Join host Marvin Cash on The Articulate Fly for a captivating episode with Olympic skier, angler and podcaster Andy Mill. Andy generously shares life lessons and wisdom from his skiing, angling and broadcasting journey. From his earliest fishing memory in Laramie, Wyoming, to his transformation into a renowned tarpon angler, Andy's stories are both inspiring and insightful.

Andy discusses the importance of mentors like Chuck Fothergill, Ernie Schwiebert and Harry Spear, and how they shaped his angling skills. He also delves into the mental and physical preparation required to excel in both skiing and tarpon fishing. Andy's journey from being a competitive skier to winning prestigious tarpon tournaments is a testament to his relentless drive and passion for excellence.

Whether you're interested in the intricacies of saltwater fly fishing or the mindset of a champion, this episode is packed with valuable insights and anecdotes. Andy's reflections on life, family and the pursuit of dreams are sure to resonate with listeners.

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Helpful Episode Chapters

0:00 Introduction

4:15 Mentors and Impactful Figures

10:02 Transition from Skiing to Tarpon Fishing

15:05 Attraction to Saltwater and Tarpon

17:16 Definition of a Great Tarpon Angler

22:10 Challenges for Anglers with Limited Experience

24:13 Journey from Starting to Winning Tournaments

31:29 Mental Toughness and Preparation

37:00 Fishing Against Yourself versus Other People

46:48 Chasing Dreams and Preserving History

Intro: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly.

Intro: On this episode, I'm joined by Olympic skier, angler, and podcaster, Andy Mill.

Intro: Andy generously shares life lessons and wisdom from his skiing,

Intro: angling, and broadcasting journey.

Intro: I think you're really going to enjoy this one. But before we get to the interview,

Intro: just a couple of housekeeping items.

Intro: If you like the podcast, please tell a friend, and please subscribe and leave

Intro: us a rating and review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out.

Intro: And we've received several listener questions asking about the best way to support the show.

Intro: One way is to join our community on Patreon and make a single or recurring donation.

Intro: Our community has some great benefits like discounts on tying materials,

Intro: guide trips, and more. Check out the link in the show notes for more details.

Intro: And we recently released an interview-only show, The Long Haul with the Articulate Fly.

Intro: So if you prefer to listen to the Articulate Fly without the fishing reports,

Intro: just search The Long Haul in your favorite podcatcher.

Intro: Now, on to the interview.

Marvin: Well, Andy, welcome to the Articulate Fly.

Andy: Well, my pleasure to be here, and thanks for the invite.

Marvin: Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. And, you know, one of the things we like to

Marvin: do, we have a tradition on the Articulate Fly. we like to ask all of our guests

Marvin: to share their earliest fishing memory.

Andy: Oh.

Andy: I just remember a photograph. I don't really remember actually catching the fish.

Andy: I was probably maybe five or six years old. The photograph of me with a fish I was gutting.

Andy: I remember with my father in Laramie, Wyoming, he was giving me a piggyback ride. We were fishing.

Andy: It was getting late, and you could see the cast flies flying.

Andy: I remember that. The actual fishing part, I don't really remember much about that aspect of it.

Andy: I just remembered I just always loved doing all the different things I did as

Andy: a kid. Nothing really stood out.

Andy: But in saltwater fly fishing, those kind of memories you'll never forget because

Andy: we're talking really big fish, really powerful fish.

Andy: And when something like a tarpon, he opens his mouth, eat your fly,

Andy: it knocks your teeth out of your head.

Andy: I mean, it's like, oh, my God, how could you ever forget that, you know?

Andy: But I've always loved fishing. And I grew up here in Aspen, Colorado,

Andy: once my family moved here in 1960.

Andy: And I learned how to tie flies. I saw this fly line going across space.

Andy: And the great Ernie Sweebert was in town giving these clinics for the country

Andy: store. I was on my bike going to baseball practice, and I veered over there,

Andy: and all of a sudden, I had a fly rod in my hand.

Andy: I think I was probably eight or maybe nine years old.

Andy: From that point forward, I was a fly fisherman.

Andy: I was a fly fisherman. I loved the whole fly line part of the whole thing.

Andy: Then once I tied my first fly and I caught a fish with my first fly that I tied, it was game over.

Marvin: Yeah, it's a great thing, too. You know, it's funny, you know,

Marvin: trying to explain to kind of younger people today what it was like to learn to fly fish.

Marvin: And, you know, there was no YouTube and you had to read books.

Marvin: And, you know, I tell my boys I sent away, you know, self-addressed stamped

Marvin: envelopes to get catalogs. And it was really just kind of a neat time to kind

Marvin: of be outdoors and do those things.

Andy: Yeah, for sure. You know, you asked me the first time, my first memories,

Andy: I don't remember the very first time because I was so young,

Andy: but the first time I saw that, that trout eat my renegade that I had tied,

Andy: that was probably a big light switch.

Andy: And the saltwater switch was the first time I saw a tarpon eat my fly,

Andy: you know, so both freshwater and saltwater, it's all about the take.

Andy: It's all about the bite, you know, then, you know, you're in the game.

Marvin: Yeah. It's It's interesting, too. And, you know, you've been fortunate.

Marvin: You had a really long career in fishing even before you were kind of officially in fishing.

Marvin: And you've been able to fish and be mentored by a lot of people.

Marvin: So I won't say ask you to list them all, but are there a couple that kind of

Marvin: stand out as being particularly impactful on your development as an angler?

Andy: Chuck Fothergill, he had a very famous, well-known name in this country.

Andy: He first started learning or teaching how to put weight on your leader with

Andy: nymphs. He taught me how to tie flies.

Andy: And then the great Ernie Schwiebert taught me how to fly cast.

Andy: In the saltwater world, it was Harry Spear. He and Steve Hoff had won more saltwater

Andy: fly rod tournaments than anyone in the lower keys.

Andy: And so harry was my mentor i

Andy: fished with him 40 40 days a

Andy: year before for seven years before

Andy: i ever fished a tournament and i didn't realize

Andy: it at the time but he was grooming me for to be a tournament angler he knew

Andy: he was very adamant about about how to do things the difference between right

Andy: and wrong um i had other great people in my life like lefty cray uh flip pallet Steve Huff.

Andy: I had all these icons in the periphery of my world, but they're not mentors per se.

Andy: I think Lefty was a great mentor in the fact, not necessarily a mentor,

Andy: but he was very inspirational in that he taught the world of saltwater fly fishing,

Andy: how celebrities should act.

Andy: He was just so genuine and real

Andy: and common and but but

Andy: bigger than life he did everything wrote all the books the casting the humor

Andy: but he was always so humble and kind that's what i take from him flip palette

Andy: brought me to the saltwater world because i was a skier here in aspen well after

Andy: my athletic competitive years,

Andy: but I couldn't wait for Saturday morning to see Flip and his show,

Andy: Walker's Gate Chronicles. I wanted to be on his boat.

Andy: Oh my God, he was everywhere. And then when I finally met him,

Andy: it was like, it was so profound.

Andy: It was like me meeting Jean-Claude Keeley because this was Flip, you know, my hero.

Andy: And then many years later, I had written a book.

Andy: It was kind of a funny, you know, come to Jesus moment for me and an pinch me, oh my God moment.

Andy: I was eventually well down the road. Many years later, I was doing a tarpon

Andy: presentation at the International Game Fish Association in the big lobby.

Andy: And there were about, I don't know, maybe 100 people in there.

Andy: And in the audience was Stu App, Lefty Cray, Flip Pallet.

Andy: And I'm looking out. Here I am trying to tell them my methodology.

Andy: And then two hours later, we went across the street at Bass Pro Shops,

Andy: and we're all signing autographs. I'd written a book by then.

Andy: And I look down the line, and I'm looking. Here's Chico Fernandez.

Andy: Here's Lefty. Here's Flip.

Andy: There's Lefty. It was just like, oh, my God, this is my world now.

Andy: All of a sudden, that was my world. And to ever think that I was going to go

Andy: from an Olympic skier to having written a book and speaking about tarpon and

Andy: winning tarpon tournaments,

Andy: I mean, it's like somebody hit me with a magic wand and placed me down the road in that realm.

Marvin: Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, it's interesting, too. We were talking before

Marvin: we started recording that, you know, we met. I mean, it was kind of amazing.

Marvin: I tell people the story, and I'm just like, it's crazy. They're like,

Marvin: how was Edison? I was like, well, I met Andy Mill. They're like, no way.

Marvin: And, you know, I say, you know, I was literally walking the show.

Marvin: I think it was on that Friday with David Blinken.

Marvin: And he introduced me, and you graciously agreed to be on the podcast.

Marvin: But I thought the interesting thing, we started talking about,

Marvin: you know, being a competitive skier and how it translated.

Marvin: And you're like, well, I just never thought of myself as a great skier,

Marvin: right? I was a good skier, but I became a great tarpon angler.

Marvin: And I thought that was an incredibly fascinating thing to say because,

Marvin: I mean, I think of you as being a great skier and a great tarpon angler.

Marvin: And I was wondering if you could kind of explain that a little bit for our listeners

Marvin: because I think it's so interesting.

Andy: Here's the deal.

Andy: It's really hard to ski in the Olympics. They only take four Americans to ski in the downhill.

Andy: So I was ranked the number one American downhiller for nine years.

Andy: I skied in two Olympics and four world championships.

Andy: Great skiers win the Olympics. If you don't win, how can you be great?

Andy: In my book, for the average guy, of course I was great.

Andy: I represented the country.

Andy: But I didn't realize the difference between great and good until I became a tarpon fisherman.

Andy: My last year skiing, I was finally on the cusp of winning. I got fifth in the

Andy: pre-Olympics. I got sixth in the 76th Olympics.

Andy: I was right on the edge. My last year as an athlete, I finally got a great mentor.

Andy: I got great skis. I finally got to the point that I can win.

Andy: And then I hit a fence in Switzerland and I broke my neck, my back,

Andy: my leg, and my ski career was over.

Andy: As I mentioned to you earlier, I basically ran out of body.

Andy: I'd already had like 10 knee operations. Now, I had a broken neck and a broken back.

Andy: Once I got into tarpon fishing, and it's comparing apples to oranges because

Andy: you can't compare skiing in the Olympics to winning the gold cup.

Andy: They're completely two different things. It was so much easier to win the gold

Andy: cup than it is to win the Olympics because you have all these countries,

Andy: the best skiers in all these countries.

Andy: It's a high-end professional sport.

Andy: People are being paid a lot of money to win the Olympics.

Andy: But in the fly fishing world, winning the gold cup was like winning the Olympics.

Andy: So once I started to taste, you know, victory, success with Harry Spear being

Andy: my mentor, we fished my first tournament together.

Andy: I got second in the bonefish, spring bonefish fly tournament. We won the fall fly.

Andy: I got third in the first tarpon tournament with Harry. It was the gold cup.

Andy: Then I started understanding the difference between winning and doing well.

Andy: And once I tasted that, there was no let up.

Andy: It was like, since I never won as a skier, as a fisherman, it was like,

Andy: I am not going to allow myself to lose.

Andy: And I wasn't quite there yet because I won a bonefish tournament,

Andy: but I hadn't won a tarpon tournament.

Andy: But once I realized I was knocking on that door, I got fourth in the first tournament.

Andy: I won the very first golden fly tournament I fished in. I won the first permit

Andy: tournament I fished, the only, the Dell Brown.

Andy: But once I tasted that, it was like there was no let up.

Andy: And the difference or the years, the span of years with my victories were 18 years.

Andy: My first one to my last one. But I feel like I did not sleep for 15 years.

Andy: I was so driven. In the winter, I was like tying flies and tying leisure and

Andy: pulling on tippets and pulling on scales.

Andy: I was a maniac. yet but i felt like that was the difference in really becoming

Andy: as great as i became as a fisherman,

Andy: it was i was i was relentless but as a skier i was too young i didn't have a

Andy: great mentor i didn't not i didn't have the the understanding of what it takes

Andy: to win i was just trying to do well,

Andy: but but like the european skiers and some of the other americans once the american

Andy: team got from from out of behind the eight ball, then we had a chance to win,

Andy: but it took a long time. It was right at the end of my career.

Andy: But if you take a look at fishing in tournaments, it's almost like an oxymoron.

Andy: It's a contrast in what we should be doing as fishermen.

Andy: I just happened to become a tournament fisherman, and it was very,

Andy: very important for me to win tournaments.

Marvin: Yeah. And was that something that, you know, kind of cracking the code and having

Marvin: your body run out in skiing that kind of haunted you, that gave you that drive?

Andy: I didn't learn how to win until I got hurt. That last year, I finally realized what it took to win.

Andy: I reapplied myself. I rededicated my life to skiing.

Andy: And I realized I had just maybe a couple years left. And I went all in.

Andy: But I never did that before. I was too immature. I was too young.

Andy: I skied in my first Olympics when I was 23.

Andy: I was not mature enough.

Andy: I was distracted by the lifestyle of Aspen, which was on fire back in the 70s.

Andy: Aspen was a generation of innocence.

Andy: Sexual revolution was taking place. It was a total anarchy of this country post-Vietnam.

Andy: And I wanted to take a big bite out of that apple, and I did.

Andy: But in doing so, I sacrificed that as an athlete.

Andy: But in my later years, I was married to Chrissy. I had kids.

Andy: I had my TV show that I was producing and hosting. And now I had a chance to

Andy: fish these tournaments. And it gave me a complete understanding of perspective

Andy: from being a skier to now a fisherman.

Andy: And I knew the difference. And I knew what it was going to take for me to win.

Marvin: Yeah. And I imagine, too, you also knew that that opportunity wasn't going to last forever, right?

Andy: I didn't think about that.

Marvin: Really?

Andy: I never thought I was going to be 71.

Marvin: Fair enough.

Andy: You just think this road's going to last forever, you know?

Andy: But I couldn't have put more effort into what I did to win tournaments than I did.

Andy: And looking back, I didn't have that as a skier, but you don't get second chances.

Andy: And so I was very lucky to have a second chance as a fisherman,

Andy: and I count my blessings for that.

Marvin: And what was it that, you know, I know you grew up fishing for trout,

Marvin: but, you know, what was it that attracted you to the salt and tarpon in particular?

Andy: Well, I think it really stems, you know, initially with Flip Pallet and his TV show,

Andy: you know, catching these great fish on flies, you know, sailfish and marlin

Andy: and bonefish and carp and just the adventure of running in a little 16-foot

Andy: skiff out over the cross,

Andy: the surface of the ocean and catching these giants, right?

Andy: Trout are not giants. I skied at 80 miles an hour for a living.

Andy: I wanted to catch big fish that would scare the shit out of me that was what

Andy: I wanted to do trout don't scare me you know that's.

Marvin: Funny and so did it you know you know and I know you went into bone fishing

Marvin: permit but does that all do you also like have an interest in like catching

Marvin: makos and sailfish and billfish on the fly or is that not interest you you.

Andy: Know what I've caught marlin on a fly I've cut you know a number of sailfish

Andy: on a fly um that kind of stuff doesn't really interest me a whole lot because

Andy: you're waiting for the fish to hit your teaser you you tease them in and you do the bait and switch,

Andy: that's cool marlin are huge i get seasick that's the biggest problem i have

Andy: um but i cut gts in the seychelles i am i am more of a hunter and my son and

Andy: i hunt uh elk in the fall with bone arrows,

Andy: we've been doing that for i don't know close to i've been doing it close to maybe 15 years,

Andy: maybe a little bit more 20 years when we fish in the salt we hunt and now i

Andy: find myself hunting for trout so when i go trout fishing i'm looking for a fish

Andy: that's feeding on the surface or i may find a riffle and try to find a fish

Andy: that's feeding in that riffle on nymphs,

Andy: and i'll try to catch that one fish i don't want to catch 15 or 20 or 30 fish

Andy: i want to catch that one fish.

Andy: Now I'm riveted. I see that animal right there, and I want him.

Andy: That's where I get my fill as a trout fisherman.

Marvin: Got it. Andy, how would you define what being a great tarpon angler means?

Andy: Being a great tarpon angler is an angler who can catch the fish that doesn't want to be caught.

Andy: Not everybody's going to graduate or gravitate to tournaments.

Andy: And I just want to put that aside.

Andy: That was my bag, you know, and I don't want to say that you're not going to

Andy: be a great tarpon fisherman unless you win the gold cup. That is, that is total false.

Andy: There's a lot of fit, a lot of great fishermen out there that have never,

Andy: never fished a tournament, but that was my, that was my baseline for, for greatness.

Andy: But when you put that term baseline to the side, a great guide is the guide

Andy: who can find the fish that doesn't want to be found.

Andy: And when you put that great guide with an angler that can catch the fish that

Andy: doesn't want to be found, that's a home run.

Andy: You are going to empty the ocean when you put those two guys together.

Andy: And so when I was fishing tournaments, I wanted to be with that guide who can

Andy: find the fish that doesn't want to be found. And those guys wanted me.

Andy: And that's why we ended up doing so well.

Marvin: Yeah, that's neat. It's always interesting Cause I mean, I always,

Marvin: you know, I put a lot of pressure on myself when I fish with guides,

Marvin: cause I always want to, um, fish as an extension of the guide, right.

Marvin: You know, cause there's only like, he can't catch the fish for you,

Marvin: right. He can help you put the boat in the right place, find the fish.

Marvin: But, um, I always think that there's a kind of, it's almost like running a relay

Marvin: and then he passes the baton to you.

Marvin: Um, and so that's always kind of my goal when I'm on the water is to kind of

Marvin: honor that commitment and all that time and energy and thought that the guide

Marvin: put into creating that situation.

Andy: Let me tell you, that's hopeful thinking. And I'll tell you why.

Andy: The average saltwater fisherman does not fish that often to be able to do that for that guide.

Andy: And casting dexterity, right there. They're really good fishermen,

Andy: really good saltwater fishermen.

Andy: They don't have casting dexterity.

Andy: Casting dexterity is regardless of the position of the boat and the direction

Andy: of the wind, whether the fish is at 9 o'clock,

Andy: 1 o'clock over here, 3 o'clock, a backhand cast into a 20-mile-an-hour wind,

Andy: forehand cast over your head.

Andy: So your head's between your rod and your fly line where you

Andy: where you cut that fly line in the middle of the boat between the

Andy: guide and that angler making a forehand cast out

Andy: there at nine nine o'clock at 70 feet with the wind blowing 20

Andy: miles an hour right into your face you can't make a forehand cast because you're

Andy: going to pull the fly right into your face you can't make a backhand cast so

Andy: you're going to hook your guide so that forehand cast that rod's got to be high

Andy: and when When you come back with that backhand cast, that fly is coming over your left shoulder.

Andy: Cutting the boat, cutting the string, casting between the boat,

Andy: not very many people can do that.

Andy: And it takes years. A lot of guides don't even know how to teach this stuff.

Andy: So when you fall short on the bow of your boat, you got to remember,

Andy: most people fish tarpon maybe only a week a year.

Andy: It's so hard to do well with your casting without being on the water.

Andy: It's hard to learn in a park. Most people, when the guide says you need to practice,

Andy: need to go to the park and practice, right?

Andy: They don't know how to fix mistakes. They don't even know what a mistake looks like.

Andy: So how do you practice? It's like telling somebody to go to the golf range and

Andy: practice. They've never had a lesson. Right?

Andy: So that's the issue with saltwater anglers, is that it's really hard.

Andy: It's really hard, especially if you, let's just say you fish two weeks a year.

Andy: They're doing the best they can with what they've got.

Andy: And sometimes I feel sorry for them because they want to get better,

Andy: But unless they fish really a lot for a long time, it's really hard to get really, really good.

Marvin: Yeah, I think that's kind of the whole, you know, I always say people never

Marvin: fish as much as they want to.

Marvin: So then the question is, given how much you can fish, how good can you really get?

Andy: Right. But you can study on the internet how to double haul,

Andy: how to make a backhand cast.

Andy: You know, there's a lot of information on the internet.

Andy: That so most people when they see a tailing loop they don't even know what a tailing loop is,

Andy: so how do you fix a tailing loop so you

Andy: got two problems they don't they can't identify

Andy: it and they don't know how to fix it you know so all i all i can say you know

Andy: is that keep the enthusiasm up ask your guides you know um i'm you know and

Andy: when people guides get hard on their anglers it's I was like, dude,

Andy: don't you understand that these anglers are doing the best they can?

Andy: They're doing everything they can to catch that fish. So you can't get mad at them. You can't.

Marvin: Yeah. So Andy, can you share the specific moment that you realized that you

Marvin: had become a great tarpon angler?

Andy: I knew I was pretty good fairly quickly because I could cast well.

Andy: I had really good eyes. I had a great mentor.

Andy: I didn't, I don't, I didn't think I was proven until I won until I,

Andy: you know, I always felt like everybody can get lucky and win once.

Andy: But when I started dominating and winning, you know, I won the gold cup five

Andy: out of six years, you know, but right now my son is better than I will ever be.

Andy: My son is incredible, but he, And he's fished a few tournaments.

Andy: He's gotten second and third in some of the tournaments. But it's not that important to him.

Andy: But to see somebody see his eyes, oh, my God, young eyes.

Andy: Passing ability is crazy. You know, look, I was really great at one time,

Andy: but I'm not great anymore. I'm a solid good.

Marvin: And how long? So, you know, I read the story like, you know,

Marvin: you went on your first tarpon fishing trip, got the bug. How long was that journey

Marvin: from there to winning your first tournament?

Andy: Well, I fished with Harry Spear, who was my mentor, for seven years.

Andy: A lot. 40 days a year for seven years. That's a lot.

Andy: More than most people will ever be able to fish because they have jobs,

Andy: they have families. I was very fortunate to be able to have that kind of free time.

Andy: I won my first Golden Fly. I would say about eight years before I won,

Andy: but it was only the second year I was fishing tournaments.

Andy: But that's kind of unfair because I felt like for a long time,

Andy: I had that tournament mindset.

Andy: It takes a long time to get really good at anything. This is,

Andy: say, matching the hatch, tying your own flies, weeding trout water,

Andy: being able to figure that stuff out.

Andy: I'm not a great trout fisherman. I'm not. I can catch fish, but I'm not great.

Andy: Oh, my God. I'm just okay at it. My son is really good.

Marvin: Yeah. So it's interesting. So, I mean, I was doing the math in my head.

Marvin: I mean, you spent over a year of fishing days on the water for tarpon,

Marvin: right, before you won your first cup.

Andy: Yeah. I mean, by the time I was fishing tournaments, I was really good.

Marvin: Yeah.

Andy: I wasn't great yet, but I was pretty solid.

Marvin: And we've talked about this a couple times kind of just in phone calls before the interview.

Marvin: You, you know, really curious about how, you know, you learned a lot of lessons

Marvin: skiing, but kind of how you took

Marvin: that preparation regime and applied it to becoming a great tarpon angler.

Andy: Here's the deal. When I was on the Olympic team, I was 23 years old.

Andy: I did not understand the kind of discipline I needed.

Andy: I figured out discipline after my ski career.

Andy: I didn't figure out how to win as a skier until my very last year as a skier,

Andy: just before I got hurt. I got fifth in the Olympics.

Andy: No, I got fifth in the pre-Olympics, and I got sixth in the Olympics.

Andy: But I still didn't have the understanding of how to be a really high-end professional

Andy: as a skier. We were a bunch of amateurs.

Andy: The team was pretty far behind the eight ball. We didn't have great equipment.

Andy: I'll give you a prime example about equipment.

Andy: One year, we get to Val d'Isere, France. It's the first World Cup.

Andy: And Erwin Stricker on the Italian team, he had this rubberized downhill suit.

Andy: He had this fairing on the back of his helmet. He had bent ski poles.

Andy: He had a fairing on his legs behind his knees. And I looked at my roommate,

Andy: Carl Anderson, and I said, dude, we are toast.

Andy: I'll give you an example of what that means.

Andy: A rubberized downhill suit. We had downhill suits that still breathed the porosity of the fabric.

Andy: Versus a rubberized suit, that's a two-second difference just in aerodynamics

Andy: in a two-minute downhill.

Andy: Two seconds. When you're traveling, so we were averaging 66 miles per hour.

Andy: So if you're going 60 miles an hour, that's 88 feet per second times two.

Andy: That's what we were giving up just with the difference of our downhill suit.

Andy: So this whole sphere of professionalism and preparedness and expertise and knowledge

Andy: was so far above our heads. We had no idea.

Andy: I had no idea at 23 how to be a professional athlete against these Europeans

Andy: that were getting paid a lot of money, great coaches, great training regimes.

Andy: Jeans you know um but as

Andy: a fisherman you know once i got to be a

Andy: fisherman i knew what it was going to take to win because i

Andy: didn't learn all that until my very last year as a skier i was

Andy: on the on the uh the u.s ski team for what 10

Andy: years but my last year i finally understood

Andy: about i finally understood about dedicating my

Andy: life to winning training every

Andy: day in the summer getting really fit

Andy: getting really strong having the best skis that rosinol had

Andy: available for me having a great coach that taught

Andy: me how to move to the inside with my hip you know hip angulation versus knee

Andy: and it's a technical thing where you can put your hip your knee and your ankle

Andy: in the same plane so at 80 miles an hour in a corner you have much more stability

Andy: than having the knee outside of that plane.

Andy: Now I was stable. I could make one smooth arc and I had great skis.

Andy: Now I could compete against the Europeans. Now I had a chance to win.

Andy: And that's what I learned over that 10-year period as a ski team athlete.

Andy: I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what it took to win.

Andy: I didn't have anybody helping me. I was not smart enough to get it.

Andy: So when I made that transformation from skiing to fishing and winning tournaments

Andy: as a fisherman, I knew the difference.

Andy: I knew the difference, what it was going to take to win. And I was fishing against

Andy: a lot of guys that were not previously, you know, skiing in the Olympics and

Andy: skiing at a professional level or any athletes.

Andy: They were great fishermen. They were doing the best I could.

Andy: But I think I had an edge because I understood the difference between doing well and winning.

Marvin: And how did that sort of break down? I think we talked before we started rolling,

Marvin: too, you know, kind of thinking about like there's the physical aspect.

Marvin: There's the mental aspect. We were talking earlier about how you try to perfect

Marvin: everything in the chain so that there's no weak link.

Andy: Right, exactly right. So let's just say there's a ginormous puzzle with a thousand

Andy: million little pieces to that puzzle.

Andy: And if you're a sportsman at a high level trying to win against the best in

Andy: the world, you have all these small little nuances,

Andy: little pieces of the puzzle that have to be perfectly polished before you're ready to win.

Andy: And those pieces might be a backhand cast, you know, casting between the boat.

Andy: How do you feed a fish? Bump, bump, bump. How do you talk to a fish?

Andy: How do you see, how do you know what that fish is going to do before he does it?

Andy: That takes miles and miles and miles. And those are the things that I was really concentrating on.

Andy: The smallest pieces of the puzzle could get you that win.

Andy: Because if you have a piece that's not polished, that might expose itself in a certain situation.

Andy: And the great fishermen, the great tournament fishermen, whether it be freshwater

Andy: guys, Euro nymphing, competing against all the other teams around the world,

Andy: they have the same issues.

Andy: Everything is refined.

Marvin: And how do you, in some ways, that's sort of the physical stuff.

Marvin: How do you kind of work on the mental component and prepare for the things that

Marvin: you can't control, right?

Marvin: Like, so you try to take everything you possibly can and get your arms around it.

Marvin: But how do you, you know, become mentally tough and prepare for the unknown

Marvin: to have a chance to be elite?

Andy: To be mentally tough, you cannot lose your concentration for one minute. it.

Andy: When it's a dark, cloudy day, you might only have one shot.

Andy: But if you're not grinding, staring into the ocean, looking,

Andy: looking for that little difference of color, whatever it might be,

Andy: you might miss your only shot.

Andy: And you have to be able to make up great distances

Andy: on a lousy day you have

Andy: to be able to catch fish when no one else is going to catch fish like

Andy: i always was hoping for wind windy conditions like an open blue sky so i can

Andy: see but windy conditions because i knew that at least 50 of the field is going

Andy: to go away when it's blowing 20 miles an hour they can't make that cast but

Andy: and i'll tell you one of the the mental things that

Andy: really came up a year after I made a mistake.

Andy: It was at a gold cup and I had a fish come up and it was the last day of the

Andy: tournament. I had a chance to win. We were in contention.

Andy: This tarpon came up and sipped my fly like this. Very, very, very slow bite.

Andy: And it takes so much composure to wait for that fish to shut its mouth,

Andy: to wait to feel the weight of the fish in your stripping hand here before you

Andy: set the hook. and I slid that fly out of its mouth and I missed it.

Andy: It bothered me immensely that full year because when you lose,

Andy: you don't have a chance to win again for another year because these termites,

Andy: the gold cup, the gold fly, there's only one chance a year. We only have three tarpon termites a year.

Andy: So when you lose, it's like it drives you crazy. You have to wait a whole another year.

Andy: So the following year.

Andy: This is kind of an interesting story because I'm not superstitious.

Andy: It was the fifth day of the Gold Cup, the five-day tournament.

Andy: And we're on the starting grid getting ready to take off. I may have told this story before.

Andy: But on the starting grid, what happens is you have five boats for every two minutes.

Andy: You have a 25-boat team, one angler per boat, one guide per boat.

Andy: So we're getting ready to – the gun's about ready to go off.

Andy: And Kenny Collette, an Isla Mirada guide, was fishing with a Japanese guide.

Andy: And they had won the Gold Cup twice. They were really good.

Andy: And Kenny yells over to me, goes, Andy, you got to move your truck.

Andy: I go, what are you talking about? I knew he was messing with me.

Andy: I said, why? He said, your truck's in a bad parking spot.

Andy: He said, you're normally in the top two or three going into the last day.

Andy: You're dead last. and I knew it had been a bad week we had fish falling off

Andy: bad weather I said are you serious he said yes.

Andy: So I said, Timmy, take me to the dock. And my guide, Timmy Hoover,

Andy: he really didn't want to do this. He's like complaining. I said,

Andy: take me to the dock. I got to move my truck.

Andy: So I go and move my truck. We get in the boat. We're starting to run out of the marina there.

Andy: I said, Timmy, today is the best day we've had. It's a great weather day.

Andy: Big sun. You find me the fish. We're going to catch them. And we're going to win.

Andy: So we were on the ocean. And I caught three tarpon on the ocean.

Andy: They were weight fish, over 70 pounds. Then we went into this basin where the

Andy: year before where there was this fish laying there and I slid the fly out of his mouth too soon.

Andy: We go into this basin, we can't find a fish. We get up to where we had seen

Andy: this fish the year before, laying in the same position, laid up.

Andy: I slide my fly in there, same fly.

Andy: Start sliding it. This fish moves up, same bite, same bite.

Andy: And I'd been waiting a year to do this again, never knowing I was going to have this opportunity.

Andy: This fish slid over, opened its mouth, had this real, real slow bite,

Andy: exactly the same way as the year before. I waited.

Andy: I waited. I started sliding my fly and it gets tight.

Andy: 115 pound fish, we caught him. I said, Timmy, we need to catch one more fish.

Andy: We run around the back country, go into this other basin, we catch one more,

Andy: run home, we win the tournament.

Andy: But these are the type of mental things that will drive you crazy when you make a mistake.

Andy: If you're just fun fishing, you blow it off, but when it costs you a tournament,

Andy: these are the things you think about that make you better.

Andy: When you can't sleep because you've made a mistake, when you can't let it go,

Andy: when you demand perfection.

Andy: These are the type of things that bothered me. These are the type of things

Andy: that I would never let go.

Andy: This is why I feel like I didn't sleep 15 years because I was so possessed.

Marvin: And it's interesting too, because we were talking before we started recording

Marvin: as well about, you know, whether you're fishing against yourself or you're fishing against other people.

Andy: In a tournament, you're always fishing against the field because you want to win.

Andy: But ultimately, you're always fishing against yourself.

Andy: Because as a prime example, I was playing golf with my father-in-law yesterday.

Andy: And he was saying, you know, he's like an 11 handicap. And he's saying,

Andy: well, I win all these tournaments with my buddies.

Andy: I said, well, are you trying to fix your mistakes and get better with what you do?

Andy: Do you want to be like a three or a scratch golfer, three handicap, five handicap?

Andy: You're 12, but you're okay with that because you're beating your buddies.

Andy: If you really want to get good at something, you can't grade yourself on the

Andy: curve because those guys all suck.

Andy: You have to demand greatness, you know, for yourself.

Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting. And, you know, we, when we spoke in Edison,

Marvin: or might've been on the phone call after Edison, and you had mentioned to me,

Marvin: you know, you, and you mentioned in the interview earlier that you, you know,

Marvin: you weren't, you know, happy necessarily being a ski broadcaster and that this

Marvin: great door opened for you when the outdoor life network called you and you were

Marvin: We're able to kind of pivot out of the ski world and have this entirely new beginning, right,

Marvin: in fly fishing in a very different way that I think you found more fulfilling.

Marvin: I was wondering if you could share a little bit of that with our listeners.

Andy: When I got hurt in 1981 with that fall in Switzerland, it ended my ski career.

Andy: I broke my neck, my back, my leg, and all the ligaments in my right knee.

Andy: It's like, okay, what am I going to do now for the rest of my life?

Andy: I don't have an education. I graduated from high school. never went to college and I thought,

Andy: How am I going to make a living? And I thought, the only way I can make a living is through exposure.

Andy: So I started this TV show called Ski with Andy Mill. It was a barter syndicated show.

Andy: To make a long story short, I sold advertising. It was a five-minute show.

Andy: I distributed it all around the country.

Andy: I was the director of skiing here in Aspen.

Andy: But my five-minute show, I was getting paid from all the products I was wearing.

Andy: Boots, blinding, skis, sunglasses, clothing.

Andy: I was making a lot of money with that little show.

Andy: And now I'm also doing the broadcast work for CBS in the Olympics.

Andy: I covered Albertville in 92 and Lillehammer in 94.

Andy: I was the director of skiing here in Aspen. I was on top of the world, so to speak, right?

Andy: But I was flatline. My life was not moving up.

Andy: I was no longer an athlete trying to win stuff. I was never pushing myself personally.

Andy: I was maintaining. I was making a lot of money, but it was flat.

Andy: And I hated broadcasting because I was speaking about something I wanted to be doing.

Andy: And now all of a sudden, I'm in this life where I'm making money.

Andy: I was a professional, but there was nothing exciting to it.

Andy: And then I did a couple of specials for the Outdoor Life network,

Andy: and I was a host on a couple of shows, and they wanted me to host a fishing show.

Andy: I said, I have no time, none.

Andy: I am tapped. But I'll tell you what, you match what I make as a skier,

Andy: all my contracts, all of them.

Andy: You give me that amount of money, you give me a five-year contract,

Andy: and if I produce this TV show, all the money I save on the production costs, I get to keep as my bonus.

Andy: So now, all of a sudden, I leave skiing fully.

Andy: I am now producing fishing shows, and I was making about $750,000 fishing.

Andy: And now I get to fish all over the world with the best guides in the world,

Andy: telling these great stories.

Andy: And I was making a lot of money. It was a massive home run for me because now

Andy: I was excited to wake up in the morning.

Andy: I was going to go fish the Seychelles. I was fishing St.

Andy: Thomas for 800-pound marlin, Guatemala, Costa Rica. I did a TV show in the the

Andy: Arctic circle with, with former president Bush.

Andy: And now all of a sudden I start doing this tarpon thing and now I get to go fish tournaments.

Andy: My life is, is climbing, climbing the mountain again. It's the greatest thing

Andy: that ever happened to me.

Marvin: Yeah. And, you know, why do you think people sometimes get stuck kind of flat? Right.

Marvin: And, you know, cause it's an interesting thing and it's, you know,

Marvin: you know, when I kind of, so my, you know, I try to kind of coach my boys growing

Marvin: up and talk about, you know, finding those things that make you passionate,

Marvin: right? That'll give you that energy.

Marvin: You know, why do you think so many people just kind of look up in late middle

Marvin: age and they kind of have wasted 30 or 40 years of their life?

Andy: Look, I think a lot of people get married too young. They have kids too young.

Andy: They have bills they got to pay.

Andy: Man, they're stuck. They're stuck for a long time.

Andy: There's no freedom. They don't have, they're not financially free.

Andy: The wife's got a job. You've got a job. The kids are driving them crazy.

Andy: Get home. Everybody's hungry.

Andy: And sometimes you don't even have a job you like.

Andy: Got to find work. Right. And when I look around, um, I see that a lot in a lot

Andy: of places, you know, So, and then two, how do you take that gamble?

Andy: How do you take that gamble? Like I said, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going

Andy: to go fishing. I want to work in a fishing store.

Andy: And I'll give you an example. My father was like that.

Andy: He was in the lumber business his entire life. He never had two nickels to rub together.

Andy: But he got a great job here in Aspen running the lumber yard,

Andy: pushed forward a number of years.

Andy: He was working in Denver as a lumberman.

Andy: I don't think he really liked his job. He was not a very happy man because he was kind of stuck.

Andy: And he came here when he was like 60-some years old, 66, I think it was.

Andy: I taught him how to nymph fish. I taught him how to catch fish.

Andy: He went back to Denver and quit his job like four months later.

Andy: And he got a job at at at um what

Andy: the hell is the name of that um well it's

Andy: a little fishing store in in littleton colorado anglers all my dad was tying

Andy: flies for anglers all working the desk and he was ecstatic because he could

Andy: fish on the weekends and he was tying flies anyway i used to bussing a lot of

Andy: times. I said, dad, what kind of flies are you tying?

Andy: He said, I'm tying San Juan worms and eggs.

Andy: I said, dad, those are not flies, dude. You're not a fly tire.

Andy: But he was living large again because he was on the river and he was talking

Andy: to fishermen and it changed his life entirely. But he didn't have a lot of bills at the time.

Andy: He was later in his years in life, close to retirement.

Andy: So I think he's talking about people getting stuck.

Andy: I was very fortunate. I was stuck at a high level because I was making a lot of money.

Andy: I was doing really cool things that no one ever dreams of being,

Andy: a broadcaster for the Olympics, the director of skiing in Aspen.

Andy: But me personally, I was flatlined.

Marvin: It's an interesting thing. I know when I coach my boys, I always talk.

Marvin: I'm a Generation X guy. Growing up in the 70s, I feel like we can a little bit

Marvin: more rough and tumble maybe than millennials and younger kids.

Marvin: And I think some of that is a function of, you know, growing up and having grandparents

Marvin: that came of age in the Depression and just a different sensibility.

Marvin: And it's kind of an interesting thing where, you know, given kind of,

Marvin: you know, my background in law and finance, I saw a lot of people that were

Marvin: really spending money just to keep from being completely miserable in what they were doing.

Marvin: And if you could kind of dial back, you know, what you thought you had to have,

Marvin: you can maybe find a little bit of a crack of light in the door and maybe find

Marvin: a way to kind of squeak out.

Andy: Yeah.

Andy: Well, look, I have been the most fortunate person, you know,

Andy: I could possibly ever imagine dreaming of being.

Andy: I have an ex-wife that was a superstar in the tennis world. We have three great kids.

Andy: I have chapters. I look back at and I go, oh, my God, how did I ever get here?

Andy: How did I ever be so lucky to be able to have this life?

Andy: You know, I mean, some people are just luckier than others. You know,

Andy: sometimes luck plays a huge role.

Andy: And I had, my son said, Dad, you get the biggest horseshoe up your ass.

Andy: I said, yeah, I agree, you know.

Andy: But I think a lot of luck comes from being very fortunate, a lot of doors open for you.

Andy: But being lucky is having the ability to not only step through that door,

Andy: but being able to excel on the other side of that door.

Andy: And it comes from with me, I had this passionate heart.

Andy: I was a really hard worker. you know i even i mean i will work till the day

Andy: i die i don't know anything different i want to work and i want to do well i

Andy: don't want to just make money i want to excel at what i do,

Andy: um so i think i was gifted you know with that desire to work hard and and it

Andy: was not about the money it was about the chasing dreams i think we live fully all of us,

Andy: while we are chasing our dreams.

Marvin: And you've done so much, you know, what do you have left on your to-do list

Marvin: that you want to accomplish and achieve?

Andy: I'm going to go to Mags Bay. I want to catch a striped marlin,

Andy: free cast into a striped marlin without bait and switch.

Andy: I want to go to Bolivia and catch a golden dorado.

Andy: Other than that, I'm 71. I've had 24 operations. My body's killing me.

Andy: I need another knee. My left knee's replaced. My right knee needs replaced.

Andy: My neck is fused. My back is fused. Everything hurts. I can barely play golf anymore. more.

Andy: I just really want to try to be able to stay active and do things.

Andy: I still want to elk hunt in the high country.

Andy: And I got back to Aspen. I've been in Florida all winter.

Andy: I went on not even a hard hike yesterday. I've got so much lactic acid in my

Andy: body. It's like, are you serious?

Andy: My God, I used to be an athlete. What happened?

Andy: And now I know I've got to look forward to of September when I got to chase

Andy: my son at 12,000 feet, 11,000 feet chasing elk, you know?

Andy: So my dreams are to see my son's about ready to have a baby this week.

Andy: The dreams I have now is to see really great happiness, you know,

Andy: with my entire family, you know, my kids, my young grandson,

Andy: that's going to be born here this week.

Andy: And really being able to, I've been very fortunate to be able to be connected

Andy: to the fishing industry.

Andy: And I don't take that lightly. I think that there's a big responsibility to

Andy: do what Nicky and I do with our podcast, bring to light a lot of stories that

Andy: are going to go away with age and time.

Andy: I want to help maintain the history of our sport,

Andy: the evolution of our sport, and the people that created our sport,

Andy: you know and what they did to innovate what they what they've done and give

Andy: respect to the people that came before me you know i will never take for granted

Andy: what i have in my life um it did not come easily um.

Andy: But with that said, I have a lot of work in trying to help preserve these other

Andy: stories that came before me, these icons,

Andy: these legends, and their stories are going to die if they don't get on your

Andy: podcast, on our podcast, and let them tell their stories.

Andy: So the younger generation will realize what took place to get this game to where

Andy: we are today and who did it.

Andy: So that it gives them a baseline not a

Andy: baseline that just so what they know now i

Andy: think it's important to know how we got here conservation too if we don't know

Andy: how we got here it's really hard to understand the direction we're going to

Andy: go into the future and and so what i have left often in my life is, is really trying to,

Andy: you know, be kind and humble and let people,

Andy: you know, I want to be treated the way I want people to treat me the way I want to treat them.

Andy: Um, and I always want that and never, never think that I'm nothing more than

Andy: a mountain guy that did okay.

Marvin: And it's, you know, as a father, um, it's gotta be just absolutely fantastic

Marvin: to have the podcast and get to work with your son.

Andy: Yeah. Look, we were speaking about that earlier. I have three sons.

Andy: I love them all dearly, equally. But Nicky has gravitated to the things that I've always loved.

Andy: He's always wanted to be on my shoulders and seeing what I saw.

Andy: I'd be signing up in a tournament. He would be on my shoulders.

Andy: We'd be on the boat getting bullet, playing with the

Andy: mullet started bow hunting

Andy: he's a great bow hunter kills kills all

Andy: kinds of great animals and now we work together it's a dream to be able to be

Andy: to have a son like nikki who connects with the things that i love and i think

Andy: too for him to have a father that that understands the things that that he loves goes both ways yeah.

Marvin: It's very very neat andy is there anything else this evening you want to share

Marvin: with our listeners before i let you go.

Andy: I would just say wherever you are whatever you're doing,

Andy: make sure you you find the the time and place to listen to silence hear how loud,

Andy: silence is and when you hear and when you're in the presence of silence You

Andy: can hear your inner voice of what you want to do, who you are,

Andy: where you want to go with your life.

Andy: What does love mean? What does your family mean to you?

Andy: How can I make my family better? How can I be a better dad, a better father,

Andy: a better fisherman, better employee, better owner of a company? Right?

Andy: Because we're not really, we're not grading ourselves by what other people are doing.

Andy: We're grading ourselves by how, who we are and what kind of a person we are.

Andy: And remember, always try to dream big and chase those dreams.

Marvin: And Andy, if folks want to follow your adventures on the water and in the field,

Marvin: running after Nikki going up the mountain chasing elk, where should they look?

Andy: Look yeah so you know

Andy: our our podcast millhouse podcast you can

Andy: watch it on youtube and our instagram

Andy: site uh millhouse podcast podcast instagram you

Andy: can watch and see some tips and some uh

Andy: some words of wisdom but you can

Andy: also listen to our podcast on you know where we

Andy: find your your podcast spotify you know all i don't know anything about that

Andy: stuff i'm just i'm just the voice my son does all that i i have just a figurehead

Andy: with the talking lips here you know yeah but but we're out there and um you

Andy: know we have now i think we've done 111 podcasts,

Andy: and if you scroll through it you can find offshore captains you know great great

Andy: guys have done a lot of great things in the world of fishing yeah.

Marvin: As i always say you know you have people which is good to take care of all that

Marvin: stuff i'll drop links to all that stuff and in the show notes and And I super

Marvin: appreciate you spending the time with me. Incredibly generous of you.

Marvin: And I look forward to seeing you on the show circuit again soon.

Andy: Well, I'm honored you have asked me to be here. And again, thank you so much.

Marvin: Take care.

Andy: You too.

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