Capt. Deb Deyo: From Healthcare to Florida Keys Charter Captain
Capt. Deb Deyo left a healthcare career in North Carolina with $300 in her pocket, drove to the Florida Keys, and started scrubbing toilets at a marina in Islamorada. Today she owns and operates Blue Water Girl Charters in Key Largo. She joins Tom Rowland to share the real story behind her reinvention, the tough early years, and what it is like being a female charter captain in a male-dominated industry.
Mike Dunlap: A 300-Mile Stand-Up Paddleboard Challenge in 96 Hours
Mike Dunlap is the founder of Barefoot Adventures and one of only five people to ever complete the Everglades Challenge on a stand-up paddleboard, a 300-mile expedition race from Fort De Soto near St. Petersburg down the Florida coast through the Everglades to Key Largo. He joins Tom Rowland to describe finishing in 96 hours on two hours of total sleep and the mental preparation that kept him going.
Ed Emory: Five-Time One Fly Champion on Native Cutthroat and the South Fork
Ed Emory is a legendary fly fishing guide based in Jackson, Wyoming who has won the Jackson Hole One Fly competition a record five times. He joins Tom Rowland to talk about guiding 140-plus days a year on the South Fork of the Snake River, his custom fly patterns like the cutthroat candy, the tension between native cutthroat restoration and recreational fishing, and the Idaho Fish and Game electroshocking debate.
Joe Hippensteel: Navy SEAL Stretching Routines and Ultimate Human Performance
Joe Hippensteel is the founder of Ultimate Human Performance and the mobility expert named in David Goggins' Can't Hurt Me. He joins Tom Rowland to explain the 24-movement stretching system Navy SEALs have used to stay out of surgery, the two-minute hold, the concept of muscle lock, and four stretches anyone can start today.
Bill Watters: Marine Manufacturing and Black Angus Cattle
Bill Watters is a representative of SymTech Industries, one of the largest deckhouse and marine component builders in the world, and he also runs a 200-head Black Angus seed-stock cattle operation. He joins Tom Rowland to explain nearly 40 years of blow-molded composite marine manufacturing, the technology behind Reflex Marine Decking, and how he balances two very different businesses.
Dr. Lorian Schweikert: Deep-Water Ocean Exploration and Bioluminescence
Dr. Lorian Schweikert is a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington specializing in marine biology, fish vision, and bioluminescence. She joins Tom Rowland to describe descending 3,000 feet in a submersible in the Gulf of Mexico, how creatures create and see light in total darkness, and her involvement in the search for the elusive giant squid.
Roland Martin: Bass Fishing Legend and Million-Dollar Tournament Winner
Roland Martin is a bass fishing legend who has won over one million dollars in BASS tournaments and is considered one of the true pioneers of competitive bass fishing. He joins Tom Rowland to share how losing his parents led him to Santee Cooper, what really happened during his most famous tournament wins, and how his long-running television show helped transform bass fishing into a professional sport.
Tom Rowland Q&A: Fishing Knots, Career Advice, and Life on the Water
In this Q&A episode of the Tom Rowland Podcast, host Tom Rowland answers listener questions while driving through Florida. He covers his favorite fishing knot, the introverted side that surprises fans, advice for starting an outdoor career, his fitness routine, balancing public and private life, and why the Florida Keys remain his favorite place to fish.
Ben Crawford: Hiking 2,189 Miles of the Appalachian Trail With His Family of 8
Ben Crawford is the best-selling author of "2,000 Miles Together" who in 2018 hiked the entire 2,189-mile Appalachian Trail with his family of eight, including children ages 2 to 16. The five-month, nine-day journey took them from Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. But what made this contractor from a regular working family decide to take his entire family—including a toddler—on one of the most challenging thru-hikes in America? And how did they handle diapers on the trail, meltdowns in the mountains, and near-hypothermia nights with kids who probably weren't prepared for what was ahead? This conversation reveals the hard truths about family adventure, the moment they almost quit, and why the worst days became their best memories.
Jared Raskob and Greg Dini: Balancing Guiding and Fatherhood in the Florida Keys
Jared Raskob is a Florida Keys fishing guide and host of Silver Kings on Waypoint TV, and Greg Dini is a Florida Keys guide and father of three. They join Tom Rowland to talk honestly about balancing demanding guide careers with raising young families, the mental stress of self-employment, and the environmental changes reshaping the Keys fishery.
Jared Zissu: Building the Flylords Media Empire and the Lefty Kreh Film
Jared Zissu is the founder of Flylords, one of the biggest names in fly fishing media. In this episode he tells me how a freshman fly fishing the Elk River near the University of the South turned an Instagram account into a media empire, how Flylords works to bring people into the sport responsibly around issues like spot burning and etiquette, and how he made a film centered on the legendary Lefty Kreh featuring Flip Pallot, Blaine Chocklett, and Bob Clouser.
Capt. Peter Deeks: 100,000 Miles, Following the Fish, and Filming With Bill Dance
Capt. Peter Deeks is a versatile Florida fishing guide based on Merritt Island who is known for following the fish across a huge operational area, from Palm Beach to Daytona. In this episode he tells me how going all-in and putting around 100,000 miles on his truck transformed his guiding, how he came to film fishing shows with Bill Dance and teach through Salt Strong, and how he also runs a hunting outfitter offering alligator hunts.
CA Richardson: Flats Class, the Guiding Life, and TV
CA Richardson is a Florida flats guide and the host of the TV show Flats Class and Flats Class University. In this episode he catches me up on the guiding life: a near year-round schedule on Florida's Nature Coast around Crystal River and the Suwannee, spring tarpon trips farther south, a long summer run chasing redfish in Louisiana with Cajun Fishing Adventures, and how he treats every guide day like a tournament while teaching what he knows through Flats Class.
Rob Chapman: Catching Giant Sea Trout in Florida's Big Bend
Rob Chapman is an angler with a knack for catching unusually large sea trout in Florida's Big Bend, from Steinhatchee and Horseshoe Beach to the Suwannee and Crystal River. In this episode he explains why hard winter freezes concentrate big trout into holes, what it takes to catch gator trout in the 24-to-32-inch class, the cold-weather behavior that makes the area special, and why topwater is his favorite way to chase them.
Terysa and Nick: Sailing Ruby Rose and Living Full Time on a Sailboat
Terysa and Nick are the couple behind the Sailing Ruby Rose YouTube channel. In this episode they tell me how they walked away from conventional careers, sold everything, saved up, bought a boat, and went sailing, living full time aboard for more than five years before selling the boat to wait on a new catamaran. They share the realistic, stair-step way they made the dream happen and the honest tradeoffs of life on the water.
Aurelia Skipwith: Opening 4 Million Acres for Hunting and Fishing
Aurelia Skipwith served as Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where she oversaw the opening of more than four million acres for hunting and fishing access. In this episode she shares her story of being introduced to the outdoors through family in rural Mississippi, her background in molecular biology and law, and how hunters and fishermen are the foundation of conservation funding and partners the agency relies on to protect and expand access and species.
Cole Harrison: Sailing Across the World to Live in Fiji
Cole Harrison is a Key West waterman who fell in love with the South Pacific and built a life in Fiji. In this episode he tells me how he went from guiding spearfishing and whale swims in Tonga to crossing roughly 2,500 miles of open Pacific by sailboat from Tahiti to Fiji, how he applies the spearfishing skills he learned as a kid in Key West to fish like dogtooth tuna and yellowfin, and what it takes to clear a sailboat into Fiji and earn a place in a village.
Arctic Sailing to Svalbard: Inside the Making of the 80 Degrees North Documentary
Brady Trautman and Alex Blue, longtime crew of the SV Delos YouTube channel, join me to talk about their new project: a documentary called 80 Degrees North about an expedition sail to Svalbard in the high Arctic. They describe what it takes to take a small sailboat to one of the most remote places on the planet, the realities of polar bear country, the local culture of Svalbard, and their philosophy of giving back to the places they travel rather than just taking from them.
Alexa Score: From Professional Wakeboarder to Cancer Survivor to TV Host
Alexa Score is a professional wakeboarder from a small town in Minnesota, a leukemia survivor, and a television host. In this episode she tells me how she grew up hunting and ice fishing with her father, how a leukemia diagnosis with ninety-seven percent cancerous blood and a hard road on the drug Gleevec became the catalyst that pushed her to move to Orlando and chase wakeboarding, and how she has used that platform to move into TV broadcasting.
Kevin Pavlidis: How to Avoid Dangerous Snakes in the Wild
Kevin Pavlidis, the Snakeaholic, is a reptile expert who handles snakes and alligators professionally. In this how-to conversation he explains why native snakes see humans as predators rather than prey, how to spot and avoid venomous species through careful foot placement, how to safely check a hunting blind in the dark, what to do if a snake is sharing your space, and why a rattlesnake's rattle is a sign of fear, not aggression.
Kevin Pavlidis: The 18-Foot Record Python and the Real Everglades Population
Kevin Pavlidis, known as the Snakeaholic, is a professional Burmese python hunter contracted by the state of Florida who caught the state-record python at 18 feet, 9.25 inches and 104 pounds. In this episode he explains how he hunts these invasive apex predators day and night, walks through his own calculation that the Everglades population is likely in the millions rather than the commonly cited 100,000 to 300,000, and describes how pythons have hollowed out the mammal population across the Eastern Everglades.
Chris Pascual: Bridge Fishing 101 in the Florida Keys
Chris Pascual is an experienced South Florida bridge fisherman who specializes in the Florida Keys, targeting mutton snapper, mangrove snapper, cubera snapper, and grouper from bridges like Channel 2, Channel 5, and Long Key. In this how-to conversation he walks me through bridge fishing 101: how to read current and structure, the stout conventional tackle he relies on, why he carries eight to ten dozen live shrimp, the drop-net system that lands big fish from a three-mile bridge, and the post-hurricane window that produced limits of near-25-inch mangroves.
Adrian Smith: Iron Maiden's Guitarist on Fishing as Meditation and Life on Tour
Adrian Smith is the guitarist for Iron Maiden, one of the biggest heavy metal bands in history, and a lifelong compulsive angler. In this episode he talks about his book Monsters of River and Rock: My Life as Iron Maiden's Compulsive Angler, fishing with his dad as a kid, rekindling his love of fishing while touring the world, and why he calls fishing meditation with a punchline.
Nick Lavery: Green Beret on Why Motivation Is Overrated
Nick Lavery is a U.S. Army Green Beret warrant officer and the first above-the-knee amputee to return to active duty in Special Forces after losing his leg in combat. In this episode he shares his mindset, why he believes motivation is overrated and discipline wins, the brutal road back to his unit at Fort Bragg, and how he thinks about potential, mentorship, and pushing past limits.