Ep.08: Robert ‘Fly’ Navarro and The Blue Marlin World Cup

Summary:

In this conversation, Fly Navarro shares his passion for fishing and media. He discusses his background growing up in Palm Beach County and his experiences fishing in the Caribbean and Hawaii. Fly also talks about his transition to freelancing and creating content, as well as his involvement with the Blue Marlin World Cup. This part of the conversation focuses on the Blue Marlin World Cup and the logistics of the tournament. It also discusses the cost of entry, the minimum weight requirement, and the use of certified scales for weighing the fish. The conversation then delves into the emotional moments and the perspective of fishing. The story of the Apex boat is shared, highlighting the power of stories in the fishing community. The importance of people and the connections made through fishing are emphasized. In this conversation, Fly Navarro shares his passion for fishing and the joy he finds in sharing the sport with others. He emphasizes the importance of enjoying the moment and releasing the death grip on the fishing rod. Fly Navarro also discusses the satisfaction he derives from bringing new anglers into the sport and helping them achieve their fishing goals. He encourages young listeners to pursue their passions and not be afraid to take risks. Overall, Fly Navarro's love for fishing and his desire to promote the sport shine through in this conversation.

 

Takeaways

 

• Fly Navarro is a passionate angler and media creator, constantly seeking new fishing experiences and opportunities.
• He emphasizes the importance of staying connected through Wi-Fi and using social media to share his fishing adventures and promote the sport.
• Fly's background includes fishing in the Caribbean and running a boat in Hawaii, where he gained valuable experience and knowledge.
• He is dedicated to introducing fishing to new people and opening doors for others to enjoy the sport. Enjoy the moment and release the death grip on the fishing rod.
• Share the joy of fishing with others and help them achieve their fishing goals.
• Encourage more women and families to participate in fishing.
• Don't be afraid to pursue your passions and take risks.

Transcript:

Katie (00:00.206)
Next week is the fourth of July, not only a very important holiday in the United States, but also the day of the Blue Marlin World Cup, the only international blue marlin tournament of its kind where for one day only the biggest fish weighed in any of the oceans around the world takes the win. Today, I'm sitting down with Robert Fly Navarro, the tournament director of the Blue Marlin World Cup. As we discuss the ins and outs of this tournament, what makes it so unique?

his career and the various endeavors and experiences that make Fly who he is.

Katie (00:42.99)
Hey, what's up you guys? Welcome to the Katie C Sawyer podcast. I'm your host Katie. And today I'm sitting with the man behind much of the sport fishing media and what we know, Robert Fly Navarro. Fly, thank you so much for being here today. 100 % my pleasure. And thank you so much for your patience while we had all our technical difficulties. And you know, it is what it is. We're here, the content's being produced and that's all that really.

matters because I really like now touch on this because you have some a slogan that you live by and that's why we're both here today. What is it? I got a lot of slogans. Which one? There's a lot of slogans I live by. I only get one. I only get one ticket for this ride, so I make sure I'm having the best fucking time of my life. There you go. Well, my personal favorite, if we're going to go that far, is the one where

If you can expose one person efficient every single day, then then you're living your life. Right. that. Listen, that's that is my that's my business slogan. I wake up every day and my goal is to introduce fishing to one new person every single day. So that, yes, that is my goal. I absolutely love that. And I find it extremely admirable. But before we get into a lot of different things that I'm excited to be talking to you about coming into this big tournament season.

Tell us a little bit about your background. First, where are you tuning in from today? Where did you grow up? You have two parents that are Cuban and I want to hear about Childhood Fly. Okay, so there's certain things about Childhood Fly that I'll share and there's certain things I won't. But yes, I'm the... And this is something I repeat over and over and over. I am the son of two immigrants from a communist country.

And it's one of the reasons why I am such a big fan of America. I do a lot of work with our military. I'm on the board of directors for a nonprofit that gets active and retired veterans out fishing and hunting. So I am a huge pro -America guy. And anybody that's spent time with me understands that.

Katie (03:04.398)
But it mainly it comes from my parents and my grandparents because of the fact that I heard how bad communism and socialism is. And unfortunately, I also got a chance to see what socialism does because I was in Venezuela when Hugo Chavez got voted in and I saw a wonderful country literally get destroyed in less than 20 years. So yeah, I'm a big America first kind of guy, a big

freedom of speech kind of guy. A lot of people have died for our freedom. So I do a lot of stuff to make sure they know how much I appreciate what they've done and they being both men and women, cause we got a lot of ladies out on the front line making sure we can sleep at night. So where did you grow up? I grew up right here where I'm at right now. I grew up in Palm beach County. I still live in Palm beach County.

I've fallen, it's a weird thing. If you look at statistics, they say something like 60 % of Americans still live within 10 miles of where they grew up. And that's me. My high school is less than 10 miles away. My first job is less than 10 miles away from where I live. But I spend like 250 days on the road. I travel all over the world. I average about 200 ,000 miles a year.

Freaking flyer mom. Yeah. No. Yeah. You've got all the perks. Yeah. I definitely do. It's pretty bad when I go into the airport and they all know me. My girlfriend thinks it's the funniest thing. I've traveled with some of her friends. We all go and Mr. Navarro, how are you? What's going on? She's like, really? I'm like, yeah. And now it's gotten to the point. I was just flying back from Doha in Qatar. That's a cool airport.

I've never seen anything like it. There's playgrounds everywhere, little like museums. So great. Any of those airports in the Middle East are phenomenal. But I got on my plane as I'm sitting on my seat. The flight attendant walk up to me. She goes, you were on my flight a few weeks ago, weren't you? I'm like, yeah, I know exactly who you are. So that's how much I'm on the planes. I know the flight attendants. That's why I try to be so nice to them.

Katie (05:30.318)
because if you're not, they'll remember you on the ride back. Actually, I just try to be nice to everybody. I want people to treat me nice, so I treat them nice. Yeah, I mean, 100%. And that's part of being a part of this community is scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Everyone's out there. We're all fishing.

We're all looking for a good time and especially in the sport fishing space in the recreational angler space, you know, like everyone's got a boat owner. Everyone's working hard to make sure that they do a good job and sharing information out there is so pivotal. How do you feel about that? Did you grow up? Wait, hold up. You're distracting me. Did you grow up fishing the Caribbean? So I didn't start fishing the Caribbean until I took this profession, this road down a profession.

I was in college, I was 18 years old, I was making a whopping $4 an hour and a friend of mine, his dad was a boat captain and he's like, what are you doing this summer? And I said, well, I gotta work, I gotta make some money to pay for college and when I'm not working, I'm gonna go fishing. That's what I did every summer. And he's like, well, I want you to go with me to Mexico. And I'm like, okay. I go, but I don't know anything about working on big boats. He goes, I'll teach you.

But I need somebody that's bilingual. And English is my second language. So once I went down to Mexico and people figured out that I spoke two languages, I was gone. Yeah. I was, I mean, literally, I was gone. They grabbed me and I ended up going through the canal for the first time, going fishing Panama and Penas Bay, went up to Costa Rica. my gosh, chills. That's exactly what happened. Yeah. So and then shortly thereafter, I moved to Venezuela and

I started fishing out of there for four, I lived in Venezuela for four years. And yeah, it was great. I mean, I absolutely loved it and spent 20 years of my career fishing out of central South America, St. Thomas. I know you told me to stop before, because we were starting to talk about St. Thomas. No, now's the time. Bye. And then I got an opportunity to run a boat out in Hawaii. So I flew out to Hawaii and I ran a boat for two years.

Katie (07:45.134)
And after that, I came home and I went into business for myself. Question. I have a handful of questions. The first one is, did you ever finish your university degree? I got a two year degree to be a teacher. I wanted to be, what I really wanted to be was a high school guidance counselor. I have this thing and most people know I don't have children, but I have a thing that I want to open doors for as many people as possible, especially our youth. And

I know a few years ago I started a program and we're looking to relaunch it called Kids in the Fly Zone where we give kids the opportunity to learn how to fish, learn how to go hunting, meet other people that like to do it because sometimes your parents don't enjoy it. Maybe your parents don't like to fish and hunt. Or just aren't exposed in that scene. There's plenty of people that didn't grow up in it. Yeah, they just didn't grow up in it and you were interested in it. I was very lucky. On my father's side, everybody was really big into fishing.

I had one cousin that was into hunting and there's so many opportunities nowadays that, you know, especially with social media, there's a lot of young kids that can meet other young kids that like to do it. So you can grow your social circle very quickly now with social media. So I just like to open doors for people. Yeah. And I know you and I had a conversation about that earlier this morning about opening doors for other people.

I'm a very big believer in the Bible says when you get up to a certain level, it's our duty to reach back and help the next person up. And that's something I 100 % wholeheartedly believe in. Yeah, those are beautiful words to live by. A good reminder every single day. I love that. And I think it's super cool that you had this passion as a young man to help guide younger generations. And you're doing that now, but on a global scale. Like, that's incredible.

So 100 % global. So you did finish your degree and then you went and worked in the sport fishing space. How many years from starting? I guess. Did you go to the Yucatan? Was that where you went on your first Mexico trip? Yeah, I went to I went to Cancun and for the people that are old enough to remember, I went to Hacienda Del Mar. Yeah, not me. I'm not old enough to remember, but I do. I have heard of it. I was thinking about my friend Bobby. It was back in the day when

Katie (10:09.87)
Whenever you tried to get ahold of a deckhand, you would call Jim at Hacienda Del Mar and say, hey, I'm looking for fly. And then when you come in from fishing, he'd walk down to the boat. Hey, Katie was trying to get ahold of me. That's so cool. Man, those dates. Here's the phone number. Totally different. Yeah. And then, so how much time from then to when you were running a boat in Hawaii? my gosh. That was a solid.

I would say easy 20 if not 23 years. That's easy 20. That's so cool. It's so cool that you fished that Venezuela scene full time for four years. That's just awesome. You know, it's funny because I just got invited to go back down there. Literally a couple of weeks ago, somebody called me up and says, hey, there's a tournament coming up. We really like you to come down. And again, because of the fact that I speak both languages, I made a lot of good friends down there.

I'm trying to decide if I want to go or not. It's still there's a lot of political unrest and I don't even know if I can get a visa. So I really would like to go back down and see what it looks like and take a bunch of pictures and share with everybody, you know, what what's going on down there. Yeah, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of stories to share still. So, yeah, I'd like to do it. We just got to figure out the time and the safety factor. Yeah, for sure. Of course.

Yeah, but I learned a lot that there's something to be said and there's a lot of great young mates nowadays in Venezuela I'm sorry in Costa Rica and Panama and Guatemala There's nothing that can replace repetitive numbers You know, we were getting 40 40 to 50 bites a day on billfish You you can't replace that no, there's no better way to learn

the experience you get because every fish is different, every situation is different and then the dynamic you build with your team when you have that much consistency, you just can't, like you said, you can't replace it. Yeah, you can't replace it. And even though every fish is different, every fish is the same. There are certain things about it that a lot of things are the same. Everything's different. But

Katie (12:28.398)
There are a lot of times when you only get one bite a day, everybody's like, my God, don't mess up. Don't mess up. Don't mess up. But when you're getting 50 bites a day, who gives a shit? I'm going to mess up. I'm going to try something. Like I remember my last couple of years living in Venezuela in 99 and 2000, we started playing with circle hooks and my captain at the time, great guy, Captain Billy Boar. He loved the fact. Well, he loved and he let me work with innovating stuff.

We were trying to learn the whole new circle hook thing because Ronnie Hamlin was doing it in Guatemala and he was very successful at it. And we were just trying to find out new ways to make it faster and better and easier. And I was on one flat line with the circle hook. So it was cool. We had a lot of fun with it. That's awesome. We had a lot of fun with it. Yeah. But I mean, like getting to see, because I find fish behavior varies.

And it varies from day to day, but it also varies from fish to fish. And there's things you can see when you see a fish show up on the teaser and it's behaving a certain way. Like you can start differentiating between the mood of that fish when you see it enough times and how you want to pitch that bait out, how you want to present that bait to the fish. Well, it's funny you say because yes, there's a little bit of a, okay, I like the word mood, but the mood is

is always dependent on other surrounding factors. So fish are very reactive. So I remember when I went out to Hawaii, I went out there specifically, my boss wanted to do pitch bait. And everybody out there at that time was just dragging lures. And they're like, you know, well, the fish out here are different. And I'm like, OK, let's go out here and let's see what different really is. And it wasn't that the fish were different. It was people were fishing for them different.

So they would react the way you want them to react. And one thing we're gonna go back to St. Thomas, when you're starting to get so many bites, you're getting two, 300 bites in a season. Yeah, fish, they're, I'm gonna use air quotes for anybody that's not watching this video, they're mood. I like that, it's mood.

Katie (14:44.526)
I'm gonna tell my girlfriend about that because she's gonna love you for that because she's like, no, everybody every fit Every animal has their own personality. I'm like no a fish is a fish. But you're you have a no. No you have a What you're saying how it carries a lot of weight So we started noticing like especially early on in the moon when there wasn't a lot of fish on the drop You get a lot of long rigor bites a lot of center rigor bites And then as the fish as it started getting more and more crowded

and there was more competition, we start getting more and more aggressive bridge teaser bites. So the fish would get more aggressive. And as they start getting more aggressive, you're able to do more things with them. Exactly. And on that note, if it is like there's less aggressiveness, if you're seeing them more on the longs, but you do have a fish that shows up on the teaser, you need to, if I'm on that offside long, I'm gonna be like, hmm.

I'm be extra ready and maybe if we don't see it for a second, I'm going to give it a little prospect. Sure enough, almost every time. You know, it's funny you say that. So when we when I was on the real tight, we were very competitive. We had three deckhands at the time and we were very competitive. So our number one thing is if he wasn't on the bridge teaser, we want to get to the to the cockpit teaser first. And if I didn't get to the cockpit teaser.

in time or if I didn't, if it was a bridge teaser bite, I literally would run to the opposite side and I'd wait. And if that fish disappeared, all I would do is I'd start pulling on that cockpit teaser. And sure enough, he would always show up on that cockpit teaser because it was just doing something different. So I get a chance to double dip on it and get the opportunity to get him to come back up on me.

The way I equated a lot to baseball for anybody that's played baseball is knowing where your cutoff man is and situating yourself for, okay, if this fish disappears, where is he most likely to show up? So this goes back to what I was saying. All fish, even though they're different, all fish are the same because if you don't get them on that initial bite, you know where they're going to show up. And that outside, like you said, that outside long rigger, the reason why they're going to show up there is with the boat in the turn, that's going to be your

Katie (17:01.838)
your fastest bait and they're they're initially gonna they're always gonna show up on that.

Sure enough. And I want every opportunity to get the bite. It's amazing how many people don't expect the offside bite. I'm like, I'm over here like, I'm just going to smooth this one out. I love it. As soon as I got my cockpit teaser in, I'd run to the opposite side. Just number one, my job is done. Now it's the angler's job. Yeah. So now I'm going to position myself. You don't know how many times I've been able to double tease a fish. It's awesome. Yeah, it's so much fun. And then if it's my turn on the wire.

That's triple dipping. I get to tease him in twice and I get to wire the fish. Yeah, it's triple dipping. That's awesome. That is so good. So how long were you running a boat in Hawaii for? For two years. Awesome. What did you do from there? I ran a boat in Hawaii for two. What did I do from there? That's a great question. So once the job went away, I was 41 years old and lucky for me, I'm not married. I don't have children. I don't have a very big overhead.

So I'm like, man, I could get a job on a boat, not a problem. But is that really what I want to do? I'm 41 years old. What am I going to do? And so I said, you know what? I'm going to freelance until I figure out what I want. And I needed to freelance three days a month to pay my bills. So I had a lot of leeway. So I started freelancing. And at that time,

We were just in the infancy, like within the first five years of Facebook and within the first two years of Instagram. So I'm like, I'm just going to document what I'm doing on social media. So I started posting pictures and posting pictures and posting pictures. And then people start calling me up. They're like, what the hell are you doing? I'm like, I'm freelancing. I need somebody next week for 10 days. Okay. What are you doing? I'm freelance. I need somebody for a month over here. So before you know it, I booked myself out to like 300 days a year.

Katie (19:03.886)
and I was making great money, but in my early 40s, I'm like, man, can I keep up with 300 days a year? That's a lot. That's a lot of days. I also knew that I couldn't capture enough pictures or I couldn't capture enough content, so I needed to figure out a way to get more content. How can I get more content? To clarify, you couldn't capture enough content while...

working on a boat. Fishing. Exactly. Well, well I could. I could. So I have a, it's around here somewhere. I have a Pelican case. I have two DSLR cameras and I have eight GoPros. So I was able to capture a lot of con. I had, I got invited once to go fishing in London, Ontario and to go trout fishing and salmon fishing.

The guy's like, hey, bring your team with you. And I showed up with my box and he's like, where's your team? I go, this is my team. You mean everything I see, everything I see is this just you doing? And I go, yeah. but I needed more and I needed some more variety. And especially at that point, videos were just starting to spin up. And because of my passion for educating people in the sport, I started creating how to videos. My first ones were with,

Tyler Beckford, we started rigging baits. And I started pushing those through social media. And I'm like, I still need more. I hate to say it, content is like a drug. You need more constantly. So I'm like, how do I get other people? So I started offering people, hey, listen, I'll help promote your charter boat, whatever, send me pictures. But listen, after a while, people, they're busy, they're doing their thing. They can't give me any pictures.

How do I get people to get me more content? I'm like, ooh, we'll put on a tournament. That way I can hire camera people to take pictures for me, and then I can get people to take videos of the fish that they catch. So I started putting on tournaments to get more content. That is interesting. So what was your first tournament? My first tournament was the golf cup.

Katie (21:26.446)
in the Gulf of Mexico. That's my very first one. What year was that? Was it 1984? I think it was 2013. The best part about it is I have the original poster in my hallway here because I literally drove from every way station from Key West all the way to Port Aransas. Hey, hometown. That's where I am right now. PA is where you're from? That's where the original World Golf Cup winner came out of.

It was the mojo with Captain Brad Phillips and I got, I don't know, I have probably about 500 signatures on that thing and I have it in my hallway. That's so cool. It was one of the greatest times. I just drove around introducing myself to people and telling them about this tournament on the same day, 4th of July. And I, in my heart, felt that the Gulf of Mexico can compete on the world stage if there was enough people fishing.

in the Gulf of Mexico. But before I took over the World Cup, they would get maybe one, two was a great year in the Gulf of Mexico. And when you have Hawaii with 50 and Bermuda with 50, it's hard to compete with only two hooks in the water. Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. I don't want to get ahead of us because this is really good information, but I want to make sure that the listener really understands if they're not familiar with the cups, what we're talking about. So.

Let's go to the World Cup on the 4th of July of every year. Now the World Cup's been going on since the 80s, right? 1985. Yeah. Okay. So give us a little rundown about the World Cup. Okay. So the Blue Monom World Cup is, Jim Hardy was the original, tournament director and he started it. Still belongs to his family. Jim Hardy and Tech Schramm, who was the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, they were fishing off of Woods Wall down off of Key West.

And between the two of them, they said, you know, what would be really cool if we had a Super Bowl of blue marlin fishing, a world championship where everybody in the world competes against each other. They're like, OK, when do we do it? Well, what other better day than the birthday of the good old US of A. So they started the blue marlin. Jim Hardy started the Blue Marlin World Cup.

Katie (23:52.654)
Back in 1985 and he was the tournament director and back then it was it wasn't even fax machines It was phone numbers and old -fashioned snail mail. I heard stories from his Grandchildren because I get to see him every year and his great -grandchildren But from his grandchildren, they tell me stories of sometimes it would take his their grandfather a week to figure out who caught the biggest fish because people had to Call in they had to send in the photo

And you know, it was a big to do. We didn't have what we have today. I can't imagine, like already like wading that like we were in 2021 when that Cape Verde fish was weighed. And then there's still like so much time before Hawaii's done fishing. You know, like even that amount of time is is kind of super high anxiety. And I wasn't even the boat that weighed the fish, you know, so.

But that's the greatest that's the greatest part about it. It's so really And that's one of the things I love so much and Jim Hardy's daughter that I get to talk to you all the time One of the thing I I tell her every year I said number one. Thank you so much for trusting me with your family heirloom Because she does she you know her and her family trust me with representing her family representing her father and getting the opportunity to

talk about what he's done to put all these people together. And the other thing that I love so much about it is for about two and a half to three months every year, I get to talk to every blue marlin fisherman in the world. Literally every single one. Almost every single one. I have made some of the most awesome friends that I would have never a couple of weeks ago.

I went out fishing right here out of Palm Beach with our winner from 2000, from two years ago, Sergi. He caught that 950 or 960 something. He came into Palm Beach to go fishing and speaks no English. She's Russian, but I got to hang out with him for the day, past Blue Marlin World Cup winner. And we got to hang out and I asked him, please, good luck, fish again. I hope you do it again.

Katie (26:15.47)
He was pretty neat because there was a couple. So let's rewind a little bit talking about the World Cup. So when I took it over, one of the things I was very, very fortunate, I'm only the third tournament director in the history of the tournament. That's pretty incredible when it's been going on for what is it like 40, 45, 49 years? 40. Yeah, we're going on 30. This is 30 year 39 or year 40s. My math is only there's only been three tournament directors. I'm the third one.

But I had, even though for my age, I was still dealing with all this social media. So I was able to plug it in to my social media business and connect with everybody. And that first year, it was the Blue Makaira that won the tournament with a 987 out of Madeira. And I got the phone call.

They put it in the boat. I knew the mate on it. Antigua Sean, me and Antigua Sean grew up together on the docks of St. Thomas. How cool. He was tied up right behind me on the Marlin Prince. And we were sitting there and Black Bart, big shout out to Jack Tullius at Black Bart's. He's been our sponsor for a long time, well before I was the tournament director. And Mike, Mike Leach, who was a previous tournament director and he was the president of the IGFA, we were all sitting there and he's like, man,

I really wish we knew what lure they caught it on because if it was a black bar, we can give them a shout out. So very quietly, I grabbed my phone and I text Sean on Facebook Messenger. I'm like, hey, what'd you catch it on? And within three minutes, I had a picture of the polokai that he got on. I said, this is what they caught it on. And they're like, how'd you do that? And I'm like, well, I just send them a text. I caught my fingers in a lot of pots. Yeah. And I think it was year number.

Two, where the family's like, man, I've never heard the phone so quiet because they have all these phones set up for people to call in. I'm like, what do you mean quiet? I go, the bite's off and it's going off in Madeira. There's a lot of great fish in Cape Verde. And right now there's been about 35 releases in Bermuda. And it's like, well, we haven't heard the phone ring. How do you know? I go, because it's all coming in on my phone right here. Everybody's texting and WhatsApping. So when Sergi won the tournament,

Katie (28:40.27)
I just tell anybody, let me know you're hooked up. I don't require them to call me because I know what it's like when you're trying to deal with a boat, weather, trying to set, shoot me a text, shoot me a WhatsApp, shoot me whatever. Well, Captain Olaf, Greml, he sent me a message, he sent me a DM on Instagram, hey, the My Victoria is hooked up. And they had 16 minutes before lines out. And I go, got you covered.

And but he sent it to me on Instagram. And during, I keep two phones on. I travel with two phones normally. But for the World Cup, I have my laptop and two cell phones. Yeah, that's got to be. I mean, and that's a long day. So how many, like tell the listener, how many countries are fishing? How is the structure of the tournament? Like break down the logistics of it. So you fish from 830 to 430 in your time zone.

And every year is different. Last year we had 152 boats in nine countries. The year before we had 158 in 12 countries. The majority of it starts when Madeira starts. The majority. But a lot of years we get boats, if the weather's right, we get boats out of Australia. We get a lot of boats out of Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea.

The gentleman that fishes out of Papua New Guinea, I think I heard a message that he passed away, older gentleman, but he used to fish it every year. We actually have a map. It's sitting here in my office, not this office, my other office. Every year we break it out and we put all the little Xs of where people fish. That's awesome. For me, it gets most crazy.

I'm not going to throw him under the bus, but there is one guy that loves to call me up at 3 o 'clock in the morning. Any fish on the deck? And I'm like, man, I could have used two more hours of sleep. It's going to be a really long day. Well, it's one of those things that once I try to get up, I know on every average day is I get up around 5 anyway. So getting up at 430, it's not a big deal. And once I get up now, if I have somebody that has a fish on the boat, I'm already putting

Katie (30:59.726)
In the last three or four years, I started putting group chats together for everybody in every zone so if they if they need to you can just hey, I'm hooked up put it in the group chat and People can verify you know, so Madeira I got 12 people I put them all together Kate Verde, I do the same thing Hawaii Bermuda. It's these guys. It's they're chatty all day long. We all just chat all day. Yeah telling stupid stories

But it's a great way to communicate. I know last year I had somebody and again, I don't want to throw anybody on the bus somebody Talks and smack about me online as far as a fish getting come coming to the scales because I'm official I don't like announcing anything to the general public until it's official till it gets to the waist scale and

But as far as the fishermen are concerned, I want them to know. They need to know. They've got a vested interest. Hey, somebody's got a fish that's 128 by 72 come to the scale. You need to know you're participating. The general public, I kind of wait until I get some verification, some more verification, get some pictures, get somebody at a waist scale that lets me know. If I give an official update because I give them live on Facebook every three hours, I'll let somebody know that a fish is coming to the scale.

But until I get verification, my word is my word. So I got to be careful what I say. Yeah, of course you do. That's a lot on your shoulders. And there's a lot of money. Yeah. And I know some guys get upset about it, and that's fine. If you want to be upset, be upset. You'll find out. I'll let everybody know. And once something's official, then I put it out. Yeah. Once it's official, it goes out. You've touched on a couple interesting things. So you've said the word releases.

You've said to the scales you've given some measurements and you said they've got a lot invested. So how much does it cost to sign up for the World Cup? World Cup base entry is five thousand. If you want to get into the extra optional category, which is the big blue challenge is another eight. So in across the board is 13 grand and there's only one winner.

Katie (33:20.75)
The tournament there's only one winner, but if you're in the extra jackpot we don't play out second place, but There's been a couple of years where the biggest fish that wins the World Cup was not in the optional jackpot So that'll go to another fish, you know Whoever wasn't but again, that's first place in that jackpot, right? So we and we do and we do that to keep killing a fish to a minimum Exactly. So what's your one of the big?

That's one of the biggest reasons why I don't announce fish until it's official because listen, if I put out a number to the general public and people think there's a 500 pounder coming in or let's say they think there's a 700 pounder coming in and they release a fish that was 600 and suddenly they weigh that fish and that fish was 580, you know, it clouded their judgment and I don't want that. But once it's official,

Once something is weighed and it's official, it's 800 pounds, then this is a new benchmark. They're in both categories. Don't kill something that's 500. Yeah. So what's the like, what's your minimum and is it in weight? Is it in length? How do you measure that? That's that's actually a great question. The Blue Monom World Cup is a 500 pound minimum. There is no length measurement. It's just 500 pounds. So.

You can have a long skinny fish or you can have a short fat one kind of like me and that makes that's a qualifier as long as it's a qualifier 500 pounds is qualifying man It still counts exactly so What about like you can't just weigh these fish on any scale? Obviously Drake and I actually when we went over to the eastern Atlantic We took a certified scale with us and that is a hard thing to travel with literally every security will flag it

As this looks like exactly like a bomb. It's in like a yellow Pelican case. You're not allowed to say that word when you're on a plane. You can't say that word. I can't. I won't even say it. Here's the craziest part. When you travel to Central American countries, do you know what the name of a pump is in Spanish? Bomba. Bomba. Bomba. Bomba. The same word as a bomb. Exactly. So if you're traveling with a pump, I'm not telling you.

Katie (35:45.23)
I'm not saying it. What is that? Come on, seriously? Do you know how many pumps we've flown to Costa Rica? Yeah, better not say it in Spanish, man. Man, that's hysterical. All right. So what about this? Like the weight, this like taking the weight process? It has to be a certified scale and certified by any governmental agency. So it could be.

It could be IGFA, it could be the local government. What a lot of people don't understand is no matter what country you're in, scales have to be certified if you're selling fish, if you're selling meat, if you're selling vegetables, those are all governmental certified. So, even truck scales. So when you're bringing trucks across, when you're shipping stuff, that's a governmental scale and they have to get certified every year. So it's pretty accessible.

Yeah, it's not as hard as people think now. No, I didn't know that. yeah. That's awesome. That's great information. Why do you think I get to talk to all these marlin fishermen for two to three months every year? These are the kind of questions that they ask me. And anybody that's in remote locations, I require video verification. So when I say video verification, I want to see video of somebody fighting the fish, video of the fish being gaffed.

videos of the fish being brought on the boat. You have to prove that the fish was caught on the 4th of July. What I tell everybody, it is not my responsibility to prove you caught that fish. It is your responsibility. When you're fishing in a location like Madeira or Cape, well Cape Verde is a little bit different, but there's still a lot of people there. If you're fishing in Hawaii, you're fishing in Bermuda. There's a lot of people around.

watching you catch the fish. But I have people that fish in Cameroon, people that fish in Senegal. You're a single boat all by yourself. It's your job to prove that you caught that fish on that day. And what I tell everybody, if you're not the captain and if you're not the angler, you better have a camera in your hand. I don't care what it is. And I want to see videos of GPS's. I want to see videos of

Katie (38:12.846)
The TV set show me the TV set show me, you know proved to me that you caught it on the 4th of July You know, it's your responsibility. I know I get a lot of boats. I say a lot I usually get one or two a year that go out of like let's say New York or Massachusetts there's a lot of big fish up out of there, especially where the Labrador currents meet the Gulf Stream and You know I'm trying to think I don't know if

I gotta look back up Massachusetts, but I know from New York, the state of New York, all the way to North Carolina, the state record is a thousand pound in every single one of those states. And I think Massachusetts as well. So they've caught granders all the way up. So there's a lot of big fish up and down the East Coast people don't realize. And then most people, but most of the fishing scene up there is just like tuna, tuna, tuna. We just want tuna. Yeah. Well, because you've got a long way to go to go catch a marlin, man. You gotta go catch a, you gotta go a long way. And

You got to get the right conditions. You got to get the right water. You got to get the weather right. It's not like fishing out of Bermuda where you're running 20 miles. Yeah. Or Madeira where you're putting the lures out as you leave the marina. Yeah. So, you know, I get it. I totally get it. Listen, the Gulf of Mexico is the same thing. If you got bad weather, you know, some of these guys are going 250 miles one way. Yeah, for sure. It's a long way to go.

So tell us about the golf cup blue marlin shootout. That was your first tournament, right? That was my first one and you're allowed to fish. Here's the thing. So Bermuda was able to build the Bermuda blast off the World Cup. The Kona Cup and the firecracker were built off of tapping into the World Cup. So I did the same thing with the golf cup. I just, I started it mainly just to tap into.

The Blue Marlin World Cup, because I knew there was a lot of big fish in the Gulf of Mexico. So tell our listener what you mean by tap in. So the Blue Marlin World Cup last year's winner won $1 .25 million. That's crazy. So you have this giant jackpot that's already there. So last year's World Cup winner, he was fishing the firecracker as well, which is a tournament in Hawaii.

Katie (40:29.006)
So he took home 1 .25 from the World Cup, but he also took home 700 ,000 from the firecracker. So he took home $2 million for that fish. And for somebody... And I get a... Listen, I get a lot of tree huggers that yell at me saying I'm not conservation -minded. But I do a lot of stuff to conserve our resources. This is a resource. And if a fish is going to die, if we're going to harvest a fish and take its life, I want it to...

I want to be able to stretch that as much as possible. And I hate to see a fish die for nothing. And the fact that a fish was able to provide $2 million to a crew is amazing. Okay, now I got to tell you a story about that crew. Okay. Because again, this two and a half, three months that I get to talk to people, talk to Marlon Fisher.

The same way we're having a conversation here, I get to do it all year long. And so I talked to the captain of that boat, the Apex. I shouldn't have mentioned his name just to keep the honest people honest, but this is a great story. So I called him up. It was like, I don't know, July 6th, 6th or 7th. Just trying to get the paperwork started so they can get paid. And I'm like, so to...

Tell me about your fish. I want to know about the bite. I want to know about the fish. I want to know about the experience. I mean, I'm still a fisherman. Tell me the full story. So so he's like, well, it's a unique story because one of my crew members, his wife died in September and it was a big blow to him. So right before the World Cup, we shut the boat down. We shut the engines off and flat calm in Hawaii and.

They had her ashes and they sat at them. I don't want to get emotional because it's really a cool story. Yeah, I know. Are you having a hard time handling it? So, and I say it's emotional because we're fishermen. We're all in this together. We understand. And I'm going to give a shout out to my boy Dennis. I don't know if you know Dennis, we're all connected by water. We're all connected by water. And here's this group. They were sitting on the back of the boat. They sprinkled her ashes.

Katie (42:48.622)
They threw the flowers in, they're crying and they're hugging each other. They're just having a moment as a crew. And then they said, hey, listen, we got lines are in in two minutes. We got to get going. So they hugged it all out. They gave each other their kisses and OK, we got a job to do. Let's go fishing. So they fire the boat up and put the engines in gear and it's lines in. So they're sliding all the

the lures out and he tells me he goes fly he goes I made the first turn put the boat in a turn and there she was right on the inside just piles in on it and their eyes weren't even dry yet that's what he said their eyes weren't even dry yet so they start getting everything situated and he calls me up and I'll never forget because Bermuda had just weighed a 714 I mean just weighed a 714 I don't think it was

20 minutes into it and I said, hey man, just so you know, Bermuda should just wait at 714. He goes, yeah, I heard it. I'm like, okay, not a problem. So we go in. 714 is a big fish. It's a big fish, man. There's nothing small about a 714. Listen, it's a nice fish. It's a nice, nice fish. And everybody in Bermuda really thought they were going to win it back.

You know, they hadn't won it in a few years. So, he's like, yeah, I know, I know. So I got a phone call from somebody and I'm, I'm, I'm yapping on the phone and he calls me back up and I'm like, listen, I gotta let you go. The boat that's hooked up, you know, just call me in. So I answered, he's like, she's in the boat. And I'm like, Whoa, I'm like, okay, what are the measurements? So the original measurements for the fish in Bermuda,

I mean, I have it written down, but let me see if I can remember. It was 118 by 64, and the fish in Hawaii was 123 by 70. Goodness. And I'm like, holy shit, that's a lot bigger. Holy crap. And I'm like, man, good on you. I said, are you going to continue fishing, or are you going to go in and wear? He's like, no, we're going back in. We're going to wear first, and then we'll come back out fishing. I'm like, OK, good enough.

Katie (45:13.87)
So we had to wait and I let everybody know, you know, I let everybody know that was in the tournament that they were coming in. Yeah. And I let the boys in Bermuda know and I let the the boys in in Hawaii know and the boys in Hawaii already knew because they were on that group chat. And and this is the last fishery of essentially this is the last fishery. It's the last time zone. Yeah, it's the last time zone. So

By the time Bermuda is done, Bermuda, the morning for me is crazy because I have Cape Verde, I got Senegal, I got Azores, Canaries, Bermuda, Bahamas, all fishing at the same time. But once we get to Hawaii, everybody else is done. I'm just watching the 50 boats in Hawaii. And as is the rest of the world. As is the rest of the world. And listen, I've been on both ends of it. I have sat in the bar in Bermuda.

waiting to hear what Hawaii is doing and getting all liquored up and waiting to see if Bermuda wins or if Bermuda loses and I've also been in Bermuda. I've also been in Hawaii when I was running the boat now in Hawaii when Stephanie Choate won her fish she hooked that thing up with 30 minutes left in the day and when she boated the fish I remember vividly her fish was 131 inches and

she ended up winning that day. And so I've been on both ends of it. I know what it's like. I know what it feels like. I also know what it feels like at 11 o 'clock at night. You're waiting for somebody to call in, whether they're releasing or killing a fish. And I've been awake for 32 hours. And it's just me.

Jim Hardy's family and cafe bustelo But it's such an awesome feeling because Man, there's nothing and Pride is one of the most deadly sins and I know that but I'm so proud of being part of this community I love it. I really really do

Katie (47:30.35)
I love promoting everybody in my industry. I love promoting my industry. Listen, we have bad stuff that happens in the industry. Every industry does. I don't like talking about it. And it's not because I want to put my head in the sand. Everybody's going to know about it. I don't want to talk about it. Listen, if something bad happened to somebody, it happens. Shit happens. But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about the great thing about our industry.

I love to talk about when my friends win or even if it's somebody I don't know wins. I love talking about when Somebody has a problem and another fisherman comes out and helps them. I love to hear stories about that I love to tell people about how our industry that there's no strangers in it. Yeah, you show up on the dock somewhere and Man I fished on a boat in Japan. I was the only guy that spoke English and

We were out blue marlin fishing. I was fishing out of with some friends from Nagoya and I said, well, I might as well go sit up in the tower because I can't really talk to anybody. I can at least call out blue marlin when they show up in the spread. So I'm up in the tower. I'm all excited. Here comes this 200 pound blue marlin. I know how to say blue marlin in Japanese, kajiki. So I'm starting to yell kajiki, kajiki. But you know what? I realized at that point I did not know how to say left or right. Yeah. I didn't know which way to tell them to look.

So they're all looking at me up in the tower and I'm pouring, I'm like, man, I don't know if this is a good idea. If they're wasting three seconds to look at me. Yeah, it's defeating the purpose. But it's funny, I go to Japan. Last year I fished the J .I .B .T. over there. One of my really good friends, he owns Muta Marine. It's a clothing company there, the largest fishing and golfing clothing company over there. And he was so excited.

Excited to introduce me to you know, the board members and all these people as we're walking around the captain's meeting Everybody's coming up to me. Hey fly what's going on? Hey fly and he's like, how do you know so many people? I'm like, well because this blue monofish and it's a small industry We all share the same passion so It's not especially now with social media everybody knows everybody's faces it's not like You're one of the lucky few that gets printed in a magazine. No

Katie (49:56.878)
You can put whatever you want online. Everybody knows you. And he's like, wow, you're famous. I'm like, no, Jennifer Lopez is famous. I'm just well known, man. Nobody is knocking me down for my fucking autograph. They just, they want to come have a beer with me or in my case, cause I don't drink, have a green tea and hang out and tell a couple of fishing stories.

But yeah, it's a small, small world. So anywhere I go, anywhere any of us go, we all know each other. It's tiny. And most of the times, and we were talking about this off air because I showed you a picture of a boat, most of the time people don't even know I'm somewhere until I start posting pictures. Yeah, we were fishing next to each other in Max. Exactly. Nobody knew until I started posting. The only person that knew I was there

was Newt, Little Worm. Little Worm, I was live on Instagram, because I have a friend of mine that works at the UN, and he knew I was in Mag Bay. And he's like, hey man, when you hook a fish, can you go live on Instagram so I can see it? And I'll show it to everybody in the UN. I'm like, OK. So I go live on Instagram, and I'm shown as we're catching a double header striped marlin. And Little Worm, he texts me. First he tried to FaceTime me.

I shushed him and then once I was done, I, he's like, I'm like, man, I'm sorry I shushed you. He goes, no, I wanted to go live with you. I'm like, well, you should have jumped on Instagram, not on FaceTime. That's not how you do it. Not FaceTimeing. You know, he's like, I saw you go live. And he goes, I didn't even know you were up here. I'm like, yeah, I'm here. I'm here on the eight eights. So, but really I did that just to share. I mean, how neat is it? First of all, I had people from

Japan, I had people from Europe, Saudi Arabia, I had people from all over the world, but specifically I had this group watching from the UN, they're passing the phone around in the United Nations to watch us catch some striped marlin. And there's my chance to introduce fishing to somebody new. I don't know who it was. It was definitely somebody. There was definitely somebody. That's why, and again, we had this conversation earlier.

Katie (52:10.062)
You never know who you're influencing. You never know who's on the other end. So I try to make sure that their first experience in our world is the best experience possible. To me, that means a lot. To me, that means the world. I want them to say, man, I want to try that. I had a guy just the other day on Instagram. Him and his wife are going on their honeymoon in Cabo.

And he just asked me, hey, I really want to go fishing, but I want to know who to go with. And somebody's trusted. I'm like, here, call this guy. I fished with him on the Great Barrier Reef. He came fishing with me. And him and his father own a charter business over there. And he's like, man, thank you so much. I appreciate looking at all your content. And that's why I do it. That's the reason I do it, is for people like that. I could think about it.

I mean, you've worked on boats however long. You know how many people call me up and say they're bucket list fish as a Dorado?

You know how many people I get? I bet you I get between 50 and 100 people every year say their bucket list fish is a Dorado. How many times have you tried to reel away from a Dorado? God, I can't count. You kidding? Think about that. I just fished Baja 2023. I've reeled away from way too many Dorado. That's the worst Dorado.

That was the worst Dorados I've ever seen. You know what? Chip Schafer said that. If Chip Schafer's saying it's the worst Dorados he's seen in his life, like it was bad. That was some crazy fishing. But yeah, no, people want to catch a... They're fun to catch. They're beautiful fish. They're super cool fish and they're fun to catch. So, I mean, that can make a lot of people happy and make a lot of crews super successful, which is win -win.

Katie (54:01.294)
It could also make a lot of crews super annoyed. Yes. You know? But it really goes to show you perspective. As many times we're like, my god.

Katie (54:14.382)
And how many people in a year's time? Like I said, I get between 50 to 100 people a year. That's a lot. That's my bucket list fish. Yeah. That's a lot. It's a lot. And to us, it's like, after you catch the one for Mahi Tacos, you're done. I don't want to see another one. You're eating up my baits, man. You're eating into my fishing time. I get it, for sure.

Yeah. So it's, it's, it's again, it's just depending on how you look at it, you know, but there's so many people out there and that's what there's a guy. I haven't met him. I don't, he doesn't have a name, but there's a man in Iowa that every time I take a picture, I think of him. That's what I do. I think of this guy in Iowa that's never been to the ocean. It's never seen the ocean. It's never seen a Marlin, never seen a Dorado, never seen a Bonita.

And when I take a picture, I'm trying to think, how is he going to look at this picture? And that's how I think. Interesting. I like that. I'm going to apply that to my life a little bit. See what happens if I do. Philosophy by fly. Yeah. There we go. It's a book, folks. It's a book. We're actually here to promote that book. No. So I don't think you actually finished your story about the apex.

The apex is wasn't that the name of the boat. I thought you said so no. No, I did they caught no. No. Yeah, everybody cried and then they called the winning fish on that first turn Yeah, yeah, yeah on that first turn. It was it was it was amazing. That's the first thing I did the very first thing I did was I called Jim Hardy's daughter and Again, I'm trust. I'm trying to protect their name. Yeah, very private people. Yeah, of course, but The first thing I did was I called her up

And I'm like, I need to tell you this story. You need to know what your dad did. Even though it's been a lot of years since your dad passed away, this is because of your father. He provided these people the opportunity to celebrate somebody's life and then go out and... Continue to celebrate that life. Continue to celebrate it because of what they were able to accomplish on this day. So it's neat. And our industry, our fishing...

Katie (56:41.614)
is filled with stories like this. Filled with stories like this. It's not always in a tournament. Sometimes it's your first day of fishing after your dad passed away or your mom passed away or you know it was my grandfather that took me fishing these times and you remember these things and you're able to share it with other people and that's what people don't understand. I know I got quoted when I wrote my book in 2020.

my biggest quote I put in there because I use it, I live by it every day because people are like, fishing is so boring. I go, listen, what you're confusing is catching and fishing. Catching is reeling in the fish. Fishing is what you do with your friends and family in between bites. Like this right here, what we're doing is for me falls under fishing because we're still fishing. We're talking about the sport. It's bringing two people together to share a couple of stories with

Maybe a thousand people, 10 ,000 people, a million people. We don't know. But this is fishing. We're telling the stories and this is all I do. I had a meeting the other day with some people and we were talking, we're doing some business together and he's like, Fly, I've never been fishing. Do you think you can help me with that? I'm like, I'll tell you what. Let's get what we're trying to do settled and I'll take you fishing and...

We'll sit down and we'll talk and they're like really I said honestly most of the time I go fishing first before I decide to do business with somebody I want to see what it's like in eight hours spending some time with somebody Talking to decide whether I want to do something with you. Yeah, you know cuz I there's not There's plenty of stuff I do and then I just didn't have fun that I won't do it again But if I do something with somebody, you know some kind of business and I enjoy it

Let's do it again. I had a good time with you. Let's do it again, you know And if I didn't have a good time No harm. No foul just move on we do something else, you know, you go do your thing I do my thing My whole thing is I want to have a good time doing it and I want to make sure everybody's having a good time doing and if people are having a good time Why do it? Yeah. Yeah, you know, we don't have a we don't have a long time on this world If we're lucky we get 80 years. I think you know

Katie (59:08.046)
Our solar system is something, what is it, like 30 billion years old. We're here if we're lucky for 80 years. So I better make the best of it. I want to make the best of it. I'm going to do it every day. And if I'm not having a good time, fuck it, I ain't going to do it again. So what do you think it is for you that takes you back to the ocean and to fishing every day? People. People.

100%. I love, my time I spent on the real tight, I made a bond with those guys. I was on that boat for 14 years. I made a bond with those guys. I love them. To this day, I love them. Jim Lambert, he was my mentor, still is my mentor. I just quoted him this morning. I'm not gonna repeat the quote because this is a family friendly show. But I just, I think about him every day.

And then now what takes me back every day is the fact that I can share it with people. One of my favorite stories, or not a, it's not an in particular story. You're gonna relate to this and next time you see it, I want you to think of me. When I get somebody on the boat and we got their first sailfish or first marlin or first fish on and I look at their hands, that's holding the rod and their knuckles are all white. You know what I'm talking about? They're holding that.

that handle so hard, that rod so hard, their hands, their fingers are turning white. And I'm like, the rod's not leaving. Release the grip and look out at the fish jumping. And they're like, what? I go, breathe and look out at your fish jumping. Listen, we just spent an hour to get this bite, or five minutes if you're a mag bae. We just spent all this time to get you this bite. I go, release the death grip on the rod.

Take a deep breath and look out and enjoy your fish. Listen, the fish is jumping and the boat's in a turn. You're not gonna get any line. So enjoy the moment. Enjoy the moment. Look at the fish. Look at it jump. And I'll take pictures of it and I'll video it depending on what I got going on. But take a deep breath, enjoy the moment. Here we are. What are you thinking of? Did you enjoy dinner last night? What? I love asking people what they had for dinner.

Katie (01:01:33.294)
what their favorite baseball team is, because usually if you take their brain just far enough away from, my God, I don't want to lose this fish as opposed to, hey, we're going to catch this fish. Change your mindset and enjoy the moment. Enjoy the moment. And I can see it. It's the white knuckles. It's the white knuckles. If you see the white knuckles, you're holding on too tight. Or the best yet is when I see people with blisters on the other hand.

And I'm like, I know what the problem is. They're like, really? I go, yeah, your left hand is too tight on the rod. They're like, what? I'm like, yeah. If you have a blister on this hand, it's because you're pressing too hard to push it against the other hand. Relax. Enjoy the moment. That's all. It's little things like that. And it's one of the things after, my God, I can't believe I'm gonna say it, after 32 years of being on the water, it's little things like that that I watch and I...

look at people and I'm like, hey, enjoy this moment. And that's what I enjoy so much about being on the water. And what brings me back is I'm at the point in my life and in my career that I enjoy more sharing it with people than catching. Listen, I've competed enough times and don't get me wrong, I still compete. When I'm out there fishing, fishing, not just entertaining people, I want to kick everybody's ass. Don't get me wrong.

My job is to kick everybody's ass. As a fisherman, that's our job. Yeah, we're competitive as all get out. I want you to do well, but I'm going to do better. You know what? The way I always tell everybody, I never want you to catch less fish than me. I just want to catch more than you. That's the way I tell everybody. I'm not wishing you to lose your fish. I'm not wishing you to catch less than me.

I'm just wishing for me to catch, and I'm not even wishing. I am working to make sure I catch more than you. No. If you have all the information and all the possibilities that I have and you go out and catch more fish than me, hats off. Good on you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good on you. And I'm not going to be mad. No. I used to get mad. I used to get mad. I don't get mad anymore. I used to. I say I get mad. I don't get mad. I just get, you know what? Let's leave 10 minutes earlier tomorrow. Let's leave a half hour earlier tomorrow. Yeah.

Katie (01:04:00.846)
I'm going to give more effort and the only way to give more effort is more time. So those are the things. But now it's to the point I'd rather bring somebody that's never caught a fish. I remember a couple of years ago I got a call from somebody, hey, will you fish the white marlin open with me? I'm like, sorry dude, I'm going to Costa Rica. I'm going to do a fad trip. And they're like, what? And they're like, don't you want to fish for dollars? I'm like, listen, I'm going fishing with two Cuban brothers.

One's a cardiologist. They've never seen a blue marlin. All they want to do is catch a blue marlin. What a beautiful experience. I'd rather go out with somebody who's never caught a blue marlin and give them the opportunity. And we did. We caught 19 blue marlins. And these guys spoke no English. We're so fucking happy. They were so happy. And I loved it. I don't care about the money. I really don't. I love sharing my sport.

Ours our sport with somebody else man. I tell you that's what I do some of the best relationships I've developed have been from exposing people on the boat to what it is to catch a fish like that and that experience as a whole like it's it's unrivaled and it brings you so much joy to watch somebody come into your sport and just fall head over heels in love with the moment and I

I love that you said that. I can't disagree with that at all. Yeah, that's what I love. When I see somebody that I've, I took on a, I coached them and took them on their first few blue marlin trips and next thing you know they buy a 40 foot something or a 50 foot something. That means the world to me. Man, I had a lady. That means the world to me. I love that you said that because this is just so special. I had a lady that fished with us in Mags this last Baja, this last season.

And she was like, look, I need you to teach me how to hook the fish. And I'm like, all right, no problem. Let's do this. We worked for three days. She did super well. She killed it. And then the following week, she was fishing in Guatemala in a tournament. And at the end of the week, she sent me a photo of her top angler trophy. And I was like, girl, that's awesome. I just couldn't be prouder of that. And that, to me, is so awesome. Yes.

Katie (01:06:21.262)
You get it. Yeah, I love that. I know I totally get it and more so that it's a woman. So all my tournaments, I don't give angler trophies away in any of my tournaments, but I do give top female and top junior angler. That's cool. And my reasoning behind that is number one, we need to encourage the next generation, number one. And I'm a firm believer if you get moms fishing, the entire family goes fishing.

The entire family goes fishing. When you get moms fishing, dad's, okay, I'll bring the kids. Or, I want to hang out with the boys this weekend. Not moms. Moms always want the family. Always want the family to go fishing. So that's why I'm a big proponent of it. I go out of my way to make sure I encourage female anglers. It's a huge thing for me. Because if moms don't...

Get the kids out fishing it just yeah Kids out fishing but I like moms. Yeah, exactly. And I want to see the I want to see the sport grow Not one at a time I want to see it grow exponentially. I want to see one two, four eight six sixteen thirty two sixty four I want to see a lot and I want to see it fast. There you go. That's what I want to see

That's a big deal to me. Well, come on, Fly. You're doing such a fabulous job of that. Like, what you've done for our industry already is incredible. I haven't done enough. Every day is a new day. And I appreciate you saying that, but every day I feel like I don't do enough. Like, right now, I don't even think we even talked about me. I just got back from Saudi and I'm helping introduce recreational fishing to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And I don't think nothing of it to me. NBD. No big deal.

Yeah, to me, I'm just going, hanging out with my friends. We're talking about fishing, and we're going to put together a fishing club, and the first ever in the kingdom, we put on the first ever international fishing tournament. Dude, all this stuff, and to me, it's just what I like to do. And my girlfriend's like, do you really realize what you're talking about, what you're doing? Changing the world. And I'm like, I'm just talking about fishing, man. That's what I do. But that's the way I look at it.

Katie (01:08:43.758)
But I want to let everybody know what we do, what it's like. It doesn't matter what color your skin is, what color your hair is. Let's just go fishing. That's my thing. I want everybody to have the same opportunities that I've had. Whether you decide to take those opportunities, that's not up to me. But if you want to take that opportunity, I want to make it easier for you.

I did it and if I can help you, so be it. I'll help you. And if it takes bringing a thousand boats into a country, we'll do it. If it takes putting on classes every weekend, we'll do it. If it means whatever it takes, we'll do it. And I want to see people, you know, enjoy our sport, whether it's catching marlin or catching grouper or catching permanent bonefish. I don't care what it is. Go out there.

You know, I have a friend and you may, may not know him, but he's a boat broker. I knew him when he was born. Again, I used to work for his grandmother and he's a boat broker now. And one day he's like, you're so funny. I saw you on, on, on social media and one day you're catching 800 pound blue fins and the next week you're catching cutthroat trout and you were just as happy. I'm like, yeah, I'm fishing. I don't care. I just want to go fishing.

And some people have the opportunity to catch trout and some people have the opportunity to catch marlin or Dorados or whatever it is. It doesn't make a little difference. Any fish, any water. I love it. I love it. Exactly. I even go with my buddy. He's a commercial lobster fisherman. I love going commercial lobster fishing with him. You know, why? Because I just like being on the water with my friends. So I mean, I think I get that. I find it.

Absolutely awesome. That's the whole reason why we're all out here, right? We just we can't get you can't keep you can't keep us away from it But exactly for we're gonna have to it's close to time. So I'm gonna have to start wrapping up But I really want to ask you a question For I like to only take a moment only one just just this one fly I like to take a moment and Kind of focus on our younger listeners anyone that might be listening that's in their younger years

Katie (01:11:02.382)
that's super fired up on what you've said this podcast. Time out one second. You do know that 45 is younger than me, right? Right. I'm just saying. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. Younger viewers. Younger, our younger people that are listening in, that are fired up on this conversation that are like, man, I love fishing or I want to get into fishing or I want to be out on the water or I want to be part of these tournaments. What is a recommendation you have for them?

Do you have anything that you can give to these younger listeners to encourage them on their next steps?

my gosh, that's such a broad question, but I'm going to steal a line from somebody. It's a very broad step because it depends on where you live. If you live in Missouri, it's one thing. If you live in the state of New York, it's another. If you live in Guatemala, yes, it's a number. It's another one, yeah. But it's so hard to zero you in that I had to keep it broad. Yeah, but here's the thing. It's really not that.

Yes, it's broad, but I can give you three words. Just do it. Just like Nike said, just do it. Whatever it is that you see the opportunity, I see so many people stop themselves because they're afraid. I don't want to do it because I might mess up. I don't want to do it because... Just do it. Really, seriously. I have a friend... I sat at his booth at a boat show and I had...

I don't know, I was there for an hour. Maybe. We were shooting the shit. I hadn't seen him in a while. So I sat with him for about an hour. And in that hour, I had three different people come up to me and say, hey, you're that guy on Facebook. I want you to come fishing with me. Will you come visit me and come fishing? And I answered their call. Everyone got the same exact, what's the airport code and what time of year is best. And they all gave me their airport code.

Katie (01:13:07.278)
They all gave me the best time of year and then I exchanged phone numbers and my buddy's like, really? I'm like, you think I'm gonna turn down the chance to go fishing? And he's like, you'll go with all of them. I go, absolutely, absolutely. And I just did it. I don't wait. If they give me their number, I'm like, listen, I'm gonna put you down for these days. What's a good time for you? I'll buy the tickets right now. And I don't wait.

Do not offer me the opportunity to go fishing That you're not gonna hold up your end of the bargain I'll come visit you I'll come visit you and we'll hang out And let's go fishing. I don't care what it is. I really don't I might not pick up a rod. I just Had dinner with a guy the other day at the Bill Fish Foundation dinner I'm supposed to go fish a tournament with him in Monaco and then he has a he has another boat that's down in

Abhajan and he's like I want you he's been trying to get me to go to Abhajan since 2020 and I'm like, let's do it. Let's just you know, we'll book the tickets and let's go down. I don't yeah, I don't care. Let's just do it because so many people you can there's caught have you ever heard of the the term Paralysis by analysis. No, but it does make a lot of sense. It's called over there and they're like they'll they'll they'll think my god

How much money do I need? How much this? Just do it. Just buy the ticket and give yourself whatever, six months to pay it off or 12 months to make the money and make the plan. And find an Airbnb and seriously just do it because most of the time people sit there for weeks and months thinking about really I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do this and they never do it. Next thing you know they're on their deathbed saying man I wish I would have.

And my biggest fear in life, and there's not much I fear, but my biggest fear in life is getting to my deathbed as an old man, older, and saying, damn, I wish I would have tried this. And I don't want that. I really don't. And I want to say, man, I did go and fish this cool spot.

Katie (01:15:29.39)
and didn't catch anything or caught the biggest fish of my life or met this really cool kid on the dock that showed me how to whatever. But you'll never know until you go do it. And when you travel and you get to see how other people live, then you come back home and you appreciate what you have. When you're sitting there saying, damn, I got last year's sneakers on. You know what I mean?

people would be happy to have last year's sneakers on, you know? And it's little things like that. Man, you know how much I appreciate going to Publix? It's a huge thing. How much I appreciate going to Home Depot or Amazon? You don't know this until you don't have it. yeah, for sure. Definitely. All of that in one stop. Exactly. So that's what I would tell any young kid. Just...

do it, figure out. If you want to go buy a rod, I still own the first fishing rod I bought. I still own it. Now, I had plenty of fishing rods that my parents gave me, but my first job I had at 14 years old, I saved my first three paychecks and I bought my first fishing rod and I still have that to this day. Yeah, and I appreciate it, but that's what I wanted.

I just did it and I caught my first keeper snook on it, I caught my first sailfish on it, I used this rod for everything. This rod's been with me forever. But I just did it and that's where a lot of people make the mistake is they wait for somebody or something. Don't wait for anything, just do it. Figure out a way, just do it. Us in this podcast today.

How much technical difficulty did we have? We had some technical difficulties. And it was all on my end. It was all on my end. I was really happy you worked through it. Yeah, but we got it done. We never gave up. No. And that's where a lot of people, as soon as they feel a little pushback, it's like, let's go do something that's easier. No. No.

Katie (01:17:46.318)
You want to go catch a Dorado? That's on your bucket list. Go do it. Go do it. Reach out to somebody on social media and say, hey, who should I go fishing with? This is where I live. Send us a DM. Both fly and I. Yeah. Go on. Slide on in there. Just go and do it. Yeah. Slide on in there. That's a whole nother discussion that I'm... I have plenty of friends. I'm like, hey man, I sent you a DM. You know how many people try to slide in my DM? I'm like, okay, that's a whole nother story.

That's a whole other story. Listen, I can respect that. I don't hold it back. You didn't get back to me on a DM, I get it. But no, go, ask questions, figure it out. What's it going to cost? Budget it. What's it going to take? Do it. Yeah, what's it going to take? Figure it all out. But that's what I would tell any young person. And it doesn't have to be about fishing. It could be whatever it is you want to do.

You know, you want to be a firefighter, be a firefighter and don't let somebody tell you you can't do it. That's that's where we use that as motivation. I love being told I can't do something. I got twice in my life I was told I couldn't do something and I've been told a lot of times, but two times in particular. One of them, I proved that motherfucker wrong. Every single day and twice on Sundays and the other one.

I'm working my ass off to make sure they know I proved them fucking wrong again. There you go. And I'm very adamant about that. Don't let anybody tell you can't do something. You just go fucking do it. If you want to do it, you can do it. Yeah. And that's where I draw the line on anything. Hey, I really want to do it. Then do it. Yeah. Don't just say it. Go do it. Yeah. You know, so I'm very, very adamant about that.

On more than one occasion, I've jumped off a building and I've built the airplane on the way down. It's a funny joke, but sometimes because... I feel like that's what our industry is. It kind of is, but a lot of people try to go the easy route and there's nothing wrong with it, but me, I don't like that. I want to jump off the cliff and then build the parachute. I'll figure it out on the way down because now you have a sense of urgency.

Katie (01:20:09.678)
It's not, it's no longer a side project. It's the main project. Cause if not, you're going to land on your face. So jump and then build it on the way down. You're going to get skinned up. You're going to get beat up. You're going to get bruised up. It's okay. If you want it bad enough, that parachute will open. You'll build it and that parachute will open. You just got to believe in yourself. That's so cool. That's, that's a beautiful saying. Fly.

I think you nailed it. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate having you on board and good luck with the World Cup. And that's a wrap. If you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to like, share and subscribe. If you're fishing the World Cup next week, good luck. Stay safe. Don't stop chasing your wild and we'll be seeing you out there.