Questions And Answers From Instagram Feat. Will Taylor is a Tom Rowland Podcast episode built entirely from questions Tom's Instagram followers submitted, answered live with North Georgia trout guide Will Taylor, covering everything from favorite fly patterns to which single fish either of them would choose to chase for the rest of their life.
Press play above to watch the full Q&A with Will Taylor.
Will says it is a tie between a big snook and a brown trout. When pushed to pick a single freshwater species that would let him fish year-round without moving somewhere cold, he lands on rainbow trout, since they are stocked and available in warmer climates all over the world.
The wooly bugger. Will says it can be tied and fished in enough variations that it will catch just about anything, which makes it his pick if he could only fish one fly for the rest of his life.
A traditional bass tube. He calls it the most versatile soft plastic around because it can be rigged completely weedless, threaded on a jig head, or fished wacky style, and he says most anglers have stopped using tubes even though they still flat out work.
He and his wife had to sit down and build an actual structure for their household around a new baby, two other businesses, and a full guiding season, and he is candid that being self-employed means you never really clock out. He says the structure is something they are still learning and adapting as things grow.
Will Taylor guides for trophy trout in North Georgia and has ties to Naples, Florida, and this episode grew out of Tom and Will meeting and fishing together after connecting on Instagram.
Will and I got to be friends after connecting on Instagram, trading messages, then getting together to actually fish, and we share a real mutual admiration for trout fishing that isn't always obvious from the saltwater side of what I do. When I asked my Instagram followers to send in questions, Will felt like the right person to sit next to me and help answer them, since he gets a version of these same questions from his own audience all the time.
The questions ranged from which single fish Will would chase forever, to the one fly or bait he would keep if he could only carry one for life. His answers say a lot about how he actually thinks on the water, from picking a wooly bugger for its versatility to explaining why an old-school bass tube still outfishes plenty of newer soft plastics. It's worth hearing him walk through his reasoning rather than just reading the picks.
Will opens up about how much has changed since he and his wife welcomed a new baby into a household that already had a guiding business, a growing influx of clients, and other ventures on top of it. He talks candidly about never really clocking out as a self-employed guide, and what he and his wife had to figure out together to keep it all from running him into the ground. That part of the conversation is worth hearing in his own words.
What started as a friendship over Instagram turned into one of the more fun formats we've done on this show, and Will's answers were sharper and more honest than I expected going in. Press play above to hear the whole Q&A.
Will Taylor, Tom Rowland, Cody Pierce
Will Taylor is a fishing guide based in North Georgia known for trophy trout fishing, with additional ties to Naples, Florida. He built his following in part through Instagram, where he first connected with Tom Rowland before the two became fishing partners and friends.
Q&A with Will Taylor, Ep. 60
[Will Taylor]: I have a young friend that is coming up in the industry, his name is Cody Pierce, he's in Fort Myers, and he reaches out to me as well as other professionals that he knows. It's a grind, it's finding your niche, I think that's important with any guide, find your niche, whatever that is, and go from there.
[Tom Rowland]: On my story there's an opportunity to ask questions, and I got a ton of them, and we're going to use Will Taylor to help answer some. Will, what have you been up to weathering the storm since we met?
[Will Taylor]: It's been great for us, just trying to figure out how to manage the influx of individuals that want to fish with us, and you're balancing that with a sixteen month old baby girl, a wife, and two other businesses and a million other things. It's very difficult. My wife and I had to sit down and develop a structure for our lives, and I think we've figured it out, we'll see how it goes. It's something we're learning, and you have to adapt with growth with everything. Being self-employed, you never really clock out, you're always working, and then of course I have my fishing seasons to manage as well.
[Q&A questions from followers]: If you had to choose one fish to catch for the rest of your life, what would it be? It's a tie between big snook and brown trout. If you weren't in the Keys, permit, bonefish, tarpon, and between the three, if it wasn't permit and I had to choose a freshwater species, I'd say rainbow trout, they're available all over the world, you can fish for them year-round in warmer locales, I don't want to spend the winter in Wyoming.
One artificial bait to use for the rest of your life. Are we talking fly or conventional? For fly, the classic wooly bugger, because you can catch anything, you can alter it a little and probably catch just about anything on a wooly bugger. For the bait, I would choose a traditional bass tube, and a lot of people don't fish those anymore, but in my opinion that is the most versatile soft plastic because you can rig a tube completely weedless, you can rig it on a jig head, or rig it wacky style.
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