Enrique Zapata — How He Completed 7,100 Pull-Ups
Enrique Zapata is a Guinness World Record holder who completed 7,100 pull-ups in 12 hours.
Ryan Johnston | RJ's Fly Trips | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 977
Ryan Johnston is a fly fishing guide with 22 years of experience and the founder and executive director of Cast Hope, guiding across Northern California, Idaho's South Fork of the Snake, and now Montana near Kalispell and Glacier National Park. In this episode, Ryan reveals what two decades of professional guiding has taught him about client management, the evolution of fly fishing gear and techniques, and how he built a nonprofit that uses fishing to serve others. You'll hear about the unexpected challenges of running a guide business, the specific ways fly fishing has changed over two decades, and the moment that inspired Cast Hope. If you've ever wondered what it really takes to make it as a professional guide or how to turn your passion into purpose, this conversation is packed with hard-won insights.
EP 974: Steve Kantner - The Land Captain
Steve Kantner, known as "The Land Captain," is a legendary fishing guide and outdoor writer from South Florida who built a 30-year guiding career without ever owning a boat—working entirely from shore, piers, and a canoe.
EP 974: Rich Hernandez - Record-Breaking Conquest
Rich Hernandez is an MIT graduate, aerospace engineer, Yale MBA holder, and extreme fitness content creator who transformed his life through David Goggins' philosophy of doing hard things daily.
Chris Wittman | How Big Sugar Controls Florida's Water | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 972
Chris Wittman is the co-founder of Captains For Clean Water, a nonprofit organization advocating for clean water and Everglades restoration in Florida. In this conversation with Tom Rowland, Chris explains the current state of Everglades restoration, the political challenges that threaten progress, and how the Sugar Industry uses misinformation campaigns to divide fishing communities. He reveals how Big Sugar spent over a million dollars in political contributions in just one quarter, why bass fishermen and saltwater anglers are being pitted against each other, and what could change everything if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tackles the farm bill subsidy system. This is part two of an essential conversation about how anglers can unite to protect Florida's waters and what the future holds under a new political landscape.
Chris Wittman | How Two Fishing Guides Started a Movement | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 971
Chris Wittman is the co-founder of Captains for Clean Water, a nonprofit organization fighting for clean water and Everglades restoration in Florida. Before dedicating his life to this mission, Chris was a full-time fishing guide in Southwest Florida, living his dream job on a 17-foot skiff. In this conversation, Chris reveals how he and Captain Daniel Andrews walked away from their careers as fishing guides to spearhead what became the largest ecosystem restoration project in the history of the world. You'll hear about the moment they realized adaptation wasn't enough anymore, the first time a policymaker told them their voices didn't matter, and why a shallow water reservoir became a deepwater reservoir instead. This is the story of how two fishing guides created a movement that changed Florida's political landscape.
Jonathan Neyman: Year-Round Trout on the South Holston and Watauga in East Tennessee
Jonathan Neyman, owner of The Fly Box in far East Tennessee, joins Tom Rowland to talk trout on the South Holston and Watauga Rivers. Jonathan explains why these tailwaters are so cold and fishable year-round, how the dam that draws water from 250 feet deep keeps the river in the 50s, and how a kid who grew up chasing salmon and steelhead on Northern California's Eel River ended up building a fly shop and community hub in Bristol, Tennessee.
Golden Boat Lifts | Hurricane-Resistant Systems for Saltwater & Marine | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 980
Bill Golden from Golden Boat Lifts joins Tom Rowland to discuss how his Ocala, Florida-based company manufactures hurricane-resistant boat lifts specifically engineered for saltwater and marina environments.
Chris Fischer - How OCEARCH Tracks Great White Sharks
Chris Fischer, founder of OCEARCH, joins me to explain how his team catches, tags, and releases great white sharks, the nursery discoveries that rewrote the science, and how OCEARCH's tracking data is changing ocean conservation policy.
Rosie K. Moore: Sharks, Pythons, and Wild Florida Fieldwork
Rosie K. Moore is a scientist, author, and social-media personality who studies some of the world's most dangerous animals, including sharks, venomous snakes, invasive pythons, and American crocodiles. She joins me to talk about her Everglades fieldwork, why she chose crocodilians over sharks, and how she uses social media to change how people see misunderstood predators.
Mark Smith: The Exposure Pyramid and the Ethics of Not Interfering
Mark Smith is a renowned wildlife photographer who went professional in 2017 after years as a ghost writer and musician. Before picking up a camera full-time, Smith wrote bestselling books on treasure hunting that funded his transition into photography—a journey that took him from Florida to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado in an RV with his family. In this conversation, Mark reveals the exact moment high in the Colorado mountains when the technical aspects of photography suddenly clicked for him, shares why he believes the popular "exposure triangle" teaching method is fundamentally flawed, and explains his controversial approach to documenting nature without interference—even when a ghost crab runs off with a baby sea turtle. He also opens up about photographing Dalmatian pelicans in Greece, community cats in Thailand, and why bald eagles feeding in Canadian ocean rapids remain the most challenging subject he's ever shot.
Chris Fischer | How OCEARCH Changed White Shark Research Forever | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 968
Chris Fischer is the founder of OCEARCH, a nonprofit organization that conducts groundbreaking research on great white sharks and other apex predators through an innovative open-source research platform.
Dr Tracy Fanara | Red Tide, Saharan Dust & Florida Water Quality Science | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 962
Florida red tide is caused by Karenia brevis, a native unicellular phytoplankton that releases toxins harmful to aquatic life and humans.
Captain Dave Hansen | Saltwater Fishing From West Coast Halibut to Cabo Marlin | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 960
Cabo San Lucas sits at the tip of the Baja Peninsula where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Cortez, creating a convergence of two bodies of water that brings exceptional nutrient flow and fish diversity.
Michael Fowlkes | Founding Fathers & Secret Kite Shaped Sport Fishing | Ep. 958
Michael Fowlkes reveals how America's Founding Fathers used a fishing club to write the Constitution, plus the history behind kite fishing and modern sport fishing innovations.
Lawrence Guy: Super Bowl Champion on Fishing, Mindset, and Lessons From the Patriots
Lawrence Guy, NFL defensive lineman and Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots, joins me to talk fishing and mindset: teaching his kids patience and process on the water, how the focus required at the highest level of football translates to fishing, and the lessons he carries from playing with Tom Brady and under Bill Belichick.
Erica Lynn: Fishing Social Media Star and Getting Women on the Water
Erica Lynn, a fishing content creator and social media star, joins me to talk about teaching herself kayak fishing, turning content into a career, earning her captain's license, and her mission to get more women anglers on the water, plus the realities of sponsorships, guiding, and managing social media as a creator.
David Orin | Bitten by Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 952
David Orin (@adventorin), the 25-year-old snake specialist with 1.5 million Instagram followers, tells the full story of the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake bite that put him in the ICU for 13 nights. Bitten on the leg by a four-foot diamondback he never saw while searching for scarlet kingsnakes on the Florida coast, Orin went into anaphylactic shock, was life-flighted to Shands Hospital, fought his medical team for adequate antivenom, and tied the hospital's record for CroFab ever administered. One month later, he walks Tom through the strike, the recovery, the drop foot he may live with permanently, and why he is already back in the field wearing snake gaiters.
Gabriela Hoffman: Fishing Policy, Access, and Anglers Unite
Public-policy advocate Gabriela Hoffman joins me for an Anglers Unite conversation on protecting recreational fishing access: how the Modern Fish Act and Magnuson-Stevens Act work, why commercial and recreational fishing should be regulated differently, how administrations shift the landscape, and why anglers need more representation on fisheries-management councils.
Dr. Peter Martone: Sleep Position, Spinal Alignment, and Better Sleep
Dr. Peter Martone, chiropractor and founder of the Way Better Sleep Academy, joins me to explain how the position you sleep in affects your spinal alignment and overall health, why side sleeping can drive shoulder and back pain, how the psoas and neck alignment factor in, and how to use your time in bed to retrain your body and sleep better.
The Qualified Captain & Gotcha Sport Fishing: Live From Hawk's Cay
Recorded live from Hawk's Cay Resort with The Qualified Captain and Gotcha Sport Fishing, this episode covers boating education and on-water safety: why new boat owners should hire a local captain, what to keep in a fishing log book, why you should practice docking on a quiet day, and the search-and-rescue stories behind one of boating's most popular platforms.
Doug Mientkiewicz: Olympic Gold, a World Series Ring, and Fishing Mindset
Doug Mientkiewicz, the only American to hold an Olympic gold medal, a World Series ring, and a Gold Glove, joins me to talk fishing and mindset: how the mental tools that carried him through elite baseball apply to sailfishing in the Florida Keys, why kids should play multiple sports, and the develop-first philosophy he brings to coaching.
Jake Holehouse: Florida Home and Boat Insurance After the Storms
Jake Holehouse of HH Insurance joins me to break down Florida home and boat insurance after the back-to-back Helene and Milton hurricane season: how building codes perform, how flood coverage and the NFIP $250,000 cap work, and the Bahamas and nighttime-navigation gaps that leave so many boat owners underinsured.
Dustin Diefenderfer: Mountain Tough and the State of American Fitness
Dustin Diefenderfer, founder and CEO of Mountain Tough, joins me to talk backcountry fitness for the mountain athlete, why roughly seventy percent of young Americans are ineligible for military service, why clean eating may not be enough, the bar-stool model of physical readiness, and what he would change about American health.