easily as a bass fisherman would do the same thing or an inshore fisherman would do the same thing.

Tom Rowland: So it doesn't take very many times for an offshore fisherman that's used to picking up the anchor and having that be the most physical part of their day, see their neighbor over here, come drop the trolling motors, and then pick them up and leave after they've cut whatever they want, all of a sudden, the the wheels start turning in that captain's head. And it's like, okay. I don't know what that was, but I want one of those. So it's a it's a pretty big investment in the offshore, because the trolling motors that are designed for this are pretty expensive, but then you also need the batteries that will, help you to do that. And, typically, those are lithium batteries. We use the lithium pro batteries.

Tom Rowland: There's other lithium batteries on the market. Lithium batteries are lighter. They charge faster, and they last longer. So, that's that's a really good option. But for your question, Eloy, it is becoming standard. I was just at the Miami Boat Show. There were lots and lots of offshore boats, being sold at the Miami Boat Show brand new that already had the trolling motors installed at the factory. So OEM products going on the boat or that's how people were ordering them already before they're brand new. So not a retrofit, brand new. And so it's becoming more and more common.

Tom Rowland: So if the people in your area are giving you funny looks, they won't for long because you're gonna see more and more and more of these offshore trolling motors, and it is a very good idea. I like it because, like, if you go to a place where, let's say, it's 800 feet and you wanna stop in that 800 feet of water for whatever reason, you can do it with the trolling motor. You're certainly not gonna anchor there. In 200 feet of water, though, you can where we commonly anchor, you can put the trolling motors down, and you can stay there for a short period of time or you can stay there for a long period of time. It's easy to move. So you're definitely gonna see them more and more.

11:11 · Forward-Facing Sonar and the $50K Electronics Debate

Tom Rowland: Alright. We got another question about technology. Angie Scott, friend of ours that, has a podcast. Angie's from Nashville, Tennessee. What are your thoughts on professional bass anglers feeling like they need 30 to $50,000 of electronics rigged on their boat to stay competitive? Multiple forward facing sonar units, multiple transducers, multiple graphs of various sizes and manufacturers. K. It's a great question because the hot topic right now in a lot of bass fishing is the use of forward facing sonar. Forward facing sonar, if you don't know, Lowrance is the company that I'm most familiar with. That's the electronics that we use. Their product for forward facing sonar is called ActiveTarget.

Tom Rowland: What general conventional sonar would do is you would have to get right over the top of something and you would project a beam of sonar down. It would hit tree, some sort of whatever was on the bottom, including fish, and the fish would show up in little arcs. And that is the the way that Daryl Lawrence, he invented sonar. That's the way his little green box worked. It marked a fish. So that was revolutionary technology at the time, but it is a snapshot in time. So it puts a beam down there. You mark something very quickly. It will continue to mark and the screen moves, you know, until it marks again, and then you can see these marks over and over again. You continue to mark these things.

Tom Rowland: But you can't see the fish moving, and you have to be directly over the top of them. The next technology was side scan technology that came out, which allowed you to see a little bit to the side. That's all good, but forward facing sonar is now imagine that you able to shoot a beam out in front of you, and imagine that it all of a sudden looks like a video game. Now people that use this technology, they're following me. They understand this. If you haven't ever seen this in action, you can get on YouTube and you can see some of the bass fishermen do it.

Tom Rowland: They're the ones that are the very best at it right now, and what's happening in some of these tournaments is you'll have some of the younger anglers that are really good with this technology, and they are winning these tournaments. They're beating people that maybe are a little bit older. Not all the older guys are not good at it, but some of some of the younger guys are just innately better at using forward facing sonar because they're more familiar with video games. They're more familiar with this technology. They're seeing what's going on. There are older guys that are also good with it.

Tom Rowland: But, typically, just like the use of a smartphone or something, somebody younger is going to be a little bit better at it, is gonna learn it a little faster, and gonna be a little have have their mind open a little bit more to the pot potentials of this than someone who that that maybe is a little bit older. K? The controversy here is that some people are coming in and they're winning the tournament, and quite a few tournaments have been won using the forward facing sonar only. Other people feel as though they can't compete with that. They feel like, well, I don't know how to use the forward facing sonar as well as that guy, so I can't compete. So, therefore, it should be illegal.

Tom Rowland: I gotta I have a problem with that because that's that's an attitude that we've had in the Florida Keys about tournament fishing. If someone is using a technology that you aren't good at or that you didn't think of, it's not expressly written in the rules that it's illegal, but someone else got creative and thought about doing something. And as soon as they win, it's fine until they win. But as soon as they win, then everybody says, oh, man. That should be illegal. I don't think that's necessarily good. Although, when you do make something illegal, that is when people's wheels really start turning.

Tom Rowland: So the first thing about Angie's question is, what is my what are my thoughts on professional bass anglers feeling like they need to spend 30 to $50,000 on their electronics? Well, if they feel like they need to spend that to be competitive, then they probably do. It's probably not just somebody's feeling. They actually do need to be able to use the electronics. Now maybe they don't need three different brands. Maybe they could learn how to use one brand as well as someone else can learn how to use three brands. If that's where the sport's going, that's where the sport's going. Now, eventually, just like with so many other things that it looks like, okay.

Tom Rowland: Well, that's the way where the sport's going, and it's going to stay that way, and it's never going to change. But whatever is old is new again, and fishing goes in cycles. So this technology is going to be incredibly effective until either there's a new technology or, like in some instances with just regular sonar, the fish get wise to it, and sonar emits a ticking sound. And there have been many tournaments won when anglers decide that they are fishing for fish that are very, very spooky, and they turn off all electronics so that they don't have that ticking sound, and therefore they can catch the fish that has been conditioned to every time I hear that ticking sound, I somebody gets caught. I got caught last time.

Tom Rowland: I don't wanna do that again. So when they hear that ticking sound, they go under the log or they or they leave or they don't bite. So I think that this technology, when it's gonna be the absolute most effective, is when it's new, and that's where that's what we're going through right now. And, also, people are learning how to use it better and better and better. So if people feel like they need to put that much electronics on their boat, they probably do. And, you know, bass fishing is very competitive. Those guys are very, very good at what they do. I have a lot of respect for the bass fishermen. They are responsible for a lot of innovation that transfers over into saltwater, whether that's redfish or marlin fishing.

Tom Rowland: You can learn things from the bass fishermen, and they're they're make no mistake about it. They are very, very, very good at what they do. So if that's the way they're feeling, then I'm sure that that's the state of that competitive fishery, that that is actually if you wanna compete with the big dogs and they're all running $50,000 worth of electronics, and I think that might even be kinda on the low end, then that's what you need or you're not gonna compete. So I don't think it should be illegal, but what it tells me when somebody wants to make something illegal is that that works.

Tom Rowland: We have a lot of things in fishing, a lot of technologies that come out, and people, you know, get pretty excited about them, and they don't actually do that much. If this is creating such a stir and such, you know, people are thinking, well, it's not fair for someone to be using that, then as a non tournament angler, the first thing that I want is to get that technology because I'm going out there as a charter guide to try to catch my people more fish. I'm going out there as a dad to try to make sure my kids can catch more fish. If this technology can help me to do that and I'm using fishing to put, you know, food on the table and money in the bank, I'm getting it.

Tom Rowland: And if it helps me catch more fish and have more, more more successful trips, then I'm I'm gonna get it. So as far as the competitive thing, that's a little bit different, but I'm all about it. We have it on our boat, and we're using it, and it's really good. We're gonna talk about it here in a little bit.

18:53 · Line Expiration and Dialing In ActiveTarget

Tom Rowland: Okay. Rod Rice, 59, Saint Louis, Missouri. Does fishing line braid monofluorocarbon have an expiration date? I'm talking about the spool sitting on your workbench not exposed to the sunlight or excessive heat, which is a that's a really good thing to point out. I would also apply to the or would that also apply to the braided line buried at the beginning of the school at the school? I didn't know the answer to this one, so I called my friend Mark Mills at Iowa, and I asked him. And you know what? He didn't know exactly the answer either. But, typically, if line is exposed to sunlight, sand, salt, and certainly use, it is being degraded fairly quickly. Right?

Tom Rowland: So if you're catching a lot of fish online, it's it's you you you all know it's time to change your line. Right? If if braid braid's getting, you know, pulled through coral and seagrass and sea fans and everything, it's getting nicked. What he's asking about is when you buy a 3,000 yard spool and you spool up a couple of reels, how long can that sit on your on your shelf, before it goes bad, or will it ever go bad? So Mark thought six years. It could it could be there six years. I think I think longer, but there is not an official expiration date online. But if there's no sun damaging it, there's no, salt or or, sand damaging it. I think that it is going to be really hard for anything to affect the strength of that line.

Tom Rowland: So I'd I'd think you're gonna be safe for six years or more. Okay? So Jason Blaylock, 54, Madison, Mississippi. Any updates on uses and usefulness of active target? So we were just talking about active target just a minute ago. That is the forward facing sonar. Active target is the exact that's the model name of the, forward facing sonar that comes from Lowrance Electronics. It's a Navico brand, and that's what I have on my boat. I've got a brand new '24 Yellowfin CE, and I have it rigged out with all Lowrance. So three Lowrance, units. I have the hacked active target mounted on my trolling motor, which is a power pole move trolling motor, and we are using it to mark everything from mullet and pilchards to permit, tarpon, sharks, cobia.

Tom Rowland: We've marked a lot of different things, snappers and everything else. Yeah. I'm getting better at using it, but the way that you that you orient the transducer definitely affects the way that you're marking the fish that you're looking for. So tilt it up, tilt it down, get it just in exactly the right sweet spot for exactly the depth of water that you're looking for is going to make a really, really, really big difference. I'm getting better at that. Still not anywhere near as good as these bass guys that can that what they can do is incredible. They can actually see their tiny little lure and their tiny little line and they're throwing it out there, and they can see that in relation to the fish.

Tom Rowland: So they're seeing their lure move around like this, 50 feet out in front of them, coming like this, and they see a fish go over there, and they know, okay, I'm about to get bit, and I got bit. That's pretty cool. I'm not quite there yet. We have seen fish come and bite the lure, or or bait, but not quite to the level that they're doing it. So as far as advances, and usefulness, it is incredibly useful. It is also dependent upon how well you learn how to use it and how well you have it set up on your boat for the type of fishing that you're doing. That is a little bit tricky. I personally feel like I don't think I'm gonna really get it dialed in until I get it on a separate pole.

Tom Rowland: So in our fishing, we have a lot of wind, we have a lot of tide currents, stuff like that. The trolling motor is constantly kind of moving a little bit. I think that if I could get it off of the trolling motor and get it onto, Moose, come here. Moose, come here. Sorry. My dog is creating quite a a stir. I think if I can get it off of the trolling motor and onto a separate pole, it's going to mark things way better. So those are the advances. I've seen a couple of, these separate poles that are intended for this purpose, and one of them is from Stealth, I believe it's called. Another is from TH Marine Supply. Both of them have something that I'm interested in. I'm gonna try that.

Tom Rowland: I'm a get that transducer off the trolling motor and onto a separate pole so that whatever the trolling motor is doing, I can have the transducer pointed right where I want it and, and and not be affected by the trolling motor. Okay.

23:52 · Light-Tackle Finesse Fishing in Saltwater

Tom Rowland: So Tom Anderson, 75 years old from Brentwood, Missouri. Finesse fishing with long light rods and four to six pound line is a growing movement in freshwater bass and walleye fishing because of how effective casting small lures long distances can be. Are there comparable saltwater opportunities using lighter than usual tackle and that you recommend considering. So, yes, of course. The lighter line, just like you say in freshwater, the further we can cast something, the further the more opportunities we're going to have. A lot of times you're limited by your casting distance. We've been using eight pound line a lot, eight pound braided line on, longer than normal rods.

Tom Rowland: So an eight foot rod or a seven foot three rod and eight pound line, I'm going to literally be able to get 20 to 50 feet further without any increase in my casting ability. Right? So however well however you can cast right now, however far you can, even if you're not a great caster, if you use lighter line and a longer rod and cast exactly the same way, you're gonna cast it 20 to 50 feet further just just like that, just by selecting the right line. Now, of course, that comes with drawbacks. The, the line is easier to break. So another another place that that is happening, and it's very interesting, is in the offshore world with deep jigging. Deep jigging is like butterfly jigs, and the butterfly jigs used to be 12 inches long.

Tom Rowland: And over the years, these things have gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. Iowa has some incredibly cool, little, tiny jigs that are designed to be fished on these rods that if you saw this rod and didn't know what it was, you would think it was for crappie fishing. It is the tiniest, little, thinnest rod that I've ever seen, and Saint Croix has some cool stuff. The jigging rod ultralight jigging rods are they're they're incredible, and these pea these guys that are getting good at this are catching really, really impressive fish with really tiny jigs and really tiny rods. And, so that that would be, I think, the I would think that would be the the most comparable things that I can think of in in Saltwater. I may be missing some things.

Tom Rowland: Gabe Rosberg.

26:20 · The Best Fisherman I've Ever Met

Tom Rowland: He is from Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. '34. Oh, this is an interesting question. Okay. Who is the best fisherman that you've ever met? K. So this is a very tough question because if the question was, who's the best fly fisherman you've ever met, or who's the best offshore fisherman, or who's the best flats fisherman, or who's the best bass fisherman you've ever met. I could come up with a with with a top three or four or five in each one of those. But if you ask me who's the best fisherman that I've ever met, I have to put some qualifiers out there.

Tom Rowland: I think that in order to be the best fisherman, you have to be good at all different types of fishing and have experience in fishing and guiding in all of those different areas, and then you have to be at least proficient with all the different tackle, and you should probably be extremely good at most of that different tackle. So when you start putting those kind of qualifiers on it, man, that list gets very small. There are tons of people that I could tell you are the the the best inshore fishermen I've ever met, and it would be a tight race between a whole bunch of people. Bass fishermen, same thing. Offshore fishermen, same thing. Marlin fishermen, same thing. Permit fishermen, people that are specialized in certain things.

Tom Rowland: But being specialized in certain thing makes you really good at that one thing, but maybe not very good at something else. So, for example, if you are, just an incredibly good fly fisherman, but you have no idea where to catch bait or how to take care of bait or keep bait or what you what you would even do if you had bait, I would not put you in the the the the category of the best fisherman. Might be the best fly fisherman, but you wouldn't be the best fisherman in my opinion. So this is all based upon me. So when I start to see that list shrink and shrink and shrink and shrink and shrink, I have a few people that come to mind. Richard Black in the Florida Keys is definitely someone who can fly fish, has won fly fishing tournaments.

Tom Rowland: He is certainly one of the best inshore fishermen that I've ever been around. He also is one of the best offshore fishermen I've ever been around. He can fly fish. He can spin fish. He can take care of bait, he can tie flies, he can do it all in that salt water. I don't know how good he is at freshwater fishing. It would not take Richard long to get great at any style of fishing, but he's a young man, and I don't know how much experience he has at fly fishing for trout or salmon or, you know, bass fishing and stuff. So he's definitely on the list. Robert Trosset, another one that I think of as really good, but I would probably say, an older fisherman that maybe some of you don't know, but you should, and that is Stu Apt.

Tom Rowland: He is, I mean, Stu Apt did it all, man. He did the offshore stuff. He was heavy on the fly, but he he definitely bait fished. He knew the offshore. He knew the inshore. He also went and did, you know, salmon, trout, everything else. He's he was he's definitely right up there. I would say Lefty Cray, but he didn't do as much bait fishing or offshore fishing as, as Stu. And then, you know, this this guy is one of my friends. We have a similar upbringing where he grew up bass fishing, and he has tremendous experience in freshwater, guiding for trout. He's one of the better fly fishermen that I know. He has guided for Marlin. He he he's really, really good, and he can handle any style of tackle, and that's Carter Andrews.

Tom Rowland: So shout out to you, Carter. You're definitely you're definitely on the short list of the best fishermen based upon that criteria. Alright.

30:21 · The Most Memorable Days of My Guiding Career

Tom Rowland: So we're gonna move on to another subject that's guiding. So Hunter Bertrand, he's 23 from Houston, Texas. He says, I'd love to hear about your most memorable experience while guiding. Could be the client or the success y'all had that day or even just learning what was one thing that maybe sticks out the most of your entire guide career. I would also like to make a guest suggestion. Okay. So I'll I'll get to the guest suggestion later. But as far as the the most memorable trip of all the guiding that I that I did, I would say the day the the first time that I ever took anyone fishing was in Jackson, Wyoming. I wasn't ready for the trip at all, and I was surprised with a trip. You got a trip today.

Tom Rowland: You're going to the, Salt River and when you leave Jackson and go south, you come to a fork in the road. And one way, if you go left, you'll go to the Green River, If you go right, you'll go to the Salt River. I had done this one time, and I didn't know if I was gonna find the river. I and that that day, stuck out really, really well because I actually did find the river, and I even found the takeout. So I was so nervous that day. That was maybe one of the most nervous I've ever been in my life, not not even knowing I was gonna take the river, be able to find the river. My first day guiding in saltwater in Key West, Florida. I can tell you exactly when it was. 03/28/1994.

Tom Rowland: I can tell you that because I'm looking at a picture right here, and I saved this picture because that was my first day. I was also not ready to take the guided trip, and I was kinda pushed into it a little bit. And I was fishing with somebody that I had fished with before but never been paid to take someone fishing. And this was, an artist, a very famous artist in the world of fishing. I have some stuff by him behind me and on the walls. His name is Peter Corbin, and Peter Corbin was my first client in saltwater. Peter Corbin liked to permit fish, and he was, at the time, coming down to Key West a lot. We had become friends. I had taken him fishing a couple of times just as friends.

Tom Rowland: We had been fishing together with Marshall Cutchan before. And Peter says, I wanna go fishing tomorrow, and I wanna be your first client. You are ready to go. And I was I was not ready to go, but he encouraged me and said, you know, we're gonna do it. I got a half day. We can go. So I pick him up, and we go fishing. Peter had, I don't know if he Peter had caught a permanent fly, but I certainly hadn't had anyone catch a permanent fly. And, I'd only seen one caught before. Take Peter to the first spot. He catches a permanent fly. A really nice one. It's a picture of it right there. And then, take him to another spot, we thought we were gonna fish for barracudas. He catches another permanent fly. Two permanent fly in a half day.

Tom Rowland: We go back to the dock, and, that's how I started my guide career. It was it was a pretty pretty amazing day. I have one more day that is of major memory to me, and this one is in one of those, in the file of just weird and and strange things that happen when you're on the water. There was a there was a, a drug that women took in the sixties and the seventies. It was called thalidomide, thalidomide, thal thal t h a l I d o m I d e, and thalidomide. That's what it's called. And it was pretty common when I was a kid to see people that had a a certain birth defect, and that would be that they would be perfectly normal, but one arm just didn't quite develop. And it was smaller and just didn't quite develop.

Tom Rowland: And these people, I I I saw many of them. I had a friend that had the same thing when when I was growing up. And I had a a customer come to me and, say he wanted to catch a permit, meet him at the boat ramp, and I noticed he he's got one arm that is not quite not quite as developed as the other. No problem. He's like, he he shows me. He's like, man, look. I can cast, and he would kind of, hold the handle, and he would wind the rod around the handle. So his right arm worked great, and he was really super strong. Had incredibly strong handshake. He was really great. And he would use his left arm that that wasn't as dexterous if you want, you you know, that's I guess that's a easy way to say it.

Tom Rowland: And he would just kinda hold the the spinning reel handle and wind around, and he was really good at it. He'd done a lot of fishing. So we go out from Key West another time. It was a half day, and I remember, the wind's blowing from the east. We go on the tower flat, and I start pulling right down the ocean side. The tide was perfect for it. We go down there and see a permit. He throws a crab over to the permit. Permit comes over, tails up on it. Perfect. Catches that fish. And when we bring that fish in, the upper lobe of the permit's tail was undeveloped and small, and it was super weird. He he saw me land the fish. I picked it up. I handed it to him, and he says, that's weird. Have you ever seen one like that? And I said, nope.

Tom Rowland: Never seen one like that. We both thought, He even said something. He goes, it looks just like my arm. I didn't wanna say too much about it, but that's that's exactly what I was thinking. So we release the fish. We start pulling down the ocean side. Few minutes after that, see another permit, throws over there, catches that permit, brings it in. The lower the lower ray of the permit's tail looked exactly like the other one, just a mirror image of the other one. Small, undeveloped. He said, that is so weird. Two of them in one day. I've never seen one like that before. I've never seen one after that, and I just happened to be with that particular person. And, strangest day strangest day of my guy career. Those are three days.

Tom Rowland: I answered your question three times.

36:55 · Is the Keys Fishery Better or Worse Now?

Tom Rowland: Alright. Glenn Hertzler, 70 years old from Doylesville, Pennsylvania. Is fishing in The Keys better, worse, or the same now than it was ten years ago or twenty years ago for bonefish, snook, reds, tarpon? If different now, in what way and how and what are your thoughts of it? I've fished for the Florida Keys for fifteen years, and I see it better today, but that's my opinion just because I may have a better guide than I did in the past. He uses Chris Jones of Mudpuppy Charters. Alright? Shout out to Chris Jones from Mud Puppy Charters, making making your customer very happy. So I think that fishing in the Florida Keys specifically goes in some cycles. When I first got to Key West, very, very few bonefish were being caught in Key West.

Tom Rowland: It was mostly a permit and tarpon fishery. Didn't see any redfish there for a long time. And, now if you were to just take a snapshot then when I first started and a snapshot now, now the bone fishing is fantastic, and I would say the permit fishing is not quite as good as it once was. Tarpon fishing is about the same, but the tarpon are harder to get to bite, and we're now seeing a wider variety of fish, more snook, more redfish. So in a lot of ways, I think the fishing is better. More targets, more variety, and that's great. In the Everglades, the snook fishing is the best it's ever been in that I've ever seen it in my lifetime. It's the best it's ever been. More sharks around than ever before.

Tom Rowland: So if you're fishing for sharks, best it's ever been. You know, when I first started, I heard a lot of the guys talking about how good it used to be. You know, talking about the old days, the good old days. It seemed pretty good to me because I didn't know about the good old days. And so now I hear people talking about the days when I first started, but a lot of the people that I'm here complaining about the fishing are doing the same thing that they did for the last twenty years. They're on a little milk route. They do the same thing. They go to the same places. They try the same things without a lot of exploration, without a lot of experimentation. And, yeah, you know, fishing changes.

Tom Rowland: And I could see why somebody would be disappointed that, you know, it used to be so great, and now it's not. K? I don't feel that way. I think the fishing is as good as it's ever been. I just think it's different. More bonefish in Key West, less bonefish in Islamorada. More permit in Islamorada than we used to have, less bonefish than we used to have. We had a big, cold front that killed off a lot of the big bonefish, and that was definitely hard to swallow, where you see, you know, there used to be fifteen and eighteen pound bonefish on Shell Key. These days, It's it's not like that.

Tom Rowland: It used to be like that, but the bone fishing in the Florida Keys is different, and they're more in other places that there that there weren't once weren't very many fish. So I think it's really hard to be able to say whether it's better or not, but I think the fishing is really, really good. So just different.

40:04 · How to Find and Hire a Great Guide

Tom Rowland: Alright. Trevor Pilipchuk from Edmonton, United Kingdom. He says, if you're going to a brand new area state country fishing and you knew no one for reference, what would you do to hire the best guide possible? Oh, and then he says, Jonathan Moss that you recommended was very good to us. Thank you. My sons and I had two great days with him. Very nice guy. Great with kids. Good fisherman. Right. He is. And, Jonathan Moss, good guy. So if I were doing, something, which I I do that a lot. You know, if I'm gonna go someplace, I'm gonna try to fish. If I don't know anything about it, I'm going to start looking at every available resource.

Tom Rowland: I guess the most recent time that I went someplace that I hadn't, did not know anyone, and I ended up fishing was probably in the, I did a sailing trip with my family. We went to the Virgin Islands and, never been there before. And so first thing I did was consult the Internet and see, you know, start to Google, look and see what, what's available. And if there are guides listed, then I'm gonna try to go to their websites. Websites are okay for guides, but, typically, someone's going to make a you know, these days, a website is almost more like a brochure for people. They're gonna make it once. It's gonna sit there, and it's gonna be something that doesn't get regularly updated. At least that's what I'm noticing these days.

Tom Rowland: Websites used to get updated more frequently, and I think that that's not happening because of social media. I think it's much easier to make a new post on social media. And so I will go and I'll find the guide, and then I'll try to find them on social media. And then with the social media, I think you're able to get a better indication of how often this person's fishing, you know, how frequently he's posting, and, and get an idea of what a a good day might be. Then I'm gonna reach out, and I'm gonna find some you know, I'm gonna make contact and ask some questions. And the questions that I'm gonna ask are, you know, how many days do you fish a year? What what's a typical day? You know, do you what what species do you fish for?

Tom Rowland: And if that's something that I like, he's like, I like to we we mostly, you know, bonefish. So, okay. Cool. Like, how do you do it? Do you wade? Do you fish out of the boat? I wanna get an idea of what's going on. You know, what's a really great day? You know, how many would you catch on a really great day? And what you know, you just wanna get your expectations in order. So maybe if he's like, well, the most we've ever caught in a day is two. You know? So you may still wanna go fishing, but these may be really hard fish that you're gonna hunt, and the experience is catching one. If you were to catch more than one, that'd be extreme extremely great, and it's probably pretty common to not even catch one. Right?

Tom Rowland: So if you just get your mindset right, but on the other hand, you might go somewhere and they're like, I don't know. We caught 50 today. Okay. Well, you got an idea. But I'm gonna consult the Internet, and then I'm gonna consult social media. Stephen Michaels, 58, El Paso, Texas. When guiding, was there ever a time that you wanted to dump the client overboard and go fishing by yourself? It would seem that way. It would seem that way. As a guide, I was very careful to have a mindset that I wasn't out there to fish myself. I was out there to be the best fishing guide that I possibly could, and that did not include fishing myself.

Tom Rowland: And I learned how to guide from Joe and Verne Bressler in Jackson, Wyoming, and they were very, very strict about guides fishing. You did not fish. You were not there to fish. It didn't matter if you could cast better than your client. You were never to show them that unless you were it was an instructional kind of thing. It didn't matter if you could catch more fish than the than the than the client. That was a great way to ruin the day for the client. They worked really hard to catch three fish, and then you catch three fish in three casts. That does not inspire a lot of confidence from your customer, so you never do that.

Tom Rowland: And so I think that I just went out there with a mindset of regardless of how difficult the conditions may be or how difficult this person may be, I'm gonna do everything that I possibly can to show them a good time and make them wanna come back and do this again. So I didn't really feel like I ever wanted to dump them off and and go fishing on my own. I did feel like the fishing's really good. I would love to have tomorrow off so that I could come back here and do it myself. But as you get, you know, in in high demand, you rarely have tomorrow off. So you're kind of on that mindset of just, I'm here to show these people a good time. Tim Schultz, 66, Springfield, Missouri. How to hire a good to great guide.

Tom Rowland: I fish with a lot of guides and generally happy, but when I've had some med I've had some bad experiences as well. Maybe what questions should we be asking and any tips to hiring a guide? Good guides make a a good trip great, and in return for usually and I usually return to hire the same to go to that area. Hawks Kaye, is on my bucket list and planning on 2025. Alright. Thanks. He says he enjoys the podcast too. Thanks, Tim. So we went over this just a minute ago, but, you know, the the best, advice I could give you about making contact with a guy to decide if that is the right person with you is a lot of communication. Verbal communication if possible. So call them on the phone and talk to them.

Tom Rowland: The best way that you're going to get a great guide is a recommendation from someone that you know, like, and trust. They had a good experience with this person. They know how you like to fish, and this guy's perfect for you. He does he's he's great with that. You like to fly fish for bonefish? This guy, that's all he does. He's fantastic. He was funny. We told jokes. My wife loved him. Everything was great. I highly suggest him. That's the kind of recommendation you're looking for, and sometimes you can get that, and that makes it much easier. Typically, when you find someone that has a glowing recommendation like that, you call them and they're like, I don't have an opening for nine months. So be ready for that.

Tom Rowland: And maybe also be ready to say, well, I'm looking for a great trip, so I'm going to wait until this particular person has an opening. And when you do that, you're probably gonna have a great trip. There's a lot of questions that you can ask. We talked about expectations. We talked about what they like to do. We talked about what we didn't talk about is what you like to do. So if you only want to fly fish or you only want to bait fish, you don't want anything to do with fly fishing, that's a question that you need to ask. Say, when you call this person who's gotten this glowing recommendation, you say, well, I really like to spin fish.

Tom Rowland: Is it gonna be okay if we throw shrimp to the bonefish or crabs to the permit or shrimp to the redfish or lures for the redfish or whatever? That's how I like to fish. Is that how you like to fish? And you might get the answer, I'm a 100% fly. Okay. You that's not a good mix. That's not that's not good that's not gonna be a good mix. So then you would say, well, would you have a friend that you could recommend me to that likes to fish the way that I do? Oh, yeah. Sure, man. Let me send you to my friend Bob over here. He's great. He he's the best bait fisherman I know. K. Great. That's how you're gonna get the right person, and you're gonna ask the right questions, and you're gonna end up getting there.

Tom Rowland: So, having when when two people have different expectations, that's when things aren't so good. So if you go and you wanna bait fish or you wanna keep fish, like, you wanna keep you wanna bring cooler fish back, and you didn't ask the question, like, am I gonna be able to bring a cooler fish back? You just assume that you would be able to, and you get there and the guy's like, dude, I'm all catch and release, man. I ain't kept fishing ten years. Okay. Not good. Right? You expected this trip. You're gonna get this trip. He should have asked the questions too. So that's you know, it goes both ways.

Tom Rowland: The guide should be asking a lot of questions to make sure you're a good fit for him, and you should be asking a good quest a lot of questions to make sure that you're a good fit for or that guide is a good fit for you.

48:38 · Catching and Keeping Bait Alive

Tom Rowland: Chris Carroll, 53 Wilmington, North Carolina. Best bait, way to keep bait, feed baits so they're ready to go when you need them. Tournament fishing, charter fishing, or fun fishing. No bait is no fish. Thanks, Tom. Okay. So in the Florida Keys, we do a lot of this because bait is really available sometimes, and then it's not available. There's a lot of different types of baits that we use, pilchards, pinfish, breadfins, goggle eyes, kind of fish that we use, and what people will do is they'll build big bait tanks, bait cages, Kim Kim tainers that have holes drilled in them. Those are fish type baits and ways that you can keep them. We also have crabs, shrimp, and pinfish and other things like that that that we'll have.

Tom Rowland: So the crabs and shrimp, a little bit easier to keep. You can have them aerated in a bucket, but a lot of times, you need to be very careful about if you have a a a pump that is in the water, it can make the water really hot. So you wanna keep the water cool. That's as important as as oxygenating the water, is keeping it cool. So there are a lot of guys that I know that have a little shrimp farm in their air condition in their air conditioned house because as a tournament is coming up, the bait store has really great shrimp. You may not be able to count on that on the day of the tournament. So they'll stockpile shrimp, feed the shrimp, keep the shrimp in the air conditioning with with a bubbler.

Tom Rowland: That's the best way to do it so that the bubbles are going all the way through the entire water column. The smaller bubbles the smaller the bubbles are, the more that they're getting sorbed into the water. So that's a really great way to do it just like the shrimp tank at the at the at the store. And some guides will have their own shrimp tank, right, just like commercial operation. It really works great if you're on the water and you can pull in fresh water, and then that fresh water then goes back out to the canal. You're keeping the water in the tank. But people go to great lengths in the Florida Keys and other places to keep blue runners, goggle eyes, and other things like that.

Tom Rowland: The they have to go through a period to where they, get acclimated to the tank that they're in, and then they get what everybody refers to as they get hard. The you got good hard baits, and that means that they have rebuilt their slime coating on them, and they are actually quite a bit better than a perfectly just fresh caught bait. They have more energy. You're feeding them regularly. A lot of people feed them, Purina fish chow, mix that with krill. That's a way that I know that some of the captains do it, but it gets to kinda going back to the question of who's the best fisherman in that I've ever met.

Tom Rowland: Well, when it comes to offshore fishing and and things like that, if you don't know how to catch bait and pin bait up and keep it healthy so that it's ready to go on the day of the tournament, you're definitely not gonna be in that list. And these guys, like a captain Scott Walker of end of the blue, this guy can keep bait as well as anybody out there. He's like a scientist. So that makes it that makes it really good. Alright. We're getting closer. We got a lot of questions. Keep going.

51:57 · The Truth About Sponsorship

Tom Rowland: James Gibson. He's, from Sarasota. What are tips for young fishing guys to get their foot in the door with the right companies and sponsorship opportunities? So sponsorship question. Interesting. A lot of people think that if you're, if you're really good, you deserve sponsorship. Or a lot of people think that if you, win a lot of tournaments, you deserve sponsorship. Or if you have a big social media following, you deserve sponsorship. You don't deserve anything. The only reason that anyone ever sponsors anyone is because they think that spending money to have you on their team is going to result in more sales for their product. That's the bottom line for sponsorship.

Tom Rowland: So if you can't provide that to the company, they have no reason to sponsor you. There's no reason. I know that's gonna come as, you know, some people are gonna be crestfallen. Well, I don't wanna be a salesman, but that's what sponsorship is. You have to be able to sell product, and you can use your tournament resume or your social media or your website or your reputation or whatever that can help you because you have you you are, you know, a little more justifiable, I guess. So your opinion matters, and that's why they're sponsoring you.

Tom Rowland: I would think that for a young fisherman that has no sponsorship and wants to understand the sponsorship game is to make contact with a lot of different companies and and start with the companies of the products that you really like. So if you like a particular fishing reel or a particular fishing rod or a particular lure and you see you you love it because there's nothing wrong with it or you think that there might be ways that you could help them to improve it, make contact with that company and start slow. It's not gonna happen fast. There are thousands of people knocking on their doors, and you want to be able to try to provide them something that they can't get anywhere else.

Tom Rowland: And it's not gonna be just I have, you you know, a 117,000 social media followers. There's a lot of people that have that and a lot of people that have more. But what can you do to help that company sell more product in your area? That's that's pretty much the the bottom line.

54:22 · Workout Variety, Striped Bass Closures, and Guides Who Ride Your Boat

Tom Rowland: Graham Anderson, 63, Calgary, Alberta. Preface here, as most of us are rabbit holers. K? What do you think about a one third cardio, one third strength, and one third stretching program, and maybe six days a week and one rest? Is in that cardio, for example, would could be one third cycling, one third elliptical, and one third running. K? The reason I brought it up because reason I brought up rabbit hole is because once I get cycling, then I tend to fixate on that. I prefer cycling and elliptical, but I know I should run more along the same concept being good at fly fishing, gear fishing, and bait fishing. Variety is good. Stretching is essential. Oh, that was my answer. So, so what I would say is that sounds great.

Tom Rowland: Variety is is definitely good. I think stretching for your overall health is definitely essential, especially as we age. I see that you're 63 years old. I'm 55, and and continue to manage to do a lot of the things that I really wanna do and and even excel at some of those even at my age. And I think also that strength is essential. That's one thing well, you did say one third strength. So one third stretching, one third strength, and one third cardio, that sounds like a great program. But I would also say, you know, and I believe that because of the way that you're asking this question, you already know this.

Tom Rowland: But in my opinion, consistency is king, And any program, as perfectly as it is laid out by the the best coach in the entire world, if you don't stay on that program consistently, it's not gonna do you any better than than a crappy program by a crappy coach. So consistency is king, accuracy is next, and intensity follows that. So that that would be what I would say. But the way that you have this laid out, cardio strength and stretching, that's fantastic, especially as we are aging and you're trying to do things like pull a boat, continue to fish hard every day. That's all super important, and it's a lot of things that some people forget about. And then they get to a place where they aren't able to do the things that they wanna do. Alright.

Tom Rowland: Sven Sven Buckman. I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name. Forty seven, Newton, Pennsylvania. Being a saltwater junkie back and forth between New Jersey and Florida, I started my kids young. We would start the season with the herring and shad run-in the Delaware tidal waters. The live wet live bait would be used for stripers. The dead bait would be you would be frozen and used for chum, crab, shark, sea bass, and a variety of others, similar to baits I use in Florida. Any idea when they are going back to a when they are going to allow to fish for them again as they stopped recreational fishing years back? Has anything similar happened in the state of Florida for abundant fish?

Tom Rowland: So I I think what you're talking about is striped bass and the striped bass fishery. We've done a number of podcasts on the striped bass fishery with anglers and captains from from up in the Northeast. It's tricky area because you have a lot of states that are very, very close to one another, and then you also have federal waters that that border those. So what is legal here is illegal here and and also illegal out here. That's that's tricky. We have had something in Florida where they closed down something entirely that was damaging to the fishery, and that was mullet netting. And, through the the, work of Florida Sportsman and some other people, CCA was big into this.

Tom Rowland: They stopped mullet netting as commercial activity, and that really changed the, the fishery and became much, much better. The red fishery rebounded and was was really, really fantastic. So that's what's similar. Honestly, I'm not familiar enough with what's going on up there to be able to answer the rest of your questions. So sorry about that. Victor Parrish, fifty, Camden, South Carolina. I have a question that a buddy and me are trying to figure out now. How can we hire a first mate or captain to go on our boat? We're trailering down a 27 Blackfin and a 20 four Sportsman, 24 two forty two to Islamorada the June as we've done for the past three years.

Tom Rowland: Even watching your show and numerous other shows on how to fish the keys, we don't feel as though we are as productive as we should be. We're looking for someone to go on our boats to show us the waters, just a half day morning trip for offshore and then a half day morning trip for backcountry. Okay. So this is something that you can definitely do, but you wanna be very careful about it. And what you wanna be very careful about is that you want to properly communicate with the captain so there's no surprises and everybody understands what's going on.

Tom Rowland: You want to learn how to fish, and then you probably want you wanna learn how to fish this area, and then you probably wanna return to the spot that this person's gonna take you and try and do it yourself. There's nothing wrong with that as long as everyone understands what's going on. People get sideways with guides and people that will come on your boat because they'll take you to a spot, and then the next day, they'll return to that spot, and there you are. So make no misunderstandings about it. If that's what you wanna do, there are plenty of captains that'll take you to the to the local community hole and show you how to do things, and they are a 100% fine with you going back there and trying it on your own.

Tom Rowland: No problem with that as long as it is communicated in advance. Now if a guide takes you to their secret spot, he does not expect you to go back there in your own boat the next day. So don't get crossways with the guides. Talk to the guides about what it is that you want them to do. There are people that do this. Who who is the guy we had on their podcast? Mutton Mike? Mhmm. Yeah. Mutton Mike. That's one that you could, I don't know if he's in the Keys, but Mutton Mike is a guide that, gets on your boat. And there are a lot of guides that do this. They go they go and get on other people's boats, and that's how they get paid. So you could look up Mutton Mike on Instagram. He might be a good place to start.

Tom Rowland: He might know some other people that, do the same thing down in The Keys on the area that you're going, and that would be that would be the way where I would start. You could also look up, captains that run your boat, and there are people that do this. And there are also other people that they're fine to go on your boat. They're fine to go on their boat. They don't care. But I would urge you to have proper communication about what it is that you wanna do. Don't not communicate in advance and then hope for the best when you get there. Communicate. Because if if the guy says, man, I would never take you to a spot and and show you how to fish my spots. K. Well, then that's not the guide for you. There's lots of other guides.

Tom Rowland: Find the right one. Alright.

61:47 · Safety Gear, First Aid, and Boat and Motor Longevity

Tom Rowland: Steve Belflore, 36, Dunedin, Florida. Good nice place to live. How about a recommended safety gear for fishing and boating or any special supplies that are not on the usual first aid kit? My dad, who was a guide in Islamorada for thirty years, always had electrical tape in his first aid kit for bandage bandaging up cuts and could be used for other things short term. Electrical tape is a very good thing to take on your boat because you can fix all kinds of stuff. Duct tape is also good for that. Always always good to have a roll of duct tape and a roll of electrical tape in your boat. It is fantastic. Any special things that I have. I don't know if you saw earlier.

Tom Rowland: I put a hook through my thumb, and it was through my thumb in a certain way that I had to push down the barb and back the hook out. People get hooked all the time, and, I am now carrying these Danco, cutters. They will cut any hook. Danco is not the only one that makes them, but, you know, something that would cut hooks, that is a very good idea. And then, you know, a standard first aid kit. But the thing about a a first aid kit, and I learned this from my son who's an EMT, he's like, look. If you don't know how to use this stuff, there's no real point in having it. Right? So I kinda disagree with that because maybe you could get help from another vessel, and they have somebody that's trained in in as an EMT.

Tom Rowland: So I get the best first aid kit that I can get, and I have it in a Pelican waterproof box because I probably not gonna get into it. But if I do want to get into it, I wanna make sure that it's dry and everything's good in there. So the special things that I that I take are the Danco cutters and, certainly, alcohol, you know, hydrogen peroxide, things like that to where what you're really trying to do on the boat for the most part is bandage somebody up so that you can get them back to the dock. Or if it's something small like they you you barely cut your finger with a with a fillet knife and you're just bleeding all over the boat, but it's really not that bad. You don't even need stitches.

Tom Rowland: You're just trying to stop the bleeding so that you can con continue to go on and fish. There's a lot of different ways that you can do that with electrical tape and and other things like that, just standard Band Aids, things like that. Having extra sunscreen in the boat is also a good idea if you're taking people that are not used to the sun and other things like, you know, a face covering, an extra hat, extra sunglasses. Those are all things that have come in handy, and they're not exactly first aid supplies, but they kind of are. Derek Marr, 36, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Best advice for freshwater and saltwater boat longevity, specifically motor longevity. Okay.

Tom Rowland: So, if you're in saltwater, the best advice for anything in saltwater is when you're finished with it, get all the salt off of it. This is a product that I've been using lately. Star brite, they're our sponsor, so you know that. But it is a great product. It gets the salt right off of things, especially things like your fishing tackle and your motor. Freshwater rinse, making sure that you're getting all of the salt off of your boat. If you can keep the boat inside in a garage, that helps greatly to, to, have longevity flushing the motor when you're when you're not using it. Guys that use their motor every single day, I don't know that it's important to flush the motors.

Tom Rowland: When I was guiding three hundred plus days a year, I never flushed my motor, and it ran better than any motor that I ever have. The thing that a boat hates the most, the worst thing for a boat in any part of a boat is not to use it. The best thing you can do for a boat is to use it. So take that advice, and if you are going to put your boat away for an extended period of time like a lot of people that live up north, they have to winterize their boat or they have to put their boat up for a particular period. And that is very bad for the boat. So before you do that, you can use fuel treatments. Star brite has a fuel treatment.

Tom Rowland: You can, get all the salt off of it, and you can flush the engines, and you can make sure everything's great, and then you can put it up for an extended period of time. But the most damage you're gonna get on any sort of metal or your motor or your boat is if you put it up with salt on it for a long period of time. If you're using it every single day, wash that thing and get it back out there and keep fishing. Okay.

66:25 · Consistency Is King: Fitness, Legacy, and Balance

Tom Rowland: Michael Lawrence, 48, Lancaster, Kentucky. Two of my favorite questions. What's the one question you wish people would always ask you? What's the answer to that question? I guess the one question that people would always ask you. Is it time to go home? Ask your fishing guide. Maybe that's the right question, and the answer is yes. No. I don't know. Let's see. That is a tough one. One question. I don't know that I really want people to necessarily ask me questions even though I'm right in the middle of doing an Ask Me Anything podcast right now. But that hopefully, that's for you more than it is for me. On the fitness, deal, a lot of people struggle with their with their fitness.

Tom Rowland: And I'm not an expert at fitness, but I am an expert at consistency. And I have been remarkably consistent over my lifetime in, working out and staying in shape and and trying to eat well. I don't always do it great, but I am consistent. And developing that consistency is the most important thing, and I think that the gym and fitness really translates into so many other parts of your life. And so if you're trying to start a business or you're trying to, be a good parent or you're trying to train a dog or you're trying to do so many different things that can apply the the same advice can apply. Consistency is king. If you are consistently doing the same thing over and over and over again, now you can you can be consistently doing bad things.

Tom Rowland: That's not what you wanna do. But what I'm saying is, like, if you can be consistent, you show up every day, you you work hard, that that'll that'll get you a lot. That'll that'll that'll that'll get you a long, long way in a lot of different things as far as, like, training a dog or being a parent, the consistency in the messaging, the consistency in the result, the consistency in the, you know, if you do something wrong, this is what happens. Every single time, that message gets through very quickly to a dog.

Tom Rowland: Like, if you if you have a dog that that you're trying to teach how to stay in your yard and you have one of these electric fences, every time the dog bumps into that electric fence, it gets a little at first, it gets a beep every single time unless the batteries are out. And then if it goes a little further, it gets a little zap. Very painless zap, but it scares them. It gets their attention. They'll learn that electric fence in a matter of days. Now if you try to do it on your own and you're like, don't don't go past that. Don't go past that. But then you throw a ball out there, and you're like, oh, it's cool. You're just throwing a ball.

Tom Rowland: They get confused, and they don't have that consistent that consistent message that is exactly the same every single time. And that is, that is really big. So I don't know if I don't know if that really answers your question, Michael, but, I wish I had a better answer for you. Dennis Hadden, what's your most prized accomplishment, and how did you get there? My most prized accomplishment is the my marriage with my wife. And how did I get there? Consistency and, trying to do the right thing. Fishing or fitness? I would say both are equally as important to me. Fishing or hunting? Fishing is more important to me than hunting.

Tom Rowland: At the completion of your life, how do you want people to remember you as a great dad and husband is how I would like to be remembered. If you had a day where you could do anything this guy's got a lot of questions. If you had a day where you could do anything you want, what would you do? I would say that I would either be permit fishing or wade fishing for bonefish someplace really awesome like Christmas Island, and I would be doing that with my family. What would you change about yourself if you could? I thought about this, and I wrote these things down. I would never get frustrated around my wife for any reason. That's what I would change. What motivates you? It motivates me to be the best role model for my children that I possibly can.

Tom Rowland: So that's where we are. Gabe Rosberg had another question. What do you wanna be remembered for? I just answered that in I would like to be remembered as a great dad or husband. Great dad and husband, not mutually exclusive. Thomas Sorrells, male, 37, Biloxi Biloxi, Mississippi. How do you balance all of these things? And I guess that what you're referring to is guiding fitness, waypoint, the TV shows. So he says, how do you balance all of these things, or is there even such a thing? I find myself in the busy season of life. I feel I'm realizing that there will never be this so called balance and learning that that may be okay. Some days, a kid is sick and you don't get in your workout.

Tom Rowland: Some weeks, work demands more of your time and the boat has to sit, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Okay. So this is a really good question because I think that, first of all, in order to be really good at anything, there can be no balance for a period of time. So if you want to be the best fishing guide in the world, you're going to have to go for many years working basically every single day and thinking about absolutely nothing other than being the best fishing guide that you can possibly be. If you wanna be the best MMA fighter, you know, like, you wanna be a the set records in in something, you're gonna have to be out of balance for a period of your life.

Tom Rowland: And, that can come at the expense of relationships, and it can come at the expense of lots of things. So careful there. But if you want to really be the best, you will not have that balance. However, you can achieve that balance as you age and as you get older. So for example, I spent a lot of my life trying to be the best fishing guide in the world. Whether I accomplished that or not, that was my goal. That's what I was trying to do. That's what I set for that. Until it was time to move on from that and then to try to make our TV shows the best TV shows that they could possibly be. And then my life went in a direction of doing that.

Tom Rowland: Then later, once I got to where I felt really confident on that and I also got team members around me that could help me to do these things, then it was time to build a network. And once the network got built, maybe it was time to start this podcast. I don't know. But on each one of these different things, the life has been significantly out of balance for a period of time until things kinda get under control and you can develop a little team around you that can help you to continue to do these things to where maybe all of your focus doesn't have to be on them. And then over time, you can do it.

Tom Rowland: As far as the fitness and stuff like that goes, I think that you have to find there there will never be balance, especially when your kids are little, and there's always gonna be one that's sick, and And there's always gonna be, a a a dance recital or a soccer game or a wrestling match or lacrosse game. There's always gonna be that. So what I had to do and what has helped me to maintain consistency over all these years in raising my three children is that I had to find time that was my own time that didn't, interfere with my family's time. So that comes at 04:00 in the morning for me. I had to get up at 04:00 in the morning and get in what was really important to me, and that was the workout.

Tom Rowland: And then I can go to work, and then I can do all the other things. But if I wait for time to work out, it's not gonna happen. K. So, Thomas, that's your answer. K. Couple more here.

74:26 · Books, Exploring the Everglades, Season 19, and What Tom Eats

Tom Rowland: Kevin Burns, 61, Norwell, Massachusetts. The most influential book, series of books, or author that is significantly impacted, still impacts your life, and why? Wow. Really good question. So, of course, the Bible is a is a book that is incredibly important. It's probably a boring answer for most people, but other than the Bible, there have been several books that have been really important. Secrets of a Millionaire Mind, that's one that was very important. And, at one point, this wasn't really a book, but it was a program, and it led me to a lot of other things that this particular person did. That was Tony Robbins' personal power.

Tom Rowland: That was one that was, that that definitely had a massive impact on my life and then continues to have an impact today. Dan Barnes, 66, Port Orange, Florida. Glenn simmons wrote a book called Gladesman, a wonderful history of Cape Sable and the Everglades, where he described Mud Lake, Bear Lake, Rookery Key, Cuthbert Lake, and many more. I'd love to learn about that area and explore it with my maverick. I'm not even sure I can get back to some of those areas. So I'm not sure if this is a question or just a comment, but, if you wanna do that, you need to be very familiar with the chart. You need to have a GPS, and you don't need to rely on either of those independently.

Tom Rowland: You should always be able to navigate with a chart, a chart and a compass, because if your GPS goes out, no prudent mariner should have one form of navigation. So I would have your GPS with whatever, kind of card you can put in there to show you the way in and out of these places, but I would also have a paper chart that you are studying before you ever get to those areas because those areas are tricky. William Kaufman, 80, from Dearborn, Michigan. When will season 19 begin on TV? Well, William, thank you for watching that. That's really cool. It will start, let's see, January, February, March. That's the first quarter. So it will start in April.

Tom Rowland: Will be the first time that it will be on Discovery Channel, and it will also be on Waypoint TV. My wife, when I was asking her if she had any questions or I told her I was doing this, and she said, I have a question. What's your favorite episode that you've ever filmed and why? That would be the episode that I filmed with my son, Turner Rowland, and, his doctor that operated on his eyes, doctor Boxer Wachler and Stephen Holcomb. Stephen Holcomb had the same eye disorder or disease that my son had. It's called keratoconus. And this doctor Boxer Walkler, doctor Brian Boxer Walkler, fixed Stephen Holcomb's eyes and my son Turner's eyes. We got them together on the boat and, had a amazing show.

Tom Rowland: That's definitely stands out as probably the the one show. Mark Wardlow, 57, Paris, Tennessee. How do you incorporate CrossFit into your routine with so many commitments? I also have many irons in the fire. The workouts are very hard and sometimes leave me mentally and physically drained. Any tips? Yeah. Sure. Find time that's not, influenced by anybody else. That's what we did before. I get up at 04:00 in the morning and get my workout in starting at five. And, that way I can do it without any interference as far as the feeling mentally and physically drained. Yeah. That's that happens. So make sure that you are eating enough and that you're getting something, within forty five minutes of your workout.

Tom Rowland: Take your vitamins and watch your electrolytes. I use, Element for the electrolytes, and we'll put a link in the in the thing where you can get them. Okay. This is a very strange name. Onder or it could be Ander, e t x e g o I e n, at Zingone. I'm really sorry if I I just butchered your name, man. You're 29 from Pensacola, Florida. I'm sorry. Just curious. What does your diet look like? Not macros, but actually food actual food choices. So, you know, I like steak. Like, I like I like I I really like steak for my protein. I like fish for my protein. I like to get my protein sources from something that I have eat have killed myself. So fish, wild game, and then I also like steak. I will have some carbohydrates.

Tom Rowland: I do eat bread, but I like fruit. So I'll I I try to eat as close to the source as possible. So as few processed foods as possible and as as close to the source as possible. You didn't ask for macros, but that's why I pulled up my phone because somebody else is going to here. Chris from McCordsville, Indiana. My question is nutrition related. Do you have a process that you use to approach your meals and meet your nutritional goals? Yes. So I use this Carbon app, and the Carbon app tells me I I I put in my goals exactly what I'm doing, what I wanna do, you know, whether I wanna lose weight or gain muscle or whatever, and it sets your macros for you.

Tom Rowland: Currently, I'm eating a 180 grams of protein, 285 grams of carbs, and a 100 grams of fat per day. And as you, eat, you just enter it into the Carbon app, and it keeps you on track. And if I want to change the goals, like, if I wanted to lose weight or I wanted to put on muscle, I could change the macros, and it would help me to make sure that I'm I'm right there. Bill Redick, Germantown, Tennessee. How do you keep meals as clean as possible on the road? Okay. So that is, oh, and, also, same goes for getting your workout in, particularly if you don't have access to a gym. Do you carry dumbbells and kettlebells in your truck for workouts? So, yes, that is that is what I do.

Tom Rowland: The, the go to thing is the deck of cards workout, and meal prep, in advance of the trip is the, is the way that I'll keep the meals as clean as possible, and I'll eat as as close to what I eat at home as possible. And then beyond that, I'll try to go to a grocery store. Alright. This is the last one.

81:14 · Fishing Through a Tennis Elbow Injury and Sign-Off

Tom Rowland: This guy injured himself by Curtis Laker 37 Richmond, Texas. I injured myself tennis elbow, moving some heavy three quarter inch plywood. I'm a Texan who loves to wade fish and chase tarpon with coon pops, which is a cool way to do it. Ever since the injury, I've shut down all workouts to allow for some rest. But between wanting to get back to working out and fishing season, he's concerned that he's not gonna be able to do this. He's been doing some stretching exercises and icing fairly regularly as well as using compression sleeve and bands while doing physical things. Just concerned I won't be able to fish like I used to. Man, that is that is tough, dude. That that is something that I've had before.

Tom Rowland: The tennis elbow, it it hurts on the bottom of your your elbow right here and, or or sometimes on the top ones, golf elbow, one's tennis elbow. One's on the top, one's on the bottom. Either way, it is your your elbow is pissed. You did something. You did it too much, and now your your the inside of your elbow on that tendon is inflamed and pissed. And until you let that thing calm down, it's going to be difficult. I would look into Joe Hippensteel, and I would look into some of the stretches that he has, ultimate human performance. He can definitely help with some tendonitis issues.

Tom Rowland: Then, also, I would maybe go see a doctor, like an orthopedic, and, I'm gonna say that they're probably going to prescribe you some sort of anti inflammatory, like maybe meloxicam or something like that. And that, you you know, I don't really like to take any kind of medication like that. But in the condition that you're in, you've gotta let that thing chill out. And the ice and and the rest and all that stuff is going to be good for it, but somehow, you've gotta let that inflammation get down so that it will actually heal. And in a lot of condition in a lot of cases, an anti inflammatory.

Tom Rowland: Even ibuprofen can do it, but, you know, it's probably best that you go to your doctor and get him to check it out, and then prescribe you the right amount and the right, anti inflammatory. So that's it for today, and I really appreciate all the questions. And that, that'll do it for, for this episode of the Tom Rowland Podcast. I really appreciate, you listening. And if you are interested in getting the knot guide, go to tomrowlandpodcast.com. Otherwise, we'll see you next time. See you.