Tom Rowland | I Answer Your Fishing Questions | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 928

Tom Rowland Podcast — Episode 929: Tom Rowland (Solo Q&A)

In this episode: the best beginner approach to target permit in the Keys, beginner patch reef fishing in Key Largo, the deck of cards workout, what supplements Tom takes, and when to use a loop knot — in the exact words spoken.

00:00 · Cold Open

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01:36 · Flying Solo: Every Question Came from the Text Thread

Tom Rowland: Anything you wanna clean, StarBright has it. Danco is the sponsor of our how to Tuesday show, and they make awesome pliers. And they're expanding their, product line to include all kinds of stuff. You know, I feel like it's been quite a while since we've had a podcast like this where this one is gonna be me flying solo, doing a question and answer that all of the questions, every single one of the questions came from the text thread. You can get on that text thread, (305) 930-7346.

That's it. If we have a special, if we have a a deal of some sort, any sort of a limited time thing, I'm gonna go directly to the text thread, and I'm gonna offer it there. Today, I went direct to the text thread, ask if anyone had any questions. And, man, did we get a lot of questions. Anything that we talk about today, we will try our best to put the links in the description below so that you can click those products and and get them if you want to.

Or if it's a website or something else that you're interested in. That link will be in the description. Dennis Hadden, male 54. Question. What is the best beginner approach to target permit and have some success in The Keys?

02:58 · Beginner Permit in the Keys: Blue Crabs Before Fly Rods

Tom Rowland: So permit fishing in The Keys is fantastic. It's one of the best places in the world to do it, and we have great fishing for permit up and down The Keys. So whether you're in Biscayne Bay or all the way down in the Marquesas or even the Dry Tortugas, you can have great permit fishing. Permit fishing is something that is, that's a type of fish that is available most of the year. I feel like they're the least available on the flats during the spawning time of the year.

So April is not my favorite time to fish for them on the flats, but they are offshore in a lot of places in big numbers. So pretty much year round fish if you're willing to go offshore or inshore. I'm assuming that you you probably wanna catch them on the flats, but I don't know. I mean, a lot of people are just wanna catch a permit. So permit are an interesting fish.

They live offshore. They live inshore, and you can catch them in both places. On the flats, they're known to be very, very spooky, and the fly fishermen, believe that they are the hardest fish to catch in the world. I'm not sure I agree with that, but they are. And there is a whole group of people that love to fish for them with fly rods, their tournaments, and it it is very difficult.

And it it requires a lot of focus and skill and determination and also patience because you don't catch that many. So what would be the best beginner approach to target permit? First thing I would say is a lot of people want to target permit that have never fished for them, and they wanna do it on fly because they've heard about that's the hardest thing to do. You wanna go down there and you wanna do it on fly. I don't suggest that at all.

It can be possible. In fact, that's how I caught my first permit. It's right there on the wall. We got we got some permit on fly. That was the way I caught my first permit, but it's not the way I would suggest, and it certainly is not the way I that if I could rewind time, I wouldn't do it that way.

I would spin fish for the permit first and I would do it with a live blue crab. There is nothing better than a live blue crab. Second bait to that would be a live shrimp. But permit eat a whole bunch of different things, but they really like blue crabs. I could tell you that.

And blue crabs are a great bait because you can throw them a long way. You're gonna use a blue crab that's about the size of a half dollar and, they love them. And what it's gonna do is it's gonna allow you to catch one way sooner than you would if you went with a fly. And I believe, if I look back, on my own experience, that had I started spin fishing for the permit rather than trying to be real hard headed about it and catch one on fly as my first one, I believe I would have caught one on fly way sooner. Because what used to happen is when I would see a permit, I would get so nervous.

My knees would be knocking together and I couldn't cast. Now I didn't even know what I was supposed to do. I had never seen a permit caught and I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I didn't know how close to cast to them. I'm trying to do it like I read about how you're you're supposed to catch a bonefish.

It was not good. And so had I put the ego aside, caught a couple on crabs, I would have caught one on fly way sooner. So that's what I would suggest for you. And the best beginner approach is to get a guide. Get a guide.

Get a knowledgeable guide. The Florida Keys have some of the very best finest in shore saltwater guides and offshore saltwater guides in the world, and lots of them specialize in permit fishing. If you are still interested, Dennis, and you need a couple of suggestions, hit me up on the same text thread that you did, (305) 930-7346. That's the number. And ask for, guide suggestions.

And that's that would be my best tip. Because if you go with one of these guides, my friends, that are fantastic, they're gonna teach you more in that day than you're gonna learn in a year of doing it by yourself. So I would I would definitely say that. So that's all we're gonna do on the the advice for beginning permit. Good luck to you, Dennis.

And, and, I hope you get one. Okay. So let's see what this one's all about. This is a health and fitness one. Jeff Parks.

07:30 · Back from Greece Bloated: Cleanses and Getting Back on Track

Tom Rowland: And by the way, I'm not a health and fitness expert necessarily. I just don't miss very many days at all, and I've been working out my whole life. So, anything that any advice that I give you is based on trial and error and what has worked for me. That's it. Jeff Parks, male, 60.

Ormond Beach. Question, I've been in Greece for two weeks, returning Friday. I'm 60, already had a belly, five eight two twenty five, but it's really bloated now after eating two big meals a day, drinking all day for fourteen days. Went home, I train three times a week at the gym with a trainer for an hour and I'll walk for cardio. Besides cutting out the alcohol and eating clean when I return, do you recommend a three day soup or juice cleanse like I've seen on the Internet over the years to help jump start?

That's interesting. I haven't really done a three day soup or juice cleanse, but I do. Actually, the the company that makes this t shirt, MASF, MASF, m MASF supplements, they have something called smashing greens and the, the guy, Mitch Aguilar, who owns MASF Supplements, he does suggest doing these green fasts. And, it's interesting. I don't know.

I'd like to hear what you think about it. I'm sure that if you've been eating big meals and drinking a ton that your body would probably do well to to take a little cleanse off or take a little time off of those big meals and, and and eat a little bit better. Typically, if I am traveling and I don't eat the way that I want to, When I get back, I try to clean it up, and I try to get rid of all processed foods and just eat as clean as I possibly can. But, you know, might be something. Look into look into the juice fast.

Mitch has got tons of information on his, on his website about it, the smashing greens fast. And, maybe it's something you're into. Okay. So let's go back to the fishing. Best advice for a beginner patch reef fishing in the Upper Keys in Key Largo from Steve Miller, male 25, Key Largo, Florida.

09:38 · Patch Reef Fishing in Key Largo: Chum, Pilchards, and Finding Your Own Spots

Tom Rowland: Alright. So there are tons and tons of patch reefs. And the patch reef is a very interesting fishery, I think, because it's not all the way out offshore like fishing the reef or beyond the reef, and it's not really inshore. So you get some really interesting species. You get a lot of red groupers.

You get a lot of, small groupers, and you can get yellow tails in there. You can get, mackerels. You can get all kinds of stuff. Cobias. You can see permit on those things.

I think that the best thing that you could do is to find the most productive areas, and some of those are marked on the chart. They're actually fishing spots. But then, you know, that that's a good place to start. Then once you get to a productive area that you know is already productive, you're gonna go there, you're gonna chum, and you're gonna chum with frozen blocked chum. And you can also, if you are a little bit more advanced, you can get a cast net and you can go catch pilchards.

If you're able to catch pilchards, you're gonna do better. You're gonna have a frozen block chum and you're gonna have the pilchards and you're gonna have maybe some live shramper or something like that that you can drop on a light jig head. That's what I would do. And when I when I would get there, if you're just getting started on this, you don't wanna be right on top of the stuff. You wanna you want it behind you, like, a a full cast away.

And you can put the put your bait in the water and let it drift back to the, the patch reef and the coral heads and the different things that you're gonna be on. But don't get right on top of it. And also watch where you're anchoring so that you're not damaging any coral. If you have the opportunity to use something like what we have, a Power Pole trolling motor or any sort of trolling motor that you might have that has, an anchor mode on it, that's fantastic. And if you get out there and the current and the wind aren't too strong, you that that trolling motor will hold you just fine if it's, you know, the the right size motor and you have the right size batteries.

I'd go out there with with chum and light rods and be ready to, pull on some fish because it can be it can be really, really fun. But first of all, take a look at the chart and see if you can find a couple of those nice, areas where you you're gonna have confidence that people are catching fish on those pat trees. Then once you find that, you can say, okay. What is it about this area that, maybe I can replicate? I can go to another one and maybe that isn't hit as hard and maybe nobody knows about.

How can I find my own spot? That's what happens in that type of fishing and all types of fishing is you just have to have the confidence to get started, then you have to have a little bit of success, and then you need to try to replicate that success and do it in a way that you can go find your own spots. And maybe that's a spot that not many people go to. Alright. Matthew Kephart, 39.

12:34 · The Right First Boat for Taking Kids on the Bay and Flats

Tom Rowland: My question would be, what would be a good beginning boat for taking kids out in the Bay Areas or the flats for fishing? So this is a tricky question because there are a lot of there are a lot of great boats. Probably have a budget. And if you're looking for a beginning boat, you may not I don't know about you, Matthew. You may not have a lot of boating experience or trailering experience or this may be new because you're asking about a beginning boat.

I'm not making any any judgment. Maybe you're you might be an expert. You might be ready for anything. But for a lot of people that are looking for a beginning boat, it's because they haven't had a lot of experience there. So first of all, you're talking about bay areas and flats for fishing, which tends to be saltwater.

So there are plenty of boats, including bass boats and other boats that are capable of going out there. But when you get in a bass boat and a boat that's designed for fresh water, typically, all the wiring is also designed for fresh water. And so that cannot be so good to have a boat in saltwater that's not designed for saltwater, for things that you might not think about, like the wiring inside the console. But if you're in saltwater, everything is going to be exposed to salt water. And so I would not suggest that.

I would I would try to get some sort of a boat even if it was as bare bones as something like a Carolina skiff with a tiller outboard that is big enough that your kids and you are going to be safe in that boat. Make sure they're wearing a life jacket, and at least you're going to have something that is not going to be so corroded after a year of fishing in it that it it nothing works. That's what can happen with a freshwater boat. I think simple is the best. Like a bare bones Carolina skiff is a is a great boat to get started with.

And if you're just talking about going into the bay and going, onto the flats, the simpler the boat, the better. That's what I would suggest. And get one that is in your price range that you can handle. And a lot of people, you know, over the years, if you ask somebody that's been doing a lot of boating for a long time, it's like, what boats have you owned? And they start naming them because they started out with a simple one, then they got one that was a little bit, you know, that would allow them to go a little further out there, and then one that was a little nicer, and then a little bit bigger one, and then a little bit nicer one.

Or they go the other way, and they wanna go smaller and smaller so they can go shower and shower and shower. Either way, the boat that you start out with is probably not the one that you're gonna end up in. So try to make it a simple boat and, one that's safe. That's what I would suggest. If you can get a trolling motor on it, I think that is a massive improvement.

And, if you had a power pole on the other end, that would be fantastic. So that would be, that would be it. Okay. Let's see. Alright.

Here's one on knots. We do a lot of knots here. Gary Ritter, male, 69, Benton, Pennsylvania. Question, what is the best knot to use when attaching heavy fluorocarbon leader such as 60 pound test to a hook? Okay.

15:51 · Heavy Fluorocarbon to a Hook: The Steve Huff Double Figure Eight

Tom Rowland: So this one is an easy one for me to to answer. And, Gary, if you want to see how this is done, you can go to, Tom Rowland Podcast YouTube, and all of these are available. And you can also download the free knot guide that we have, and the the link will be in the description below. You just go to this link. You have to put your email in, and you can download this resource.

And, the resource is this guide for all the knots that we've tied and tested on the Tom Rowland Podcast. There's a whole bunch of them. And they are organized by their purpose. So, you know, like, line two hook would be where this one would be. And what we found is that the one that tests the strongest for this particular purpose and the one that I like the best is the Steve Huff double figure eight.

There's also an improved Homer Road, which is one that, that we really like and it's almost the same knot. It's an o it's a figure eight. You go through the eye of the hook. You go through the figure eight. And on one knot, you tie another figure eight and and pull those together.

That's the double figure eight. And on the other knot, you just tie an overhand right there. That's the improved Homer Road, and you pull those together. Both of those are very good. They will provide a loop for your heavy monofilament there and, pretty easy to tie.

So those are the ones that I I suggest that you look into. And I also think you should get the get the knot guide. Go there. You'll get not only that knot, but all the knots that we've ever tested. And it has links to all of the YouTube videos right there.

So if you see one that you want, you just click that YouTube video. You don't have to go on YouTube and search forever. That's why we put it together because people were were asking, like, hey. Can you I can't find it. Can you send me the link of this particular knot?

So we just thought, well, let's just put all these together. And while we're doing it, why don't we put the breaking strength and all that of these knots on there? And this has turned out to be a nice little a nice little, resource. So if you like it, I hope you do, send it to a buddy. Okay.

18:16 · Kicking a Cold Streak: Logbooks and a Circle You Can Trust

Tom Rowland: Who is this? This is Kevin Connolly, male 30, Boynton Beach, Florida. Have you found anything you like to do to kick a cold streak of fishing? A few weeks back, I just couldn't find anything while other people were smoking them. Boy, I would like to say that I've never been on that end of it.

But, man, have I ever, especially when guiding. Sometimes you would just get on this slump where for whatever reason, you're not catching fish and everybody else is. It's a terrible feeling. It really is. And especially when you're doing it for a living.

And you come back to the dock and, man, everybody's got all these fish and for whatever reason, you're just not catching them. Well, we can overthink things and we can do things exactly wrong in fishing. It is possible. And it is possible to do that for a couple of weeks before, you know, things things kinda right themselves and you get back on the fish. You know, the the advice I would have is to keep keep after it.

Keep going. Look back at your logbooks. And if you're not keeping logbooks, that that could be part of the problem. What did you do this time last year when the weather was similar to what it is now and the tides are similar to what they are now? If you have that resource and you look back and you see that, wow, you weren't catching fish this time last year either and you're doing the same things, so now it's obvious.

You need to do other things. You're fishing in an unproductive area at a time of the year when the fish aren't there. You can only really figure that out if you can look back historically over what it is that you're doing. So keeping a log book is very, very, very important. Even if like, the way I used to keep a log book when, you know, before the Internet and computers and everything, I used to have those Florida Sportsman Tide books.

And the Florida Sportsman Tide books has, like, you know, a tide chart that looks like a wave. You know, this is high tide and this is low tide. It happens at 12:00 and happens at 04:00, whatever. And I would just go into that and I would look at today's thing and if if, the page for today's date and if I had a great day let's say I caught, you know, a tarpon at 10:00 and a permanent 01:00 and a bonefish at 03:00 for a grand slam, and I could remember those times and where I was, I would just write little notes. Like, 03:00, you know, this particular flat, bonefish.

02:00, this particular flat, permit. 10:00, this particular flat, tarpon. Even if you just write just those things, the time of day and where you were. Now writing it down is pretty antiquated today. If you take a picture of that fish, the date, the time shows up right on that picture on your iPhone.

All you then need to remember what is where you were. Right? So if and and you can do that on your GPS. You can put a way point there right there, and it will record the time that you recorded that, the date. You can even put some notes in there right there.

That helps so much. But if you're not keeping a log book and you're off the fish, you know, just keep after it for a little one little bit and then, you know, you should have a community of people that you can go to and tell them, hey. You're not asking where to go, but you're just having a really hard time. Where you know, do you have any advice for me? I'm not asking for spots.

I'm not, you know, not following you around. Just just talk to some people because sooner or later, that person you're talking to, he's gonna need a little help too. And, you know, if you can establish a little group that you can talk to, that really makes a difference. And to establish that group of people you can talk to, it requires trust. You have to know that that guy's not gonna go steal your spot and and put it on the Internet and tell everybody in the world.

He has to know that about you. She has to know that that that, you know, that you've got a little group. You're gonna help each other try to stay on the fish. Not necessarily the exact spot, but you're gonna you're gonna try to help each other. So that would be my advice there.

Let's see. Let's go back over here. With so Trey Joiner, male 47, Chattanooga, Tennessee. With so much of our food being ultra processed and seemingly designed to make us sick, how do you navigate eating while traveling or on the go? Same for prioritizing exercise when traveling.

22:31 · Eating Clean and Training on the Road: The Deck of Cards Workout

Tom Rowland: So if I am an expert in anything, it would be this. Because I travel a lot and I rarely miss a day. So I try to figure out something that I can do on the road that I kinda like that isn't gonna take much time and that I always have room for whatever equipment I might need. And so my go to, absolute go to, and if you're interested in this, you can go to Tom Rowland Podcast and you can look it up. And there's a whole bunch of articles, and I've done a bunch of podcasts on it.

My absolute go to is the deck of cards. It's very simple. You take a deck of cards. There's four suits. You put four exercises.

Put give give each suit an exercise. When you turn the card over, let's say spades or burpees. You turn the card over and it's a it's an eight of spades. You do eight burpees. You turn the card over and it's a 10.

You do 10 burpees. Face cards are 10. Aces are 11. You got four suits there. Put any four exercises in it that you want and do it like that.

All you need to carry with you is a deck of cards. Jokers can be a five mile run, can be a two mile run, can be a 100 yard run. It can be a 100 flutter kicks. It could be five laps in the swimming pool. Anything you want.

And there are a whole bunch of articles on Tom Rowland podcast about that. So that has been a big, big, big thing for me in staying consistent is having that deck of cards work out. And that is my go to. And I promise it's gonna be different every single time that you do it, and it will it's a challenge for anyone. So that's how I stay consistent with the exercise.

With the diet and nutrition, it is far more difficult. If you're trying to, stay away from ultra processed foods, you're gonna need to get to a grocery store. And if you're trying to stay away from ultra processed foods, you're gonna need a refrigerator or a cooler. Not everyone, not everywhere has those things. So you either need to pack a cooler and have it with you, meal plan in advance.

But let's say you're gonna be gone for a week. You can't it's really hard to to plan for an entire week. You can do it for a couple days. But sooner or later, you're gonna need to go to the grocery store. Things that I've found at the grocery store that are that are better than, you know, junk food or or eating out every time, they have boiled eggs in a in a they're already shelled.

They're boiled. They're in the egg section. There's that. That requires, a little bit of refrigeration, but you buy them six at a time. That's great for breakfast.

It's great for lunch on the boat. I try to, you know, I will this isn't the best, but I think it's better than some of the other things that you get. Sometimes I will make I will go to the grocery store, and I will get, a couple of rotisserie chickens. Sure there's a bunch of chemicals in the rotisserie chicken, but it's still better than a lot of other things. I'll chop all that up.

I'll chop up celery. I'll chop up pecans and whatever else that I want in there, sometimes grapes, sometimes other things. And I will go and I'll find that primal kitchen avocado mayonnaise. Put that in there, mix it up, and that that chicken salad is something that I can eat, you know, for for several days if I have a refrigerator. So between the eggs, the chicken salad, and other things like fruit and raw vegetables, I try.

But, man, dude, it's hard. It is hard to stay away from that stuff. If you go to the restaurants, I try to stay as close to the source as possible. So trying to eat, you know, I I'm gonna eat a steak. I'm not gonna get any sauce on it.

I'm not gonna get anything on top of it. That's that's an attempt. That's an attempt at at at going a little bit healthier. Fish, love to eat fish. Obviously, while while I'm traveling, a lot of times we are catching fish and and certainly, we try to eat those.

That can be the healthiest food that there is. So I'll either I guess, the answer to your question is I'll try to meal plan and be prepared for my my trip. If I can't do that or I run out of those meals, I'll then go to the grocery store and make the best choices that I can. And then if I run out of those things or I don't have a refrigerator, I'm gonna go to the restaurant and I'm gonna make the best choice I can. That's that's tough.

And then I never I I try to never miss a workout. And if you have a bad meal, this was a a little rule of thumb that I heard and I think it was, I think it was Jocko. Jocko Willink, I think. Could've been somebody else, but it was, you know, you're gonna have bad meals. And you're gonna have times when you're traveling and you're working, and you're gonna have times where you're not gonna be able to get your workout in.

Just don't let that happen twice in a row. So if it doesn't happen today, you make sure that you get it in tomorrow. Don't don't don't let it happen twice in a row. If you have a terrible lunch, don't also have a terrible dinner. Get back on track as soon as possible.

Like and I say that, like, it's really easy for me to do, but it's it's hard for me to do. Promise you. It's hard for all of us to do. So good luck to to you on that. Alright.

Let's see this one. Discussion topic. How dedicated fly fishermen or this comes from Graham Anderson, male 64, Calgary, Alberta. Wow. International day today.

28:09 · Fly or Die? What Spin and Bait Fishing Teach a Fly Fisherman

Tom Rowland: How dedicated fly fishermen can refine or take their game to the highest level by spin fishing and bait fishing. Love it. Man after my own heart. This is what we were talking about just a little bit ago of you wanna catch a permanent on fly, never have done it before, will you be better off spin fishing with a crab and catching one sooner or are you better off fly fishing? Now I would say, you know, my my initial reaction is, yes, you should spin fish, but there are fly fishermen out there that have never held a spinning rod in their life.

And while it does seem pretty easy, it's not as easy as you think it is, especially if you have never held a spinning rod. So if you have some skills and if you can throw a spinning rod, I definitely suggest throwing a spinning rod. You know, a lot of people go on trips and they they go to fly fish. And when they get there, the wind is simply too much for them to fly fish. Okay?

That's fine. You you haven't gotten to that level yet. Some people would say, you are going to only get to that level if you go out there and fly fish in that weather. I tend to agree with that some. But I also think that it might not happen in the two days that you have scheduled to go at that area.

So it's super windy. You're gonna go down there. You literally cannot get the fly out of the boat because it's so windy and you've never cast in these conditions. It is possible that you can go home and you can learn how to cast a little bit better and you can come back and you could fish in those conditions. But between today and tomorrow, I'm not sure it's gonna happen.

So I don't have any problem picking up a spinning rod. I like picking up a spinning rod. I think it's really fun. And, I also like picking up a fly rod. So I don't know.

This guy says, a guy can really limit yourself by being fly or die. I've fished with a few of the very best Florida Keys guides and they are total badasses with spin, bait casters and bait. Yes, they are. Some of the reluctant fly the reluctance of fly guys to use other tactics is the group camaraderie aspect. But if you can get over that, there's a lot of great fishing and concepts, tactics that will make you a better fly fisherman.

Weather conditions in the Florida Keys, for instance, just suck for fly fishing, so go with the gear that suits the weather. Getting your kids and grandkids into fishing and outdoors is another reason to be good at all types of fishing. You'd run the risk of kids not even wanting to continue to fish if they had to fly fish from the get go. To add one more point, I used to try and pull myself around and fly fish. It's so hard.

Now, I will have a fly rod rigged, but predominantly spin bait chum if I don't have a competent second guy. I know we've discussed this a lot and I whole heart we wholeheartedly agree. So the question is, what are the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of the new types of braid? Seems like a lot of options now. Okay.

So that's a separate question. Sorry. So I agree with Graham about this, you know, spin fishing. Even if you are a hardy hardcore fly fisherman, I think, you know, what I wanna do in my own fishing, and this is just my own fishing and it has nothing to do with anybody else, but I wanna try to be good at all kinds of fishing. I I feel like a fly rod is just a tool.

I feel a spinning rod is just a tool. A bait caster is just a tool. Jig rod, an offshore conventional, a trolling rod. They're all tools. I wanna be good at all of that type of fishing and I wanna be able to get on any boat and be pretty competent with the gear.

I think that Graham has a really good point is that if you are trying to get someone into fishing and especially in saltwater fishing and you try to get them to to do that by fly fishing, oh, that could be tough. I mean, you could go a whole day without catching anything. Where I think a kid what a kid needs is action. They need action and it needs to be fun. And they don't need to just be sitting on the cooler waiting for for somebody to catch a bonefish all day or a permit all week or a tarpon all morning.

Like, let's let's get some action. So a lot of that can be had with different types of tackle. And if if you're willing, great. But I've been on the other side of it. And I have been the guy that does not want to fish if you're not fly fishing.

You have different you have different kind of chapters in your life. You have different chapters in your fishing life as well. And, that was a chapter for me where I only wanted to fly fish. That's all I was interested in. Didn't didn't wanna do anything else.

If that's where you are, that's fine. Not trying to talk you into it or tell you one thing's better than another. If that's where you are, that's great. But if you keep an open mind and you are willing to try some other things, you might have you might have more success. But that may not be what you're after right now.

So whatever. Whatever floats your boat. Is the the idea is that fishing is supposed to be fun, and we're supposed to be having fun doing it. And if you would prefer to fly fish and catch nothing in certain conditions, some people would. And that's fine.

I've been there. I understand. I'm not there anymore. I'd prefer to catch some fish. And, so that's what I'll do with whatever kind of tackle it takes.

Alright. So the other question was what are the differences advantages and disadvantages of the new types of braid? There are a ton of options now, and braid has gotten better and better and better and better. And what that means for the people that use braid is that it's easier to use. In some cases, it's easier to tie and it does not it used to hop off the spool and you would have what we call the power pro moment.

And it would blow up and you would have this giant knot there. Braid has gotten so much better that that rarely happens at all anymore. Braid is better than monofilament. It throws further than monofilament. It's thinner than monofilament.

Everything about it is better than monofilament in my opinion. And so I'm all about braid. Braid has gotten thinner. It's gotten slicker. And in some cases, it's too slick because some brands of fluorocarbon and some brands of braid are so slippery that it is difficult to tie some knots together.

And I don't like that about some of them. But I am probably not the expert in braid because I only use one kind of braid. I use Daiwa j braid and the Daiwa braids that they have, that's all I use. And, it works fantastic, so I have no reason to to change to anything else. However, I do know that there are a lot of technologies that Daiwa and other companies are working on, and it's making for fishing line getting better and better, which means further and further casting, all of it.

If you're not using braid, you definitely need to try to use braid. And if you're intimidated by the knots that you, might have to tie, get the knot guide. I'll show you all the different knots. We we have a whole section about braid to fluorocarbon or braid to monofilament, and you can learn several different knots there that that you can tie. They're really not that hard to tie.

So definitely, you should be using braid and there are a lot of, braids out there including some that are hollow and float, other ones that purposefully sink, and you can change your presentation a lot by picking these different braids that have different characteristics in them. Same thing with monofilament and fluorocarbon. Fluorocarbon sinks way faster. So if you're really trying to get a bait down and you use fluorocarbon line rather than monofilament line, you can really do yourself a favor. As opposed to, if you're using fluorocarbon line and you're trying to fish a frog or something on the surface, it's very light, it can actually pull that under because it's sinking.

So there there is a, you know, a strategy to which line you're using for what for what technique. Okay. Let's see here. Let's try another one. Let's go back over here.

36:42 · Eat More Fish, and How to Train for a Tarpon Trip

Tom Rowland: Mark Wardlaw, male, 58, Paris, Tennessee. Any tips for incorporating fresh fish and seafood into our fitness journey? Well, yes. You should go fishing way more often. You should catch way more fish, and you should absolutely eat them.

It is exactly what your body needs, and it's fantastic. It is the highest quality protein that you could put in your body as long as you're getting it from a safe water source. So you go out there, you catch a yellowtail snapper, dude, you're not doing any better than that. You should absolutely eat that and, get it into your diet as much as possible. Fish is some of the the highest protein, lowest fat, in a lot of fish.

Some fish are very fatty, but good fat. And it's awesome. You should definitely be eating it. So go fishing more, catch more. Danny May.

I like this question right here. Male 50, PoplarBuff, Missouri. Proper fitness for an angler to do when preparing for a Florida Keys tarpon fly fishing trip. This one this one caught my eye when I looked at it because I think that Danny may have had a trip where, you know, it was a little harder than than he thought. And it's certainly, that way for a lot of people.

Like, guiding anglers and watching them try to make it through a week of of tarpon fishing, it's hard. You're standing on a deck all day long, a rocking boat all day long, and sitting down very rarely. Usually, coming from a place where you, you have been sitting far more than that. So maybe maybe you sit at your desk most of the day and then you go and you're expected to stand on a rocking boat eight, ten hours. That's tough.

So what I would do is, and what I've encouraged a lot of people to do when they've asked me this type of question is you need to train your legs. You need to be doing a lot of squats. You need to be doing some balance work. You need to be paying attention to what your body needs so that you can understand what's going on. Some people don't drink any water when they're in the hot sun.

Not only do you need to drink water, but you're also losing electrolytes. So getting comfortable with an electrolyte replacement before you go on your trip, because some electrolyte replacements can have gastrointestinal issues for some people, so you don't want to be trying a new, electrolyte replacement in the middle of your tarpon trip. You get diarrhea real bad. So try replacing the electrolytes months before you go so that you find the right brand, the right dose, the right flavor for you so that you know that when you go down there, yeah, sure. You can put this in your water.

It'll be fine. Because, you know, you don't want it to be the other way. And that goes for food and everything else. Try to try to control the controllables and that's one of them. Know what kind of electrolyte replacement you can tolerate and what you like and take that with you.

You're going to need electrolytes. You're gonna be drinking more water than you're used to. You're gonna be peeing a lot. You're sweating like crazy and you're losing tons of sodium, potassium, and magnesium. You're gonna need to replace those things to remain clear headed and to be able to catch these fish.

That's all there is to it. To make it seven days, it's like a physical athletic event. You have to be able to do that. So training your legs, walking a bunch before you go down there, standing up. Like, say you're going to, your kid's soccer game two weeks before the, before your tarpon trip.

Don't sit down. Stand up and watch the soccer game the entire time. Stand up. Try to stand up all day. That's what you're gonna be doing when you're there.

If you can't do it now, how are you gonna expect to do it when you're when you're there on a rocking boat? Well, there is adrenaline and you are interested in catching this fish, so there is something to that. But do some training beforehand. Train your legs. Train your legs.

Train some balance work. Stand on one foot. All kinds of different balance stuff that you do. And I have done some physical Fridays about this. You can go to tomrowlandpodcast.com.

You can look up, tarpon fishing. You can look up travel workouts, and you can look up supplements. We're gonna talk about supplements here in a second, but you can look up all of those things on Tom Rowland Podcast. And you can see other other articles that I have written. And then you can also ask your own trainer if he knows anything about, being in hot weather.

Sauna is a great thing to do before you come to the Florida Keys and spend a week in the hot sun. If you can get heat acclimated with twenty or thirty minutes of sauna a day before you come, you're gonna feel a whole lot better. It's not gonna feel like you, are in an oven. You're gonna be you're gonna be used to it and that's what training is. Training basically is just you getting used to some sort of stimulus.

The stimulus that you're gonna have, guaranteed, if they're tarping around, it's gonna be hot. So be be ready for that and train your legs. Okay. Paul Lee Chin, forty two, Hamilton, Ontario. Question, tips for running and lifting.

42:02 · Running, Lifting, and How Rich Lost the Weight Fast

Tom Rowland: So we do talk about running a lot on the, on the podcast and the physical Fridays. I've done quite a few on those. tomrowlandpodcast.com. You can go and check out, different things that you can you can look at. But, you know, running is a fantastic form of exercise.

I do lift more than I run these days, but, you know, I I definitely suggest doing it. Running and lifting, if you're looking for tips, sounds like maybe either you're in a slump and you're not, you you need some workouts or you're just getting started. Either way, if you find a CrossFit gym, they're gonna help you with your running, they're gonna help you with your lifting, And you're gonna get a group camaraderie and you're gonna have a great time. Kyle Keegan, 34, Houston, Texas. How did Rich lose the weight?

It seemed to come off fast. You bet it did. So Rich, if you don't know, Rich lost a bunch of weight. I can't speak for him, but I would think it would be 50 pounds or more. And so, obviously, I'm interested in these type of things.

I asked him, what'd you do? And I was very careful to not ask too early. I saw the weight coming off. I saw that it was working. And I've seen this happen before where somebody that might know a little bit more about certain things or what they they ask somebody.

They say, oh, no. You shouldn't be doing it that way. You should do it this way. And then all of a sudden the wait stops. I saw that Rich was making great progress.

I stayed. I said he asked me a couple times, like, hey. What do you think about this? I said, I think whatever you're doing is working. Keep doing it.

And that was great advice because it kept it continued to come off. What he told me that he did was that he stopped eating breakfast. He stopped eating breakfast and he didn't start eating until twelve, and he stops eating about 05:30. So basically, intermittent fasting. And everything that he's eating is in between those times of the day.

And I saw it work for him, and I've seen it work for many others. So that's the it it definitely worked. So the intermittent fasting, there's something to it. You only eat at a certain point of the day, and that is more more important than, for some people than, you know, a very strict diet. So he goes on to ask, Kyle, what is your diet and gym regimen?

And so I, I like CrossFit and CrossFit like things. So in CrossFit, we row, we ski, we run, we bike, we swim. So all of those are incorporated, as single activities. But then we also lift weights, do gymnastics, things, body weight exercises, and there are a lot of other skills involved in that. And then CrossFit is basically a mix up of all of those things, together on occasion.

So that's what I like to do. I get up at 04:34 and I work out from five to seven, five days a week. And that's that's and unless I am on the road. And if I'm on the road, then I revert to the deck of cards, and I try to make sure that even if I've got fifteen minutes between ending fishing and meeting somebody for dinner, that I will get that deck of cards done. Even if I can only do half the deck of cards and and I do it for twelve minutes and have a three minute shower and get to dinner, I try to get it done.

So my diet is I, where did I have that? Okay. So the what I'm eating right now, I'm eating a 171 grams of protein a day, a 170 grams of carbs, 62 grams of fat for 1,922 calories. I use the Carbon app, which is done by one of our podcast guests, Lane Norton. It's a fantastic app that helps you to track all of those things.

And I will eat as much as, 3,500 calories a day during times of heavy training. And then if I feel like I'm getting kinda fat, I will drop that back to, 1,900. That's about as low as I'm going. And right now, I'm doing that. So I have kind of waves of eating more or eating less, depending on how much I'm training and what my goals are for that.

I'll try to make the best choices that I can to get those 171 grams of protein or the 170 grams of carbs or the 62 grams of fat, but that app makes it really easy to, to stay. Bironowin. Burnowin makes mounts that go on your boat, in your boat. They look just like rod holders, but they are quick change accessory mounts. So you can put anything on there.

You can put rod holders, fillet tables, bait cutting stations. You can mount outriggers, grills. You can mount anything to your boat. Burnowind is a great company that is helping us to bring you this show called Anglers Unite. And we just did our first one last week with Travis Thompson.

It was about amendment two, and amendment two is, an amendment that is going to be on the ballot in November on November 5, could possibly result in hunting and fishing being a constitutional right. I would encourage you to go back and listen to that with Travis. That was a good episode. H and H Insurance. So H and H Insurance is a company that we started working with because we were unhappy with our insurance.

And what they found as they did a little review of our insurance policies is a bunch of things that were quite disturbing and alarming. First of all, we were not covered in The Bahamas if we took the boat to The Bahamas. We were not covered, with our current storm plan that we had in case there's a hurricane in The Keys. We would just put our boats in what we thought was a safe area, but that is not if if they were damaged, they would not have been covered. Complete.

It it was completely unacceptable. They pointed these things out along with many other things and showed us how we could improve the policy and really sleep a lot better at night. I liked working with them so much that I wanted to work with them on this show because I wanted to bring their message to you because you guys are just like us. You got boats. They're expensive.

And if you have insurance that you think is covering what you think it's covering, you should at least have somebody take a look. Landon was fantastic. You can give him a call at (727) 498-5551. That's (727) 498-5511. That's Landon.

49:01 · Swing-Tongue Trailers: An Answer Straight from Ameritrail

Tom Rowland: Spencer McClendon, male 33, Durango, Colorado. Question, what are the drawbacks to a swing tongue trailer on a skiff? I need to fit it in my garage, but I don't wanna have a weak point or a point of corrosion. A standard trailer can fit in an angle, but it's not ideal. Okay.

I understand that. I have never had a swing tongue trailer, but I know what they are. So I reached out to my friend Scott Locke. He he owns Ameritrail trailers. Those are the type of trailers that we use.

And I asked him this question because I wanted to give you a good a good answer because I really I I really don't know and I'm kinda curious myself. So Scott said, I hope I did not miss your your time slot. Swing tongue trailers are only necessary for fitting your boat in a garage just like he asked. This typically limits the size of a boat to 17 or 18 feet for a skiff. Fitting it into a garage should be your only deciding factor to have a swing tongue.

Are they strong? Swing tongues are a hinge and will not be as strong as a straight tongue. After time, there will be play in the hinge and you may feel the play when you get on a bumpy road. Ameritrail doesn't offer standard duty and heavy duty swing tongues. Oh, they do.

Ameritrail does offer standard duty and heavy duty swing tongues. Dealers may, buy trailers with swing tongues that they are only displaying. This is not to conserve this is only to conserve floor space. If you have a trailer with a swing tongue and have excessive play, it's time to have it replaced. So there you go.

From the man. Nobody knows more about trailers than than Scott. That's Ameritrail, and he he knows a lot about trailers. So he's saying that, basically, if you don't have to have it, don't have it. But if that's the only way that you can do it, definitely, it it is okay.

But watch out when you start to feel play in it, you need to replace it. So that's that's good. We had one other question here that, let's go to one about health and fitness. Alright. Chris Klutchke.

Chris Klutchke. Male 58. McCordsville, Indiana. Question. What supplements do you take?

51:20 · Tom's Full Supplement Stack, Morning to Night

Tom Rowland: Alright. I had to, write this one down, and I'll put it all in the notes. But I'll tell you exactly what I do and not that what I do is the best. This is just over the years. This is what I've come to do.

I have a pre workout drink that I drink every morning, and I make that myself. I don't have, it's just a it's a bunch of different ones. I will buy these supplements from either, FirstForm or I will buy them from, Bulk Supplements. That's where I usually get it. So I have beta alanine, I have l arginine, and l carnitine.

I'll put those all into a cup and then I will add one element. And an element is an electrolyte replacement drink. It has one thousand milligrams of sodium, two hundred milligrams of potassium, and sixty milligrams of magnesium. Those are all super important for your workout. There's been a ton of work, of research that goes into how much, sodium you're losing in a workout and how much if you preload sodium, how it can help.

It has helped my workouts considerably. If you're interested in that information, you can go to James d Nicolantonio. He has a book called Win. It is in the book club. You can go check it out at tomrowlandpodcast.com.

Learn all about, how extra magnesium extra sodium can help you. So that's my pre workout. Beta alanine, l arginine, l carnitine, and one element pack. I mix all that together, drink it. I take three, x endurance or they call it Zendurance pills.

And these are to, I don't know. They help with soreness, in my opinion. And so I take three at night, three at the day, three in the morning before workout. Then I follow that up with four ounces of apple juice and ten grams of protein powder. That's my pre workout deal.

Then I fill up my my half gallon jug of water and I I I head down and I start stretching. And I'll work out from five to seven, five days a week. And when I come back from that, I will then drink a cup of coffee. I will fill up my half gallon water thing again, and I'll go to the sauna for at least twenty minutes. Then I will take FirstForm Microfactor multivitamins.

It's a pack. You don't even you don't have to go through 15 different bottles. It's a pack of vitamins and and from what I can tell, it gives you everything you need. I will also supplement that with first form adrenal restore, which has got a lot of ashwagandha and other things in there. Not sure exactly what all is in there, but it does make me feel better.

I will also take turmeric. It's an anti inflammatory. I take creatine. Take glutamine. It's for recovery.

And then I also take these first form opti greens. I will put those in some sort of a a shake sometimes. That's it for the morning. It sounds like that's it. That's a lot, I think.

And then at night, before I go to bed, I will have a couple of scoops of or one scoop of first form magnesium. And if you're interested in these products, they will be listed in the description. And then I love the Mountain Ops slumber gummies. I take those before I go to bed every single night. So in the morning, I'm done by eight, with all my workout and sauna and everything else, and I'm ready to go.

I'll eat breakfast. And throughout the day, I'm gonna eat a 171 grams of protein, a 170 grams of carbs, and 62 grams of pat fat for 1,922 calories. I'll track that on the Carbon app. That's, one of our our guests, Lane Norton. He that's his app.

And, you know, I'll try to get the best, the best stuff I can, the best food that I can. Organic, free range, the best I can get, especially if I caught it myself or killed it myself. That's even better. So, that's my day. Those are the supplements that I use.

And outside of the pre workout, I definitely am taking element a lot when I'm fishing because you you burn through that sodium. Sodium, potassium, and magnesium, when I'm sweating heavily in the summertime, you're fishing a lot. That is one that I really, like for me. There are lots of other, electrolyte replacement out there. This one gives me no intestinal distress and a lot of, what I need, but that's not the only one.

There's so many more. Mountain Knobs has some. There's so many more. You can you can go and find one that you like, but replacing your electrolytes is super important. Most people aren't getting enough sodium in my opinion, but I'm not a doctor.

Outside of of that, the really the only thing that I'm taking that is not, like, straight up workout, associated with is this first form micro factor multivitamin and, the greens. Everything else is pretty much like a pre workout shake, and then the magnesium and the slumber gummies. That's so I'm really just taking that. The multivitamin, the greens, and the, the magnesium and slumber gummies. That's basically what I'm taking and everything else is associated with the workout.

So if you're interested in any of those things, you can check it out in the, in the description. Okay. Next, Hunter Bertrand, male 23, Texas. What advice would you give someone starting their health and fitness journey? Also, any advice on building the discipline to keep at it?

57:23 · Starting a Fitness Journey at 23 — and a Word on TRT at 48

Tom Rowland: Okay. Awesome. Love that question because he is 23. So what I would say is that if you are feeling like you're getting started on your health and fitness journey, good for you. Because at your age, you are going to have a completely different trajectory on your life if you start exercising and you remain doing that.

So I like what you're asking. You're asking, like, what's your advice about doing it at all? And then how do you maintain it? What's the discipline in in maintaining it? So first of all, if you find something that you really like to do and you find a bunch of people that you really like to do it with, the discipline is pretty easy.

You'll want to do that. You will want to do that like you wanna go fishing. You will want to do that like you want to, do anything else in your life that you have zero problem, finding the discipline to do. So a lot of people get started in their health and fitness journey and they're doing something that that feels like complete drudgery. They're going to the gym.

They're getting on the treadmill. They're walking. They don't like where they are. They're looking at the wall. Like, I don't know.

That some people that that that's gonna require a tremendous amount of discipline if it if it is just complete drudgery. But if you get yourself in a you find a great CrossFit gym that's got a wonderful community, you go there, you're accepted by the community, you're learning new skills all the time, you're seeing progress, you're having fun. And it doesn't have to be CrossFit. It could be a swimming group. It could be a running group.

It could be any sort of a group, I think, is very, very important that you get with a group. Sometimes, people have four or five different groups. They have their running group. They have their swimming group. They have their CrossFit group.

They have, their racquetball group. They have their pickleball group. They have all these different groups. Keeps them keeps them, active. It keeps them, entertained.

That's an excellent thing to do. So I really do believe that finding a group of people that you can do some stuff with is very, very, very important. And then as far as building on the discipline to keep at it, I don't think you're gonna need discipline when you find the right group. You you will eventually have to have discipline. But discipline, you know, in the words of Jocko Willink, discipline equals freedom.

So if you do have the discipline to keep it going, you're gonna have the freedom to skip every now and then. You're gonna have the freedom to you're gonna have the freedom to do other things because you do have the discipline to get it done. If you have the discipline to get it done, you're gonna have the freedom to, I don't know, not have to go to the doctor and have them tell you that that something's wrong. So I believe in three things here for, maintaining your road on your on your fitness journey, for maintaining that journey and staying on it. Discipline is part of it and you definitely need discipline to stay on it.

But I like consistency first. Find a a, schedule that you can stay on. Is that three days a week? Is it two days a week? Is it Tuesday, Thursday?

Is it Monday, Wednesday, Friday? Whichever one. Commit to that and stay on it. That's where the discipline comes in. That every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you're gonna work out.

Stay on that for a few weeks, few months. Don't even worry about what you're necessarily doing. You're gonna walk thirty minutes one day. You're gonna you're gonna swim thirty minutes another day. You're gonna run another day.

You're gonna do something else another day. Don't worry necessarily about what you're doing. Just be consistent and be consistent long enough that you develop that habit. Then you're gonna work on accuracy. What does that mean?

Accuracy means that you're going to now you're gonna work on, are you doing these movements correctly? Are you touching your chest on your on your push ups? Are you going all the way down to the ground on your burpees? Are you is your chin going over the bar on your pull ups? Are you getting, you know, your hips below your knees in the squat?

Things like that. And maybe you need a trainer to help you with the accuracy. But the accuracy isn't gonna make any difference at all if you don't have the consistency first. So develop the consistency first, then work on the accuracy. So you've developed the habit.

Now you're working on doing it right. And then once you get those two things down, now you put some intensity to it. You go heavier weights. You try to go faster. You try to go farther.

You try to add weight. That's the recipe. Consistency, accuracy, and intensity. Okay. One more health.

Joel Joey Blandford, 48, male, Fort Pierce, Florida. I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on testosterone supplements, TRT injections. I'm 48 years old and I have above average testosterone levels. Many people I know do the injections even if their levels are normal. They definitely perform better in the gym with them, but must stay on them forever.

Curious if you use them. Thoughts, long term effects. Okay. So what I would say to this one is that if your testosterone levels are above normal, there's no reason for you to be on it. If you are at a critically low and your doctor is telling you that maybe you should consider it, that's what you should do is you should consider it.

And you should get some other opinions. Because you are right that, once you start on that, it's really tough to get off of it. There are many ways that you could enhance your testosterone levels naturally. There are things that you can take naturally. You can also start looking at, like, if your testosterone levels are really low, what are the causes of that?

How's your sleep? What's your diet like? What's your stress level like? And some of those things can be a big part of why maybe the testosterone levels are getting low. You're not sleeping well.

You're super stressed. You're eating like crap. That will definitely tank your testosterone levels. If you wanted to take a blood test and and get testosterone levels that are really, really low, all you gotta do is go on about a three or four day bender where you're drinking a bunch of alcohol, staying up super late, and eating crappy foods. And you'll go in and your testosterone level, sure enough, it'll be low.

But if you get a lot of good sleep, you're you're hydrated, you know, your body is working the way it's supposed to. It could be higher. So if your testosterone levels are low, you should definitely could, you know, consult your doctor. But I would think that if there is any opportunity for you to attempt to raise the testosterone levels naturally, that is always going to be your best bet, your best idea. And, but, you know, if if if it's a situation that that, you know, your doctor's telling you that you really need them and and you are critically low, then I don't know.

Lots of people do it. Lots of people do it. But if you can possibly do it naturally, then do it. Okay. Travel and lifestyle, couple other ones.

Michelle. Wow. We're already in an hour. Michelle Hogan, female, 56, Rosemary Beach. We've considered living in The Keys.

64:47 · Living in the Keys, Missing Guiding, and Guide-Life Questions

Tom Rowland: In fact, we're already we've already tried it once. My question to you is if you could live on any key in the Florida Keys, which would you live on if you love both inshore and offshore fishing? That's great. And I have two keys. Key West and Duck Key.

I like both of them. I like Key West because it's the end. It has a ton of history and that's where I lived for a long time. Tons of friends there. The fishing offshore is fantastic.

The fishing inshore is fantastic. As far as the best possible location, it's gonna be Duck Key right there where Hawkes Cay is. And that is because it is in the exact middle of the Florida Keys. So you can trailer to Key West with your big boat or your little boat. You can trailer to Key Largo or Biscayne Bay very easily.

And so you can you can fish the Northern End of The Keys at the same amount of time that you can fish the Southern End or Western End Of The Keys and then you're you live right in the middle. You can then go north to Flamingo and the Everglades or you can go south to the Swordfish Grounds and offshore. That's about as good as it gets is is living right there. If if if your main purpose is living in a place so that you can fish inshore and offshore, I don't know that you're gonna get better than that. So those those that would be that would be my deal.

Matt Matt Latore, male 34. This is an interesting one. Do you ever miss guiding and wonder what life would would have been like if you and Rich had never started the fishing show? Thanks, Tom. Love the shows.

Yeah. Sometimes. I mean, I certainly miss guiding. Guiding I I thought of guiding as like a art form. I really did, and I thought it was it was amazing.

I loved being so in touch with the weather and what was going on with the tides because you're out there every single day. I had the greatest customers. I I I could not have asked for better customers. Literally, the best. They were like family.

And so many fishing guides say that because you spend so much time with these people. I started to do the, the shows and also the tournaments, but I have so much respect for guiding and guides that I don't feel like it's a part time job at all. And at this point, I run, you know, three different fishing shows, the podcast. We got Waypoint. There's so many things going on that I can't give guiding the time that it deserves.

And if I don't give guiding the time that it deserves, I don't think I should do it because it's not good for the location, it's not good for the customer, it's not good for me, it's not good for anybody. And I feel like full time guides deserve a lot of respect. And you are a full time guide because that's what you were doing and you were on the water yesterday and you're gonna be on the water tomorrow and that's that's the gig. That's the job. So I do miss it.

I do miss it a lot sometimes. And as far as what life would have been like if we had not have, started the show, we'd we'd just be still guiding. That's exactly what we'd be doing. We'd be guiding. No no question about it.

We would just be out there out there fishing every single day. So I loved it. I love it, but, you know, I I have a tremendous amount of respect for it so much that I don't know that it's, that it's a part time job. Steven Fluke, fishing guide. Male, 29.

Greenville, South Carolina. What boat did you start guiding out of in Florida? How long did it take you to move to a bay boat? Started guiding out of a Maverick Mirage. And, that was my first boat that I bought.

Actually, the first boat that I had was a Maverick Master Angler 18, and it had a one fifty Johnson on it, and it was super fast. And, really then moved to a smaller boat, the Maverick Mirage. I was in a Maverick for a long time. And, it wasn't until, we got Skeeter bay boats. We we pulled the first Skeeter bay boats, the first bay boats, that had a trolling motor on the front and a power pole on the back into the Florida Keys.

And, then shortly after that, we moved to Yellowfin and been there ever since. A bay boat is fantastic. And in some ways, you know, depending on your goals, it it can be a a much more lucrative vessel to guide out of because now you can take three and four people at a time. So you could actually take, you know, you got two fathers, two sons. You got a mom and dad, two kids.

That is a a group of people that was very common to take. And when you're in a SCIF, you can't do that. If you have, let's say, a dad and two sons, dad and mom or or dad and two kids, couple of dad and two daughters, whatever. It's hard to break that group up and say, well, the two girls should go in this boat and the dad should go over here in this boat. Usually, they just decide they don't wanna fish or they don't wanna fish with you if that's the way that that you, if that's all you've got is a skiff.

So that's a problem. Being able to take three, four, even five people on a bay boat opens you up to a much wider audience. Of course, you can take one person on that bay boat just as easily as you can take four. So you still have the one and two person clientele, but the four person clientele just isn't possible on a skiff. So you open yourself up to that.

I think that it was good to move to a bay boat, but I we still have a skiff today. And, and we like the we like the skiff. So here's another one. A more personal question, maybe you'd be willing to answer privately if not on the podcast. I'm happy to answer it on the podcast.

Any advice for getting a boat house loans when guiding full time? I'm finding it tough with self employed income as my wife is a full time mom with our boys. Okay. Great question here because I remember when we bought our first house and one of the big problems was, man, you know, you're not making enough money. So what you probably are if you're reporting all your income.

You gotta report your tips. You You gotta report all your income so that you show higher income so that you qualify for a loan. That that's some advice right there for sure. But, you know, it's it's it's definitely tough to, to get into the game. But getting into the home ownership game as a fishing guide is really important, I think, if you can do it.

Because now you're in the game. And in a lot of these places where you're living as a fishing guide, the real estate can be, incredibly valuable. So that if you can get in, you can see some massive, wins on that piece of property. It might be worth twice what it's worth today, not very far away because a lot of people moving to the coast. A lot of people wanna live in these areas where the fishing is really great.

The the price is going up. If you the longer you wait to get in, the the more difficult it's going to be. So I don't know. I feel like getting in was good for me. I don't know about everybody's situation that they've that they've got.

But I would say, you know, report all your income, make sure that you qualify for a loan, get prequalified, have your down payment ready to go so that when the right house does show up, you're able to take action right now. Let's see here. We'll take one more and then we'll go. Okay. Allen Rupp, 48, New York, New York.

72:38 · Loop Knot or Direct Tie? Plus Closing Thoughts

Tom Rowland: When fly fishing with top water, do you use a direct connection knot and when do you use a loop knot? Okay. So that's a good question. Well, one of the things that we were talking about earlier is when you're fly fishing, for, you know, something on the surface, a lot of us have gotten to where we just tie a 100% fluorocarbon leader. So one thing, like, we'll we'll fish tarpon on the surface with gurglers or like deer hair bugs and they don't really wanna float very well anyway.

But if if you have that fluorocarbon loo leader on there, it's pulling it down. And what you what you want it to do is kinda wake. So a lot of times, the fluorocarbon leader is too heavy. It's sinking too much and it will pull that surface, fly under and you're not getting the action that you're looking for. So we'll have to have a specific fly rod with an all mono leader on it to get the action out of the fly that we're looking for.

Now, as far as a loop knot on one of these flies, it really really depends on which fly. But if it's a very light fly, like a gurgler, I don't like a loop knot on that fly because I feel like it gets batted out of out of the way. When it's snug tight to the leader, the leader is kinda holding that fly. And if, you know, I just said don't use fluorocarbon if you're using this. But if you are using fluorocarbon, the leader is holding that fly down in the water and it's kind of determining its direction.

So if a tarpon comes up and hits it, I feel like I feel like that hinge with the loop knot on the gurgler might result in not not hooking a couple fish. Most times, it's probably gonna be fine, but I feel like if you're looking for that 100%, I feel like with that particular fly and that particular application, I prefer to be tight to the fly. When I'd use a loop knot is when I want something to sink very fast. So permit fishing, always a loop knot. Bone fishing, always a loop knot.

Because what can happen is as you tie that loop knot, the the fly can turn up like this and it can sink down like a jig. It's not pulling the leader down at the same time. So I believe that you're getting faster sync rates with a loop knot, and the loop knots are very strong. And you can actually have it both ways. You can tie a uni knot and you can leave it as a loop.

And then as you catch something, that's gonna tighten down. But I don't know. I I I'm kinda weird with with loop knots. I like them sometimes and I don't like them others. When you fish when you fly fish with streamers, do you use a loop knot or a direct knot?

Streamers, I'll probably use a loop knot on streamers, especially for, like, freshwater trout. Is either of the above species specific? So he he already knew what I was gonna ask. For example, when I fish for redfish or large mouth or tarpon, I always use a loop knot. When I fish for snook or freshwater trout, I only tie directly to the to the hook eye.

So, yeah, I agree with that and I think that each each, species has its own kind of technique and, I don't know. If it's if it's a sinking fly, I want more action out of it. I'm gonna use a loop knot. I typically don't use loop knots with circle hooks. Don't know why.

Don't really feel like I I I just feel like I want the leader to to dictate where that that hook is going, and it pulls it right into the corner of their mouth. So permit fishing with a with a circle hook, I'd, always tied to the hook. Other people are not, and they don't see any problem with it. So I don't know. Maybe it's it's one of those things where it could just be in my imagination that it makes any difference at all, but typically, I do not use a loop knot on a circle hook and I do not use a loop knot on well, I use it on permit flies.

I will use it on bonefish, and I will use it on certain on tarpon leaders for sure because I want that tarpon fly to have as much action as possible. But pretty much everything else, I'm going straight to the hook. Alright. Okay. Well, listen.

I think that this has been really awesome. We have already run out of space on the on the card. So we're we're over time, but if you listen this long, I really appreciate it. And, this podcast has really been fun for me. I've learned more, you know, I'm sitting here telling you what I think about all these questions.

But so much of so much of what I just told you, I learned from the guests on the podcast. And this podcast has been a a tremendous learning opportunity for me and I love it for that because I get to talk to some really, really great people that are so good at what they do. And it's helped me to get a lot smarter and better at fishing myself and health and fitness and all of that too. So thanks to all the guests that have have helped, and thanks to all of you who have listened and been part of this process all the way through. And, we're just getting started.

We've got new sponsors. We got new, guests coming on. We've got all kinds of great things. So if you are a fan of the podcast, please go to Tom Rowland Podcast YouTube. Subscribe to that.

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Tell me I think they ought to listen to it and, share it on social media. That would be fantastic. Alright. So I hope you guys have a great day. Thanks for all the questions.

If you want to get on the text thread one more time, (305) 930-7346. That's it for today. We'll see you next week. See you.