Captains Collective - Hunter Leavine and Josh Wells is a Tom Rowland Podcast conversation with the hosts of the Captains Collective podcast, a show built around gathering wisdom, knowledge, and stories from fishing captains and industry leaders, where Tom turns the tables and interviews two fellow podcasters about what they have learned sitting down with some of the best guides in the business.
Press play above to watch the full conversation with Hunter Leavine and Josh Wells.
Hunter Leavine and Josh Wells host the Captains Collective podcast, a show dedicated to gathering wisdom, knowledge, and stories from fishing captains and other industry leaders.
Tom says he is always looking for new podcasts, whether through Apple Podcasts new and noteworthy list or its related shows recommendations, and came across Captains Collective that way. He was drawn in by its description and by the fact that its very first episode featured Florida Keys legend Harry Spear.
Harry Spear is a true legend of Florida Keys fishing who later relocated to Panacea, Florida, where he has been building boats.
It is the biggest common theme Hunter and Josh have found across the guides they have interviewed: the best ones, no matter how experienced, keep an insatiable desire to learn and get better rather than assuming they already know enough.
Spending entire days, sometimes for decades, on a boat with the same or different clients forces a guide to develop real people skills alongside fishing skill, which Hunter and Josh say is a pattern they see again and again in the guides they talk to.
I am always scanning the podcast world for something new to listen to, and when I came across Captains Collective and read that it was built around gathering wisdom from captains and industry leaders, I was hooked before I even got past the first episode featuring Harry Spear. Once I had listened to a handful of episodes, it felt right to flip the format and have Hunter and Josh sit on this side of the microphone for once.
Hunter and Josh have interviewed far more guides than they have had time to release, and they land on the same theme again and again, a full glass cannot receive water. The best guides, no matter how many years they have been at it, keep chasing more knowledge instead of assuming they have already arrived. Hearing them break down exactly where that pattern shows up across dozens of conversations is worth hearing directly from them.
Hunter and Josh talk through why the best guides tend to have exceptional people skills, not just fishing skill, since spending entire days on a boat with clients for years or decades demands it. It is a side of guiding that does not get talked about as much as knots and tides, and it is worth hearing how they have seen it play out across dozens of interviews.
Getting to turn the microphone around on two guys whose own podcast I discovered and genuinely enjoy was one of the more fun conversations I have had on this show.
Press play above to hear the whole conversation.
Hunter Leavine, Josh Wells, Captains Collective, Harry Spear, Tom Rowland
Hunter Leavine and Josh Wells co-host the Captains Collective podcast, a show dedicated to gathering wisdom, knowledge, and stories from fishing captains and other industry leaders.
EP 61/98 - Captains Collective - Hunter Leavine and Josh Wells
Hunter Leavine: The biggest common theme, and we talk about this all the time, is a full glass cannot receive water. In other words, a lot of the greatest people that we have met so far, we have met many more guys than we have interviewed so far, the greatest guides have this insatiable desire to get better and better and learn. There is just a passion, just a love for fishing that people have, and a lot of the guys, at first it is like, wow, I cannot believe this guy sat down with us, and then you realize, no, these are really good, they have really good people skills. And it makes sense, right, you are on a boat with a person every day for thirty years, you should be good with people, or you have got to be a really, really good fisherman. This is Hunter Leavine from the Captains Collective, and Josh Wells, also with the Captains Collective, and this is the Tom Rowland Podcast.
Tom Rowland: I am always looking at the podcast world and seeing if there are some new ones that I should listen to. Apple does a great job of serving them up either in the new and noteworthy, or what is hot, or sometimes in the related category. Recently I came across one that I thought was pretty interesting, and it was called the Captains Collective, and I looked at it, and the description says a podcast dedicated to gathering wisdom, knowledge, and stories from captains and other industry leaders. So I looked at it, and I thought, well that sounds interesting. First episode, number 001, none other than Harry Spear, a true legend in the Florida Keys. Harry moved on from the Florida Keys and ended up in Panacea, Florida, he is building boats these days.
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