For combat-wounded Veterans, time spent in the great outdoors through therapeutic and adaptive sports like hunting and fishing can provide healing, camaraderie, and a renewed sense of purpose. Today on the WWIA Podcast, WWIA Founder and CEO John McDaniel is honored to welcome one of the most respected names and an expert in the outdoor industry, Captain Tom Rowland.

From his early days fishing alongside his father in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to guiding on the legendary rivers of Jackson Hole and the waters of Key West, Captain Tom Rowland has built a remarkable career fueled by hard work, determination, and a relentless passion for the outdoors. A world-class angler, accomplished tournament competitor, fly-casting champion, and health and fitness enthusiast, Tom has also become a pioneer in outdoor media as the creator and host of the long-running television series Saltwater Experience, Into the Blue, and Sweetwater. Of all his accomplishments though, none mean more to Tom than being a dedicated husband and father.

Beyond television, Tom’s passion for education and mentorship continues through the wildly successful Tom Rowland Podcast, where he shares conversations and insights with some of the most respected voices in the outdoor world, leadership, and living at your highest level. Today, he joins us to talk about fishing, family, perseverance, guiding, and the life-changing impact the outdoors can have on all of us—especially our Nation’s combat-wounded Heroes. This is an engaging episode that we are proud to present to you.

Takeaways:

• The WWIA Podcast emphasizes the transformative power of the outdoors for combat wounded veterans, promoting healing and camaraderie.
• Captain Tom Roland exemplifies the intersection of fishing expertise and mentorship, fostering a new generation of outdoor enthusiasts.
• Guiding is portrayed not merely as a profession, but as an art form that encompasses safety, education, and customer enjoyment.
• Effective communication between guides and clients is essential for ensuring a fulfilling fishing experience, tailored to individual expectations.
• The importance of preparation and adaptability in guiding is highlighted, showcasing the need for guides to respond to diverse client needs.
• The podcast illustrates the profound respect for veterans, advocating for their acknowledgment and the appreciation of their sacrifices.

Links referenced in this episode:

• https://wwiaf.org
• https://www.tomrowlandpodcast.com
• https://www.saltwaterexperience.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• WWIA
• Saltwater Experience
• Tom Roland Podcast
• Discovery Channel

ABLEnow

This episode of the WWIA Podcast is sponsored by ABLEnow. ABLEnow is a national ABLE savings program designed specifically for people with disabilities. It allows eligible individuals to save and invest money in a tax-advantaged account without risking certain means-tested benefits, such as SSI or Medicaid. ABLEnow is available nationwide and serves eligible individuals in all 50 states. Learn more about ABLEnow: https://t.co/r5071ltB0G

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Mentioned in this episode:

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Foreign.

Hello and welcome to the WWIA Podcast. We're honored to have you join us in our mission to bring honor, connection and healing to America's combat wounded Purple Heart heroes.

If this is your first time listening to this podcast, we welcome you. If you're a returning listener, thanks for coming back.

Please be sure to tell others about our podcast and leave us a review if you're enjoying what you're hearing.

For combat wounded veterans, time spent in the great outdoors through therapeutic and adaptive sports like hunting and fishing can provide healing, camaraderie and a renewed sense of purpose.

Today on the WWIA podcast, WWIA founder and CEO John McDaniel is honored to welcome one of the most respected names and an expert in the outdoor industry, Captain Tom Roland.

From his early days fishing alongside his father in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to guiding on the legendary rivers of Jackson Hole and the waters of Key West, Captain Tom Roland has built a remarkable career fueled by hard work, determination and a relentless passion for the outdoors.

A world class angler, accomplished tournament competitor, fly casting champion, and health and fitness enthusiast, Tom has also become a pioneer in outdoor media as the creator and host of the long running television series Saltwater Experience into the Blue and Sweetwater. Of all his accomplishments, though, none mean more to Tom than being a dedicated husband and father.

Beyond television, Tom's passion for education and mentorship continues through the wildly successful Tom Roland Podcast where he shares conversations and insights with some of the most respected voices in the outdoor world. Leadership and living at your highest level.

Today he joins us to talk about fishing, family perseverance, guiding and the life changing impact the outdoors can have on all of us, especially our nation's combat wounded heroes. This is an engaging episode that we're proud to present to you. So let's join the conversation with John and Tom right now.

Hi, I'm John McDaniel, founder and CEO of the Wounded warriors in Action foundation and this is our podcast, Honor, Connect, Heal. You know, you probably heard in the introduction that we have a very special guest today. His name's Tom Roland.

He is an amazing individual, I would have to say one of my, you know, my personal heroes, I suppose. And he doesn't even know that because I just met him maybe five minutes ago as we were in the pre show. But Tom is a, is an amazing person.

He's a captain, meaning a fisherman, a professional fisherman, both salt and fresh, legendary fisherman and guide. And we're going to talk about guiding, guiding on the program here.

He's a podcast host, got over a thousand podcasts in the Tom Roland podcast series. I thought I was doing well, Tom, when I had 100, but not even. Not even close to.

You're doing great.

Babe Ruth over here, producer, TV host. The Saltwater Experience, which happens to be one of my favorite programs. And I'm going to talk about why that is.

I'll just let the cat out of the bag. You're an amazing coach, you know, and you give up the ma. You give up the Magic man, and most guys won't do it.

Thank you.

But you do, and you freely do it, and you do it in a way that's meaningful, easy to understand, and motivational. So you got that. You're doing good stuff in that space. So you're an entrepreneur, you're into fitness, and you're a father. Right.

So these are the things we're going to. I wanted to say it first and. But I read your bio, and thanks for being on the program. Welcome to the program. It's great honor to have you here.

Well, it's an honor to be here. Thank you very much and for all the nice things you just said.

Well, you know, I did a little homework. I was just, you know, when. When. When David our. Our social media guru and podcast coordinator said. He asked me, said who?

This is about three or four months. He goes, you got to give me a list of guys that you would like, really like to have on the program.

And so I listed, like, three people, and you were one of them. And I thought, there's just no way he's going to say yes to that. And you did. You're an amazing guy. You really are.

Your Saltwater Series program, I got to tell you, is. Is really high quality. Could you just start out a little bit and talk about, you know, how that whole thing came about? I'd love to hear it.

We froze up there for just a second. But you were asking about, I think, the origin story maybe.

Yeah, no, yeah, the. The Saltwater Series. The Saltwater Experience program. I mean, would you just talk about how you got that thing off the dock?

Right.

Well, it's funny because in the introduction, we were talking about a parent being a parent, and being a parent was the most important thing to me, being a father. And that is really the origin of Saltwater Experience. Somewhere back here, there's some trophies and stuff from the professional Redfish tournaments.

And I started doing those tournaments with my partner, Rich Tudor, and we were competitors in the Redbone tournaments in the. In the Keys, and he was doing well, and. And I was doing well in Those tournaments. But I knew there was something else a little bit bigger.

And I was really trying to figure out the, the sponsorship space. And I knew that for sponsorship, the most important thing is that you really. Well, it all comes down to selling products for your. For your sponsors.

I mean, that's what it's all about. If you're not selling something, then there's no reason for anybody to sponsor you. But I knew that there was a level above the redbone tournaments.

And the redbone tournaments were kind of a Florida Keys based tournament. They were incredibly competitive. People really wanted to win these things, but there was no money associated with it. It was all for charity.

And that was great. But you know, it was a very competitive atmosphere. And there were some really great guides and anglers that were a part of that.

I kind of, because of my athletic background in high school, I was a wrestler. And then I chose not to wrestle in college.

And when I did that, I didn't even realize that you were giving up like this part of your life that was so important to you for so long, this competitive outlet that you once had.

And you know, when, when you decide you're not going to do something anymore, feel like you've had enough of it, you don't understand at the time that that outlet was incredibly important. And it wasn't until I got back into the fishing tournaments that I started to experience that again in a different way.

You know, it starts with a boat race and then you. Then you are competing against some of the best out. And I got that feeling again that I had in, in, in athletics. I'm like this, I need this.

I missed this. I didn't even realize that I was missing it, but I need it and I missed it. And then I noticed that there was another level.

The redfish tournaments, these professional redfish tournaments were just starting. They were a two man team and so you had to have a partner.

And they, you know, they were really, really competitive because you were going to these areas like Louisiana or Texas or all over Florida, and you were competing against the best of the best in their backyard. And it was really challenging. And really looking back on, it was some of the most fun times ever.

Because the people that we were competing with and the people that we were competing against, it just fueled this learning curve that just went up like this in so many ways. Not just about redfish, but just about fishing in general and preparation and doing your homework and learning an area really fast.

But one thing that happened there is it was pulling me away from home and I had two boys at the time. I have three children all together now. My. My daughter was not born yet at this time, but there was a hurricane.

When we were in Louisiana, there was a hurricane. Hurricane Charlie, and it over Key west, where my family was. And we. I was in Louisiana, basically stuck there. We couldn't.

We couldn't go to the Keys because there was a hurricane. And. And, you know, it was coming over Key west and then going to hit where we were.

So we had to kind of wait and then go drive around that hurricane as it went across the Gulf. And, man, it was just this really helpless feeling of my family being someplace where I'm supposed to be protecting them and I'm not there.

And I just decided right then, I'm done with these tournaments. And, you know, all of the things that they're giving me are great, but it doesn't replace what I'm missing. And that's the thing.

And so that whole drive home, you know, I'm telling Rich, I'm done. I'm not going to do this anymore. And it was pretty silent ride for a long way. A long way from Venice, Louisiana, to. To Key West.

And about halfway, he was like, well, you know, it seems like we got kind of a good thing going here. If we weren't to do this, you know, what. What could we do? You know? And we had. We had cobbled together some sponsors for the.

For the tournaments, and we were winning a couple here and there and doing. Doing well. And so I said, well, I don't know. I guess if we didn't do the fishing tournaments, I guess we could do a TV show.

And he's like, well, what do you know about doing a TV show? I said, well, I don't know. I've done a few as a guest. It didn't really look that hard. And I had a good friend that I was on. His show was.

It was the first TV show that I was ever on that was Shaw Grigsby. And Shaw was an incredible mentor. He's a professional bass fisherman. He's just a wonderful guy.

And so I called him up, and I was like, shaw, we're thinking about doing a TV show. He said, you'd be great at it. You. You'll do a great job.

And he was just so forthcoming and helpful, and he even said, hey, look, this is what you need to do. You got to film a pilot. And then at these.

On these days, back then, you had to take that pilot to the network and the network, and then you had to get the Sponsors and all that stuff together. But it all started with this pilot. And I said, well, how do you do that?

And he said, well, you can borrow my crew and you guys film your pilot, and it'll be something you can take around. And whether you like the crew or not, you don't have to work with them. Just they'll help you get it started. That's how we got it started.

And it was terrible at first. It was not because of the crew. It was terrible because we were doing something at the time where all the TV shows.

You take all the best TV shows out there. You start with Bill Dance, Roland Martin, Jose Wahebe, even Flip palette. All of these shows, they were all the same. They were.

Well, not all the same, but they were kind of the same format of a single host talking directly to the camera. And we had two. Two of us. And so that it wasn't working. It just wasn't working. Like, it was very awkward.

I would talk to the camera, then he would talk to the camera, and then we. We couldn't get the interview set up. And so that's how eventually, because of my producer, Matt McInnis, he helped us with that. And he.

We were like, man, we're really having a hard time with this, and the show's not very, very good. And he said, yeah, I see. He kind of. Kind of came on and he. He had this whole different eye.

And he was like, you ever seen, you know, one of those shows like. Like, you know, like a documentary where they have two people sitting at a table and the camera's over one person's shoulder and then.

Yeah, and he goes, once you do it, that's.

That's your Hawks K bit.

Yeah, that's it. And. And honestly, that was. That was a big change in the show because all of a sudden it was.

Even though we borrowed that from another industry and, you know, different documentaries, it was unique to the fishing world. Nobody had seen that before. And so there were two of us, and it started to. It's. It was. It was fresh, and we were young, and it.

It was popular right away. It just worked. And where the format before was not working, it was. It was just another. Another TV show. And. And honestly, not a very good one.

And, you know, it just. It just wasn't working. And so getting. Getting somebody else with fresh eyes around to help us with. With the format. I mean, Matt was a. He.

We call him Hop. He was a TV guy. He had done TV as Jerry McInnes's son. Jerry McInnes. Had a TV show on the fishing hole on ESPN for 50 years.

I mean, it was on there for a long time. One of the longest running TV shows. And he knew tv and so he gave us some, some good advice there. And that's how it got started.

You know, you and, you and Rich have a thing going on. There's, you know, first you communicate well and you can tell there's chemistry between the two of you and everything is calm.

It's just, it's presented well and you can tell. So it's that, that dynamic between you and. And Rich tutors really good and, and so it worked. It. It caught me right away. I thought that was great.

And I, my boys and I stay at Hawks Cay. We've been there four or five times over the years. Matter of fact, I think I fished on one of your boats.

I ran down to the dock and, and I saw a yellow fin, which I'd have. I've had my eye on a 24 yellow fin forever. I see this, this yellow, yellow fin there.

And I asked the dock master somebody, I said, is that, is that a charter guide? You know, does that guy go out? Because I wanted it. I wanted a wet test. I wanted to fish one, you know, and he goes, yeah. And he mentioned your name.

And I, I think it's, I don't know, I assume you had a boat down there still maybe do a 24 foot yellow fin. I'm fishing it with another guide who, I think he mentioned it was your boat.

And we went off with the boys and, and, and caught some amazing snapper and had a great time on the water right there out of, out of Hawks Cay.

That's great.

Yeah.

Fantastic place to be.

That really is.

And our, our home for the TV show for, for over 20 years now. And is it.

Are you still. Still. Is still cranking it up?

Still cranking it out.

That's awesome, man. That's. That. Yeah, that's. That's great. I'd love to talk to you about the sponsors off, offline a little bit.

Just that that whole piece is interesting to me. But you know, one of the things I wanted to talk about, I actually had heard some of that in the podcast.

Your podcast series is great because you get to go into a lot more detail on things like I'm a not freak. Okay. So I was really interested in, you know, what you had to say about your favorite knot. And, and I've always been a uni guy.

I've always been a double uni guy when it comes to line. To line, you know, connections. Of course, I'm a, you know, a former airborne Ranger, and so knots, you know, are really important in that space.

So it was easy for me when I, and I've been a lifetime fisherman, too, so. But I'll be darned if you didn't, like, give a lot of credit to the uni knot. And I was like, that, that, that made me feel good.

That's an easy knot to tie near 100% strength, and it works on just darn near anything. But one of the things you said about the uni knot on your podcast, and I was like, ah, that's interesting.

I used to always leave and sometimes I still do a little loop there so that the, the hook has a little more action to it.

But I think it was you, when you said we were talking about fishing for permit, you said you cinched that thing down and, and I was like, wow, that's interesting. I should ask him why he does that.

Well, I do that with circle hooks.

I was. Circle hooks, that's it.

I, I, I don't, I just feel like, you know, the way that the circle hook goes into a fish's mouth and then, then it pulls out, it feels like to me. And I don't have any real way of testing this, except that when I started doing this, the hookup percentage went, went up.

But I think that was probably more due to the circle hook than to the knot, honestly.

But I felt like if it was following the leader out and it wasn't swinging free, it had a better chance of getting into the, to the fish's mouth and seems to work.

Yeah.

But I just feel like on that particular one, that's, that's the way I like to do it. Whereas on bonefish flies or even fly fishing for permit, I have, I leave a loop.

Yeah, not, not, not on a circle hook with crab, that seems to be, I mean, I feel pretty strongly about that. I don't know why, but it just works.

And when I went to the circle hook, like when I first started guiding in the Keys, I mean, we, we would throw it a lot of permit and you could hook some, and we were using these old J hooks, and you would, you often, you would get the, the crab back and it would be smashed and you didn't get a hookup. And when I went to the circle hook, that almost entirely went away.

And when that, when you go from about 40% to almost 100%, basically, I just said, I'm not changing anything. Like, this is working perfectly. And it's only gotten better as the circle hooks have gotten better and sharper and stronger. Yeah. So I don't know.

That's, that's, that's what I do. But I don't know. I know plenty of people that, that use a loop and, and they catch many, you know. Right.

Yeah. Well, it's funny because, you know, if there's one fish that keeps me awake at night, it's the, it's the permit.

And when I was down there, I, I fished Sugarloaf Shores and you know, the backcountry there, that was my stomping grounds, the lower middle keys, you know, the backside. Mostly it's just magic water there.

And, and the, the first time I saw that fish because I'd read all about it, I read Stu Apps book, you know, and, and you know, there's some legends that have fished those waters obviously over the years. And I, I. All we had back then were books.

Really, to learn from. Did you read that Stu amp fish in the floor?

Darn right I did. With an, with the, with the maps in it and everything.

And all those, all those spots were real. Like, they were all real spots. And you, you could just go there.

That's arrows.

I wore it out, you know, Me too.

And they got little arrows. Mine's all, mine's all flagged.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and, and on the, on the, on the Atlantic side, I never really even bothered with it, but the first time I, I started looking at his, you know, permit where he said, on the other side, on the Atlantic side where, where he liked to fish for permit. The very first time I went out there, I caught one and I was like, I was like, okay, that. But yeah, I mean that and Lefty Crane.

All these great, you know, legends that have, that have, you know, tromped around out there. It's, it's really, it's really. I look at you as the, the next generation beyond those, you know, legends really.

So it's again, it's great to have you on the program. I wanted to talk, Tom, about attributes of a guide. In the pre show, we talked a little bit about it. You know, we have.

The foundation has trained close to 40 combat wounded purple Heart recipients through our guide school, and they help us with our mission across the country. And right now I think we've got 25 of them that are, you know, active, active participants.

And we continue to invest in them in many ways as they help other Purple Heart recipients in their pursuit of hunting and fishing activities around the country. So I wrote Some things down about what it means to me, what has always meant to me to be a good guide.

And I, I really want to, before I talk about any of those things or mention them, I really want to hear from you, you know, in a, just off the top of your head, you know, because let me ask you this before you even go, because I want to know what, what you think it means to be or what, what are the attributes of a good guide? You can even answer that through being a bad guy. Because we learn a lot about what not to do by looking at other people too.

We fished, I fished a lot of guides in my, in my life by way of my work through the foundation.

And I'm always making mental notes, you know, work ethic happens to be, you know, way up there in my book along with preparation and lots of other things. But would you talk to us please about your experience as a guide and what it means to be a good guide?

Sure.

It's a great subject because I don't, I don't know that, I don't know that the, the profession gets its due for people who are really good at what they do. And, and the people that are really good at being a fishing guide treat it like it's an art form.

I mean, I really do think that, that guiding is an art form and it is, it is an incredible profession.

It's a noble profession and you get a chance to be with so many different types of people and, and you have an opportunity to really have a big impact on their life. But I don't think that a lot of people look at it as this professional type profession. Like there aren't many like you, you have a school.

And, and that's how I got my start. I went to a school, I went to the Western Rivers Professional Guide School in Jackson, Wyoming.

And I had an opportunity to learn from a first generation guide, a second generation guide and, and learn like these are kind of the foundations of guiding and build on that.

A lot of people just get thrown into it or a lot of people look at it as maybe like, well, you know, I'm, I'm just doing some part time jobs and maybe bartender or waiter or something like that. I'm gonna guide a couple trips a week. It's not that you can't be, you can't be good like that.

You can if you have the right, the right kind of mindset and, and feel for what you're doing on the guiding. And I guess the mistake that I see most young guides doing is being Too concerned about how many fish they're catching. Yeah.

And excuse me, when you're concerned only about that, you miss really what the, what the profession's all about.

And so a really great guide like somebody that I would consider like at the very top of the profession is somebody that first of all the most important thing is the safety of their customers. Like, you have to operate the vessel, whether that's a drift boat or a canoe or, or an offshore boat or a skiff.

You have to operate that boat in a way that no one's getting hurt and no one's scared for their safety. You have to know what the weather's doing, you have to know what your boat's capable of.

And never put your, your, your customers in, in any sort of danger. And everybody comes back to the dock happy, uninjured. That's number one. And it's a, it's a non negotiable, like there's no messing around.

And so that can be done in a lot of ways. It can be done in a real regimented kind of sergeant way or it can be done in a real nice, nice way.

And I think the more experience that someone has and the more they understand what can go wrong and what has gone wrong and what they don't want to ever go wrong again, the calmer they are, the nicer they are. The, you know, you're getting a lot of people on the boat that never been on a boat before.

So like barking at them or barking orders is, is usually not effective in my, in my opinion, especially with, you know, women and, and wives and girlfriends and daughters and people that are a little nervous about going anyway, they don't want somebody barking orders at them and, and it usually means that they're not coming back. So I put safety as number one and then as number two.

I think that the people should have, they should learn something on the, on the, on the day and usually something that maybe that they didn't expect.

Maybe it's about a bird or, or you catch some weird fish and you know some, some facts about that fish and you tell them, hey look, this fish doesn't live here all the time. It swims in from all these different places and it, you know, it's like, it's migratory like a bird.

And it's really interesting that we found, we found this fish or the turtle grass or, or a, you know, a seahorse or, or something, you know, something that is, is interesting and maybe it's the history of the area that you're in and you know, all this history about how they built the, the road and the railroad all through the Florida Keys or maybe it's, you know, the, the geologic things that are going on in Yellowstone. But you're going out there and you're not just a fishing guide, you are, you're an entertainer, right?

And as an entertainer with safety is the number one protocol. And then you teach them a few things about something that you find interesting. Maybe it's, you know, what any of those things that I just said.

And then after that they need to have a really, really good time and they need to be very comfortable. So the way that you run the boat is very important.

And if you, you know, a great guide is also someone that is a master of their vessel and they can use the trim and tilt and they can, they can run the boat in the right sea conditions where you're not getting any spray, you're not getting wet.

And if you are getting wet, you know, you're moving your customer to, to the driest place in the boat and you're keeping them as comfortable as you possibly can to where they're never in, they're never thinking, wow, you know, white knuckled, holding on.

Now there's a time and a place for that in a tournament where you have a different kind of customer, where he is like, you know, we're out here to win and I'm okay, I've already done all this other stuff, now we're here to win. That's a different customer. The day to day customer does not want to be white knuckled. And they don't want a rough boat ride.

They want a nice easy boat ride. And so in order to have that, you don't need to be like on the clock so much. So, right.

You don't need to be running around like you're in a tournament. What you need to have done is to put in your preparation to where you're saying, oh, the wind's doing this, the tide's doing this.

I've already got a game plan. I know what we're going to do and we have plenty of time to do it and we're going to go out there nice and easy.

Everybody's going to have a great time.

So you notice that I haven't said anything about catching fish yet because I really think that for a really great guide, like the top of the top, they have safety, they're teaching, they're have, they're showing a great time. Those are all, that's their standard mode of operation. That's going to happen no matter what, Right?

And that happens over time and over experience to where now? Because all of that stuff is rote and it is, it is not. Is non negotiable. So all of those things are non negotiables. So that's your mode of operation.

That's how you operate every single time, whether you're having a good day or a bad day or whatever.

That's great.

Everybody's going to be happy, everybody's going to be comfortable. And then you start thinking about catching fish and it's, what kind of fish do your customers want to catch?

And what kind of communication have you had with these customers in advance?

I have a funny little story where I was taking this guy fishing and, man, we went out, he told, he called up and he said he wanted to go bone fishing. And I said, okay, great. Meet you at 7 o'. Clock. You know, at the, at the boat ramp.

We meet at the boat ramp, we go out and I show him some of the best.

I mean, I feel like, I think we went in the, in the areas where you were talking about, like the back of Sugarloaf up to the content keys, and there were bonefish everywhere and were having schools, and, you know, it. To me, we're having this incredible day. We got 30 shots by lunch and he caught one. And, you know, I'm thinking, this is great.

And he goes, wow, I, I thought we'd catch a lot more than this. I mean, it's literally one of the best bone. Best days of bone fishing I've ever had. I was like. So I, I mean, I was just dumbfounded.

Like, okay, well, what did you think we were going to do? And he goes, well, I didn't know that the fish was called a bonefish. I thought bone fishing was going out in one of these little boats.

And I said, oh, well, that was a bonefish. And that's what we were catching. That's what we were trying to catch.

And catching one or two in a day is really good, and getting 30 shots is really good. But do you. Did you want to catch more fish? And he goes, well, yeah, I want to catch more fish. And I was like, okay, well, does it matter what kind?

And he said, no. And so we go over and we start catching snappers and jack crevels, and he's as happy as he can be. And it's every other cast he's catching the fish.

And, and to me, I thought that I had communicated with him and I thought we had had this conversation of he knew what he was talking about. He said he wanted to go bone fishing. He knew the lingo. He, he. But.

But to me, that day was so important in my guide career because it happened pretty early, maybe about the third or fourth year that I was, I was guiding. Like, it's not enough to, to just take somebody at their word and say that they want to go bone fishing.

Then let's, let's, let's talk about, oh, have you ever been bone fishing before? You know, in this conversation can go a lot of different ways, right? You be kind of accusatory to them and be what you're doing.

I'm not going to take you out there if you don't want to. You don't know what you're doing. Right. It's another thing to say, well, have you ever been before? And they say, well, no, but I've always wanted to.

Okay, now you've just learned a little bit more about exactly your customer.

You say, well, if you were to think about going bone fishing, you know, would you have an idea of how many you thought was, you know, a good day, or, you know, you can just kind of go into it and just kind of manage someone's expectations where you might come away from that conversation.

And they say, well, if catching one or two bonefish is a good day, or catching one or two permit is a really good day, is there something else that we could go for where we could keep the rod bend all day? Well, sure there is. Yeah. We could catch snappers or jack crevels or barracudas or sharks.

There's a lot of species that are, that, that are more conducive to catching more of them than certain species. And that's fine, you know, whatever, whatever you want to do. But having that, spending the time to try to talk to somebody.

And in today's world, it's a lot different than it was when, when that story happened, because we would almost do every booking, would almost come over the phone for the first booking I ever got over the Internet. And it was weird. I thought I told my wife, I was like, I'm going to the Marquesas today with a guy that I've never met.

And if I don't come back, this is where I'm going to be, because I figured it was going to be a great trip or, or I was gonna get killed, you know, like, I don't know what's going on. But I never talked to this guy on the phone. And I still remember that today. Most people book like that, yeah, people book like that.

So, so that conversation needs to happen at the dock, right, of, you know, what you guys want to touch. And, and so the communication, I think, is, is really big.

But, you know, having them come back to the doc and say, you know, that was more fun than I thought it was going to be. And especially the companions.

Like, you usually have, like, one primary person that wants to fish, and they're bringing their family or they're bringing their friend or they're bringing their wife or they're bringing their husband or they're bringing somebody, that primary person is, is important. But if you can, if you can show somebody a good enough time to where the companion is, like, man, I had no idea it was so beautiful out there.

I had no idea that it was so nice. I would love to do this. Are you open again tomorrow or can we book for next year? That is, that's what you're looking for,.

Just being a good, being a good person too. You know, I, I got, I, Those are three great things.

And I know you have, you have more, but I wanted to share with the audience one and you mostly a similar story. When I started guiding the wounded veterans down there in the keys in 7, 8 and 9. Oh, 7, 8 and 9. I was doing it down there out of my house.

And I used to do just similar what you said.

I would say, okay, well, I mean, I thought to myself, just because I'm a nut on the big three, you know, down there, I want to, I want to go after the bonefish, the permit and the tarpon. That doesn't necessarily mean that they want to.

So I would describe to them what that would look like if we were just fishing for just say permit and bonefish and then tarpon. And then I, I, you know, so they're all, you know, none of which had.

And these are guys with, you know, some, some of them, you know, fresh out of combat, you know, with still some open wounds. And, you know, I would explain these things to them and then I would say, or we could. And I talk about, you know, snapper fishing or.

And then I would mention shark, and they, you'd see their head just, like, perk up there, like, shark. And I'm like, yeah, we could do shark. You want to do shark? Yeah, I want to do shark.

Well, you know, and as a guide, you know, I mean, that, that, that's, that's a big smile, right?

Because the man in the gray suit's gonna eat if you, you know, I mean, you, they're around out There, you know, and, and so I appreciate you sharing your, your, your thoughts. And you know, the first three are non negotiable safety. You know, people should learn something and they got to have a good time, you know.

And, and, and that's the base plate, right? I mean that's like you say that's every day. That's just brilliant.

When you see the real, the real tournament winning and, and you know, you, you don't have to win tournaments to be a great guide. You don't have to ever be in a tournament to be a great guide. And some of the best guides I know don't participate in tournaments. That's fine.

And it's just, that's just one thing that some, some people do. But, but let's just take somebody that wins a ton of tournaments and is, is, is a great guide. That is how they are going to operate.

They're not a maniac out there. They may look like they're going real fast, but everything is controlled under, under perfect control when those guys are out there.

And you know, I look at the young guys that are, that are doing great right now and they're doing the same thing.

I mean, you can go out fishing with them on a tournament and they're going intense, but if you go fishing with them on a regular day, they're going to show you a really great time, you're going to have a fun time and it doesn't matter what your experience level is, you're going to do great.

Now with all that being said, there are a lot of guides that are like, well, all I want to do is fly fish for bonefish or all I want to do is, is try to get a grand slam. And that's fine, you can do that.

But you have to develop your clientele into that or you have to develop a reputation that you are the guy for that and those people will come to you. And for a period of my career, all I wanted to do is, I mean, all I did was fly fish. All I wanted to do was fly fish.

I didn't want to take spin fishing trips. I didn't want to do anything other than fly fish for permit bonefish or tarpon. Didn't want to fly fish for barracudas.

I didn't want to fly fish for anything. I wanted to fly fish for permit bonefish or tarpon.

And I did that for a long time until I started getting into the tournaments and then realized, oh, there's, there's a whole other level that I didn't even know about here. And some of these spin fishermen are really, really good. Really good.

And if you're going to compete with them, you're going to have to be really good at that also.

And I thought that fly fishing was the hardest until, you know, you realize that spin fishing to, to a very high level, like tournament winning, spin fishing, bait fishing is even harder than learning how to fly fish.

Because the difference is, is that when you, when you do it right, like when you're spin fishing for bonefish with a live shrimp or permit with a live crab, and you're doing it right, the preparation is right. The, the, the presentation is right. You're getting to that fish in the right, the right way, and you throw that crab in there.

If you do it right, you should catch every single one. Every single one. Fly fishing, you can do it exactly right. And you're only going to catch a certain percentage of them. I don't care how good you are,.

You're shucking chicken feathers.

Right. It's not real.

So I see that, like what I saw when I got into some of these red bone tournaments, and then certainly in the redfish tournaments, well, we weren't using bait in the redfish tournaments, but the guys that were out there, they're catching everyone. So if they got eight shots, they caught eight fish. And that wrote, that raised the bar.

And so I realized that that is a whole other skill and keeping the bait alive and keeping, having the best bait and, and all the preparation that goes into that, that's all preparation that you don't have to do when you're fly fishing only. You gotta tie all the flies. You got to make sure everything's perfect. You still got to know so much. But you don't have to keep your flies alive.

Right? You don't, you don't have to know which way the crab's gonna swim when you put them in the water.

Don't. And, and you don't have to, you know, be monitoring where the pilchards are living all year long.

Right, right. I mean, which is a whole topic on itself.

Yeah, it is. And it's a, it's a, it's, it's, I don't know. I, I, I used to hear the, the fly fisherman and, and all these were my clients, and it was me too.

And, you know, that you, you would get a refusal off of, you know, a somewhat poor cast on a permit, and somebody would say, oh, we just need to put a couple of drops of crab juice on it. We would have caught that one. I'M like, oh no, man, that was not even in the ballpark.

Like, if you threw a live crab, where you threw that fly, you weren't catching that fish either, right? It's not, you're just not going to put a crab in the water and the permit are going to come over there or like it just doesn't happen like that.

Everything has to be perfect no matter what you're doing. But when you do it perfectly with live bait, they eat it. When you do it perfectly with a fly, often they don't.

And you know, and I feel like, I don't know, it's, it's just a, it's just a different approach.

And I feel like the people that understand that are truly the ones that make it very, very top because they understand fly fishing and they understand how to catch them on fly, but they also understand the bait fishing and how to catch them on bait.

And you get a guy that knows both of those as well as anyone in the world and he has both of those skills, that's a hard, that's a hard person to beat. And those skills don't come along just because you read a bunch of books or you've been fishing for a while.

That's thousands of days on the watering, bait fishing or specifically targeting fly fishing. And it just comes over a long period of time.

You just described yourself, you know, well,.

There, there's, there's others out there, lots of them that are really, really great at it. And, and then there are other people that just, they're just not even interested in that. And that's fine too, right?

Like all they want to do is fly fish. And that's, that's fine if that's all you want to do. That's.

I had a long time, I had a long term client down there. He was a well, well healed gentleman.

And so one day we're out there and we'd been fishing together for several months at this point and he knew my background a little bit in my service and all this. And he says to me, you know it.

On the ride back, he says, you know it, because it just became, just dawned on me, he says, because he was a big Montana fly fisherman, you know, and, and so we're in the backcountry, I'm turning on all this stuff. And he, like you, you know, mentioned and read a lot of the books and, and he says to me, you are into the pursuit of the difficult.

And, and I took pause because I'd never heard that said before.

And I, and I And I didn't say anything at the time, I just kind of nodded and I, I thought about that and I thought about that and I thought about that and I'm like, he's right, you know, and, and, and you strike me much the same way. I think people who are really successful at what they're doing are pursuing things that are difficult.

That's why permit keeps the permit keeps me awake at night because to do that is so difficult. But when that, when that pays off, like there's no greater feeling, like that's a debt in my book. That's a 10. Okay, that, that, that, that's a 10.

It doesn't get much better. 9.5. You know, it's like harvesting a 12 point buck, you know, and, and to do that with some routine success is not being lucky out there.

You gotta be good. And then to do that as a guide is, is another level to, to turn somebody onto that experience.

And most of them have no clue what they just did, you know, I mean you just made it look really easy and it transparent. And I think that's part of the, you know, the art, if you will. But I gotta ask you Tom, are you a better guide or are you a better fisherman.

These days? I'm probably a better fisherman because I'm not guiding like I once was.

I mean, I was on the water over 300 days a year and you know, everything revolved around the guiding. The TV show kind of took over from that and, and I backed off of the guiding and I don't, I don't think that guiding is a part time job.

I just don't think it is. I don't think being a TV show host is a part time job either.

And so I felt like I was getting pulled away from, from being able to do it to the level that I felt like it deserved. And I wasn't giving the other the level that it deserved either. So I felt like it's time to make a choice here.

And you know, guiding is also very hard on your body when you're doing it that much.

So the choice became clear that, you know, the path for me was, was more TV and that's more with the rod in my hand rather than the push, pull in my hand. And. But at one time I was a better guide than I was an angler.

Interesting.

But I think it's harder to be, it's harder to be the guide.

Yeah, yeah, no, I, but I also have to say if you're, if you're, if you're thinking about getting in the guide business or you are a guide. You know, you have to, like, you have to love what you're doing. You have to act. Not love. You have to also enjoy it.

Like, I know a lot of guys get burned out in that space and they get a bad attitude about their client, you know, or about just dealing with people that they don't really know. But I think, like you said, if you ensure those three things are true and that's that. I mean, you know, it starts with, you know, don't.

Like, I've seen guys, you know, give you the, the. The, you know, the side eye when you step in a boat and you're in. Your shoes are a little dirty or something like that. Well, you know, you can.

You can prevent that from happening if you put a little towel there before they get on your boat and they can wipe their feet off, if that's that big of a deal to you, you know, sort of thing. There's little things.

It's like the little welcome, you know, if you think about that and, and, and this is something that you're not receiving, you know, joy out of, you know, you, you. You maybe look at your hold card and think about doing something else.

Right.

You know.

Well, that's true.

And I think that this is one place where I. I don't know that I've ever really heard people talk about this too much, and I don't even think I've talked about it very much. Just hasn't come up. But as a guide, like, I would not have enjoyed guiding 300 days a year if I was guiding 300 different clients on those 300 days.

As you see guides that get really good, the number of their clients goes.

Down, but the number of repetitions goes up with them.

Yeah, I mean, I was fishing at the end. I had about four clients for 300 days. And I love those guys. That's perfect. They were like family, and I was like family to them.

And, you know, you're putting a lot of stock in that, because if something happens in one of those people's lives and they're not able to fish anymore, an injury, a sickness, a death, which, which does happen now, you got 100 days you got to fill, but you're the guy. Right. And there are other people that are on the waiting list or whatever.

So one of the things that I've never really heard anybody talk about is that as a guide, part of the art form is to attract the type of client that you want. Like, if you're only interested in fly fishing for permit, you can be the guy that people go to and you can have 300 days of fly fishing for permit.

If that's all you want to do, you can do that.

You can build that clientele over time with a lot of hard work and a lot of dedication and a lot of thinking outside of the box about like, where is there a permit club, somewhere that you can go speak at? Is there. Are there places that you could write articles, are there videos that you could do? Like, how do you attract those people?

And you could do that with any fish. And it might take a long time, but you can do exactly the type of fishing that you like.

And I think that a lot of people feel like being a fishing guide is just taking whoever the next person is that calls. And there are people that are. Are doing it that way, and that's fine. And some people are fine like that. Some people like the variety.

Like, I wouldn't want to fly fish all the time. You know, I wouldn't want to bait fish all the time. I do whatever people want to do. And like, one of my really good friends, he guides.

He's one of the best guides I know. And he, he just does whatever the fish are doing. When the people show up, he's like, this is what we're doing today. Show him a great time.

Perfect.

And he's going to show them a great time and they're going to have to really twist his arm to say, oh, you know, the cobia are out there on the wrecks. That sounds fun, but I really want to fly fish for tarpon. Well, okay, I mean, maybe. But he, he's probably gonna say, look, we can go out there. We.

I mean, if we go out there today, we're gonna catch a hundred. If that's this, that's the best thing that's happening today.

And if you have the right communication style and say, listen, I don't know if you realize this, but you just lucked into the best day for this kind of fishing that we have all year long. It is going to off out there and if we go out to the oceanside, we're going to see 5, 10, 20 fish. If that's what you want to do, we can do it.

But it is gangbusters out here. They're probably going to say, captain's choice, man, whatever you want to do, right? But you can do that.

You can create your clientele the way that you want to fish. Takes a lot of hard work, but you can.

It's a good point. You know, I say at our guide school, basically, when it kicks off, it's one of the things that I. A mantra, if you will. But it's the same thing.

You know, people do business, right. With people that they know like, and trust.

And that's, that's what you, that's what you're doing when you're building, you know, rapport with a repeat client base. And that's you, you got yourself into what is probably, I mean, to me, that would be great.

You know, meaningful relationships with people that you know like and trust and fish with four or five people and still get 300 days on the water. I mean, that's like, you say, for some people that might, that might not be what they're looking for.

Right.

But, you know, that's what you were looking for, and that's what you found. But you built it. And you got to know.

I did, I did get there. And then, you know, some other things started being more interesting to me.

I mean, those clients, my clients would shift over time because there was a time when I was fishing with some other clients, and all they wanted to do was fly fish.

And then when I had kids and I got a bay boat, I started doing different kinds of fishing with my kids, and I found some really incredible things, and I wanted to go do those things with clients. And so some of those clients that I was fishing with, the only thing they wanted to do is fly fish for tarpon or whatever.

You know, I wasn't as interested in that anymore. And we, you know, you have kind of a, a divorce almost with your clients. And, and it's, it's good for both parties.

Like, if that's not what you want to do, they sense that, and they want to go with somebody that, you know, this is, this is what is driving them 24, seven is catching more tarpon on fly, and that's what they want to do. Okay, so there's a better fit. That's fine. You can do that.

And you can, you know, if I wanted to do more prep for the tournaments or, or whatever, I got into bait fishing. Okay, well, we may not be the best match anymore.

That, that's where you get, I think sour is when you want to be doing something else and, and your clients aren't allowing it. Yeah.

You know, at your core. It's interesting because you mentioned early on in the program about, you know, being competitive and being a wrestler.

I, I, I wrestled up into college.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I was a 38, 45, and then a 58 guy, 38er.

Maybe we should go later, dude.

You know, we could sell tickets then.

We're not 38 anymore.

No. And somebody asking, you know, I, I almost. Somebody approached me not long ago about that same proposition, an old wrestler buddy.

And I said, listen, man, I would love to do it, okay? And I would do it, you know, I would. But neither one of us are going to walk away the same.

In some way, shape or form, something's going to happen and it probably won't, won't be good. But you know, at the core is somebody, your core is somebody who's really competitive and probably sneaky quiet about it in your own way.

But you've got to have something that drives you to achievement and if it's high achievement, even better. You know, I just see the look in your eyes right now. I mean, I know that that's true about you and that's what makes you part of who you are.

Yeah, I'm guessing.

Yeah. Well, I think as when it comes to, to guiding, there's a lot of things that you can strive for.

And one of the things that, that I chose to be like the, you know, if you're winning a trophy at the end of the day, is it because you caught the biggest fish and you're competing with the other guides on the dock or is it because your customer walked off of that boat and you, you can see it, they are walking on air, they're going to go home and they're going to tell everybody they know how great a time they had. To me, that was the, that was the prize.

Yeah.

Whether. And, and you know, when you do that enough. Yeah, you're going to be the big, big dog on the dock every now and then.

Not, you don't have to be like the, the, the win is when that customer loved it so much that they want to come, they want to book you immediately for the next year. Yeah, we're coming back. Can we get on the schedule? Yep.

It's funny because our host, you know, I mentioned earlier in the program, you know, these 42 events across the country where these hosts who are volunteers found us and said they wanted to help and then we built a mission around them. And so that's, that, that's going on out there.

Everything from pheasant hunting to, you know, going after deep drops in Alaska as an example, but it's everything that you can imagine it to be.

And many of the hosts are talking about doing it again, meaning doing the next year's mission again before the first one is over, and then you just know you got them by the lips. But that's because you've worked really hard. You built a team that's there, that is satisfying a lot of things that this person needs and wants.

And if you don't do that, they're not coming back.

Yeah.

You know, and that's part of it.

Listen, this has been a great program, and I know you're a very busy man, and I. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking time for us today. I feel really honored, man.

Yeah. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate the. The invitation, and I love what you're doing. You know, the. The wounded warriors.

We've done a lot of different things with different organizations. Love to do something with your organization sometime. Big fan of what you do and big fan of the. Of the. Of the military.

Yep. Well, I'll give you the last shot, because I know. I don't know how much time you have, but I'll. I'll. I'll.

You have any saved rounds, Tom, something that you. You'd like to say? You know, it's. It's yours.

You know, I. I mean, first of all, just. Your audience is. Is probably comprised of a lot of veterans and people that. That appreciate the veterans, and I certainly do.

And veterans don't get thanked enough, and you don't see. You don't see enough thanks going out there. So from the bottom of my heart, that's what.

That's what I appreciate the most, is what you're doing for the veterans and for the veterans themselves, wounded or not. Thank you for doing what you do and the sacrifices and for people protecting us all and our. Our rights. It's. It's really something that I don't.

I don't know, like, you don't see it enough. And it's. It's something that we should all be thankful for every day when we wake up.

Oh, God bless you. How do folks find you? Like, you're all over the place in lots of. Lots of different spaces.

Yeah, just. Well, the easiest probably is Tom Roland podcast on Instagram or I just launched a new website, so it's up there. It has a lot of mistakes.

If you see mistakes, you can write me an email and tell me that the articles.

What's the website? What's the website?

I'm rolling podcast dot com.

Okay, cool.

And so it's. I mean, that's what that pot. That website has been out there for a long time, but I just did a whole revamp of it. By myself. Oh, wow.

Supposed to take about two weeks. It took about three months. So I got into something. It was a little over my head, but I finished it, and it's out there.

There's a lot of mistakes on it right now, but it's better than it was before, so. Tomrowlandpodcast.com you can always look up Saltwater Experience. That's a TV show. We're on TV. We're on Discovery Channel. And that's all happening.

And there's plenty of ways to contact me on both of those.

Well, again, quite an honor. Thank you for your time, and I hope someday we can meet and fish together. It'd be really cool.

Thank you. Yeah, that'd be really great. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. All right, Tom. Thank you.

Thank you.

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