Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 65: The Evolution of an Athlete: Andy Mill's Path to Fishing Greatness
Transcript
- 0:03Intro: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly.
- 0:07Intro: On this episode, I'm joined by Olympic skier, angler, and podcaster, Andy Mill.
- 0:13Intro: Andy generously shares life lessons and wisdom from his skiing,
- 0:16Intro: angling, and broadcasting journey.
- 0:18Intro: I think you're really going to enjoy this one. But before we get to the interview,
- 0:22Intro: just a couple of housekeeping items.
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- 0:52Intro: And we recently released an interview-only show, The Long Haul with the Articulate Fly.
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- 1:01Intro: just search The Long Haul in your favorite podcatcher.
- 1:05Intro: Now, on to the interview.
- 1:08Marvin: Well, Andy, welcome to the Articulate Fly.
- 1:12Andy: Well, my pleasure to be here, and thanks for the invite.
- 1:15Marvin: Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. And, you know, one of the things we like to
- 1:18Marvin: do, we have a tradition on the Articulate Fly. we like to ask all of our guests
- 1:21Marvin: to share their earliest fishing memory.
- 1:25Andy: Oh.
- 1:29Andy: I just remember a photograph. I don't really remember actually catching the fish.
- 1:36Andy: I was probably maybe five or six years old. The photograph of me with a fish I was gutting.
- 1:44Andy: I remember with my father in Laramie, Wyoming, he was giving me a piggyback ride. We were fishing.
- 1:53Andy: It was getting late, and you could see the cast flies flying.
- 1:55Andy: I remember that. The actual fishing part, I don't really remember much about that aspect of it.
- 2:03Andy: I just remembered I just always loved doing all the different things I did as
- 2:08Andy: a kid. Nothing really stood out.
- 2:11Andy: But in saltwater fly fishing, those kind of memories you'll never forget because
- 2:16Andy: we're talking really big fish, really powerful fish.
- 2:21Andy: And when something like a tarpon, he opens his mouth, eat your fly,
- 2:25Andy: it knocks your teeth out of your head.
- 2:28Andy: I mean, it's like, oh, my God, how could you ever forget that, you know?
- 2:32Andy: But I've always loved fishing. And I grew up here in Aspen, Colorado,
- 2:36Andy: once my family moved here in 1960.
- 2:39Andy: And I learned how to tie flies. I saw this fly line going across space.
- 2:44Andy: And the great Ernie Sweebert was in town giving these clinics for the country
- 2:49Andy: store. I was on my bike going to baseball practice, and I veered over there,
- 2:54Andy: and all of a sudden, I had a fly rod in my hand.
- 2:57Andy: I think I was probably eight or maybe nine years old.
- 3:03Andy: From that point forward, I was a fly fisherman.
- 3:07Andy: I was a fly fisherman. I loved the whole fly line part of the whole thing.
- 3:12Andy: Then once I tied my first fly and I caught a fish with my first fly that I tied, it was game over.
- 3:19Marvin: Yeah, it's a great thing, too. You know, it's funny, you know,
- 3:23Marvin: trying to explain to kind of younger people today what it was like to learn to fly fish.
- 3:26Marvin: And, you know, there was no YouTube and you had to read books.
- 3:28Marvin: And, you know, I tell my boys I sent away, you know, self-addressed stamped
- 3:32Marvin: envelopes to get catalogs. And it was really just kind of a neat time to kind
- 3:36Marvin: of be outdoors and do those things.
- 3:38Andy: Yeah, for sure. You know, you asked me the first time, my first memories,
- 3:41Andy: I don't remember the very first time because I was so young,
- 3:45Andy: but the first time I saw that, that trout eat my renegade that I had tied,
- 3:49Andy: that was probably a big light switch.
- 3:53Andy: And the saltwater switch was the first time I saw a tarpon eat my fly,
- 3:56Andy: you know, so both freshwater and saltwater, it's all about the take.
- 4:01Andy: It's all about the bite, you know, then, you know, you're in the game.
- 4:05Marvin: Yeah. It's It's interesting, too. And, you know, you've been fortunate.
- 4:08Marvin: You had a really long career in fishing even before you were kind of officially in fishing.
- 4:12Marvin: And you've been able to fish and be mentored by a lot of people.
- 4:15Marvin: So I won't say ask you to list them all, but are there a couple that kind of
- 4:18Marvin: stand out as being particularly impactful on your development as an angler?
- 4:25Andy: Chuck Fothergill, he had a very famous, well-known name in this country.
- 4:29Andy: He first started learning or teaching how to put weight on your leader with
- 4:35Andy: nymphs. He taught me how to tie flies.
- 4:37Andy: And then the great Ernie Schwiebert taught me how to fly cast.
- 4:41Andy: In the saltwater world, it was Harry Spear. He and Steve Hoff had won more saltwater
- 4:50Andy: fly rod tournaments than anyone in the lower keys.
- 4:53Andy: And so harry was my mentor i
- 4:56Andy: fished with him 40 40 days a
- 4:59Andy: year before for seven years before
- 5:03Andy: i ever fished a tournament and i didn't realize
- 5:06Andy: it at the time but he was grooming me for to be a tournament angler he knew
- 5:11Andy: he was very adamant about about how to do things the difference between right
- 5:17Andy: and wrong um i had other great people in my life like lefty cray uh flip pallet Steve Huff.
- 5:24Andy: I had all these icons in the periphery of my world, but they're not mentors per se.
- 5:33Andy: I think Lefty was a great mentor in the fact, not necessarily a mentor,
- 5:39Andy: but he was very inspirational in that he taught the world of saltwater fly fishing,
- 5:44Andy: how celebrities should act.
- 5:48Andy: He was just so genuine and real
- 5:51Andy: and common and but but
- 5:55Andy: bigger than life he did everything wrote all the books the casting the humor
- 6:00Andy: but he was always so humble and kind that's what i take from him flip palette
- 6:06Andy: brought me to the saltwater world because i was a skier here in aspen well after
- 6:12Andy: my athletic competitive years,
- 6:14Andy: but I couldn't wait for Saturday morning to see Flip and his show,
- 6:18Andy: Walker's Gate Chronicles. I wanted to be on his boat.
- 6:22Andy: Oh my God, he was everywhere. And then when I finally met him,
- 6:26Andy: it was like, it was so profound.
- 6:31Andy: It was like me meeting Jean-Claude Keeley because this was Flip, you know, my hero.
- 6:38Andy: And then many years later, I had written a book.
- 6:43Andy: It was kind of a funny, you know, come to Jesus moment for me and an pinch me, oh my God moment.
- 6:49Andy: I was eventually well down the road. Many years later, I was doing a tarpon
- 6:53Andy: presentation at the International Game Fish Association in the big lobby.
- 6:58Andy: And there were about, I don't know, maybe 100 people in there.
- 7:01Andy: And in the audience was Stu App, Lefty Cray, Flip Pallet.
- 7:09Andy: And I'm looking out. Here I am trying to tell them my methodology.
- 7:14Andy: And then two hours later, we went across the street at Bass Pro Shops,
- 7:19Andy: and we're all signing autographs. I'd written a book by then.
- 7:21Andy: And I look down the line, and I'm looking. Here's Chico Fernandez.
- 7:25Andy: Here's Lefty. Here's Flip.
- 7:29Andy: There's Lefty. It was just like, oh, my God, this is my world now.
- 7:33Andy: All of a sudden, that was my world. And to ever think that I was going to go
- 7:37Andy: from an Olympic skier to having written a book and speaking about tarpon and
- 7:43Andy: winning tarpon tournaments,
- 7:45Andy: I mean, it's like somebody hit me with a magic wand and placed me down the road in that realm.
- 7:55Marvin: Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, it's interesting, too. We were talking before
- 7:58Marvin: we started recording that, you know, we met. I mean, it was kind of amazing.
- 8:02Marvin: I tell people the story, and I'm just like, it's crazy. They're like,
- 8:04Marvin: how was Edison? I was like, well, I met Andy Mill. They're like, no way.
- 8:07Marvin: And, you know, I say, you know, I was literally walking the show.
- 8:10Marvin: I think it was on that Friday with David Blinken.
- 8:12Marvin: And he introduced me, and you graciously agreed to be on the podcast.
- 8:16Marvin: But I thought the interesting thing, we started talking about,
- 8:19Marvin: you know, being a competitive skier and how it translated.
- 8:23Marvin: And you're like, well, I just never thought of myself as a great skier,
- 8:26Marvin: right? I was a good skier, but I became a great tarpon angler.
- 8:29Marvin: And I thought that was an incredibly fascinating thing to say because,
- 8:32Marvin: I mean, I think of you as being a great skier and a great tarpon angler.
- 8:35Marvin: And I was wondering if you could kind of explain that a little bit for our listeners
- 8:40Marvin: because I think it's so interesting.
- 8:43Andy: Here's the deal.
- 8:46Andy: It's really hard to ski in the Olympics. They only take four Americans to ski in the downhill.
- 8:54Andy: So I was ranked the number one American downhiller for nine years.
- 8:57Andy: I skied in two Olympics and four world championships.
- 9:02Andy: Great skiers win the Olympics. If you don't win, how can you be great?
- 9:09Andy: In my book, for the average guy, of course I was great.
- 9:15Andy: I represented the country.
- 9:17Andy: But I didn't realize the difference between great and good until I became a tarpon fisherman.
- 9:26Andy: My last year skiing, I was finally on the cusp of winning. I got fifth in the
- 9:31Andy: pre-Olympics. I got sixth in the 76th Olympics.
- 9:34Andy: I was right on the edge. My last year as an athlete, I finally got a great mentor.
- 9:41Andy: I got great skis. I finally got to the point that I can win.
- 9:45Andy: And then I hit a fence in Switzerland and I broke my neck, my back,
- 9:48Andy: my leg, and my ski career was over.
- 9:51Andy: As I mentioned to you earlier, I basically ran out of body.
- 9:55Andy: I'd already had like 10 knee operations. Now, I had a broken neck and a broken back.
- 10:03Andy: Once I got into tarpon fishing, and it's comparing apples to oranges because
- 10:08Andy: you can't compare skiing in the Olympics to winning the gold cup.
- 10:12Andy: They're completely two different things. It was so much easier to win the gold
- 10:16Andy: cup than it is to win the Olympics because you have all these countries,
- 10:19Andy: the best skiers in all these countries.
- 10:21Andy: It's a high-end professional sport.
- 10:24Andy: People are being paid a lot of money to win the Olympics.
- 10:27Andy: But in the fly fishing world, winning the gold cup was like winning the Olympics.
- 10:33Andy: So once I started to taste, you know, victory, success with Harry Spear being
- 10:42Andy: my mentor, we fished my first tournament together.
- 10:46Andy: I got second in the bonefish, spring bonefish fly tournament. We won the fall fly.
- 10:51Andy: I got third in the first tarpon tournament with Harry. It was the gold cup.
- 10:55Andy: Then I started understanding the difference between winning and doing well.
- 11:01Andy: And once I tasted that, there was no let up.
- 11:05Andy: It was like, since I never won as a skier, as a fisherman, it was like,
- 11:10Andy: I am not going to allow myself to lose.
- 11:14Andy: And I wasn't quite there yet because I won a bonefish tournament,
- 11:17Andy: but I hadn't won a tarpon tournament.
- 11:19Andy: But once I realized I was knocking on that door, I got fourth in the first tournament.
- 11:23Andy: I won the very first golden fly tournament I fished in. I won the first permit
- 11:29Andy: tournament I fished, the only, the Dell Brown.
- 11:31Andy: But once I tasted that, it was like there was no let up.
- 11:35Andy: And the difference or the years, the span of years with my victories were 18 years.
- 11:44Andy: My first one to my last one. But I feel like I did not sleep for 15 years.
- 11:49Andy: I was so driven. In the winter, I was like tying flies and tying leisure and
- 11:55Andy: pulling on tippets and pulling on scales.
- 11:58Andy: I was a maniac. yet but i felt like that was the difference in really becoming
- 12:05Andy: as great as i became as a fisherman,
- 12:08Andy: it was i was i was relentless but as a skier i was too young i didn't have a
- 12:15Andy: great mentor i didn't not i didn't have the the understanding of what it takes
- 12:18Andy: to win i was just trying to do well,
- 12:21Andy: but but like the european skiers and some of the other americans once the american
- 12:25Andy: team got from from out of behind the eight ball, then we had a chance to win,
- 12:29Andy: but it took a long time. It was right at the end of my career.
- 12:32Andy: But if you take a look at fishing in tournaments, it's almost like an oxymoron.
- 12:39Andy: It's a contrast in what we should be doing as fishermen.
- 12:44Andy: I just happened to become a tournament fisherman, and it was very,
- 12:48Andy: very important for me to win tournaments.
- 12:51Marvin: Yeah. And was that something that, you know, kind of cracking the code and having
- 12:55Marvin: your body run out in skiing that kind of haunted you, that gave you that drive?
- 13:01Andy: I didn't learn how to win until I got hurt. That last year, I finally realized what it took to win.
- 13:08Andy: I reapplied myself. I rededicated my life to skiing.
- 13:13Andy: And I realized I had just maybe a couple years left. And I went all in.
- 13:19Andy: But I never did that before. I was too immature. I was too young.
- 13:23Andy: I skied in my first Olympics when I was 23.
- 13:26Andy: I was not mature enough.
- 13:30Andy: I was distracted by the lifestyle of Aspen, which was on fire back in the 70s.
- 13:38Andy: Aspen was a generation of innocence.
- 13:45Andy: Sexual revolution was taking place. It was a total anarchy of this country post-Vietnam.
- 13:51Andy: And I wanted to take a big bite out of that apple, and I did.
- 13:55Andy: But in doing so, I sacrificed that as an athlete.
- 13:59Andy: But in my later years, I was married to Chrissy. I had kids.
- 14:03Andy: I had my TV show that I was producing and hosting. And now I had a chance to
- 14:07Andy: fish these tournaments. And it gave me a complete understanding of perspective
- 14:14Andy: from being a skier to now a fisherman.
- 14:17Andy: And I knew the difference. And I knew what it was going to take for me to win.
- 14:23Marvin: Yeah. And I imagine, too, you also knew that that opportunity wasn't going to last forever, right?
- 14:29Andy: I didn't think about that.
- 14:31Marvin: Really?
- 14:32Andy: I never thought I was going to be 71.
- 14:36Marvin: Fair enough.
- 14:37Andy: You just think this road's going to last forever, you know?
- 14:43Andy: But I couldn't have put more effort into what I did to win tournaments than I did.
- 14:51Andy: And looking back, I didn't have that as a skier, but you don't get second chances.
- 14:58Andy: And so I was very lucky to have a second chance as a fisherman,
- 15:02Andy: and I count my blessings for that.
- 15:05Marvin: And what was it that, you know, I know you grew up fishing for trout,
- 15:08Marvin: but, you know, what was it that attracted you to the salt and tarpon in particular?
- 15:14Andy: Well, I think it really stems, you know, initially with Flip Pallet and his TV show,
- 15:19Andy: you know, catching these great fish on flies, you know, sailfish and marlin
- 15:23Andy: and bonefish and carp and just the adventure of running in a little 16-foot
- 15:28Andy: skiff out over the cross,
- 15:30Andy: the surface of the ocean and catching these giants, right?
- 15:36Andy: Trout are not giants. I skied at 80 miles an hour for a living.
- 15:41Andy: I wanted to catch big fish that would scare the shit out of me that was what
- 15:47Andy: I wanted to do trout don't scare me you know that's.
- 15:52Marvin: Funny and so did it you know you know and I know you went into bone fishing
- 15:55Marvin: permit but does that all do you also like have an interest in like catching
- 15:58Marvin: makos and sailfish and billfish on the fly or is that not interest you you.
- 16:02Andy: Know what I've caught marlin on a fly I've cut you know a number of sailfish
- 16:07Andy: on a fly um that kind of stuff doesn't really interest me a whole lot because
- 16:11Andy: you're waiting for the fish to hit your teaser you you tease them in and you do the bait and switch,
- 16:18Andy: that's cool marlin are huge i get seasick that's the biggest problem i have
- 16:23Andy: um but i cut gts in the seychelles i am i am more of a hunter and my son and
- 16:33Andy: i hunt uh elk in the fall with bone arrows,
- 16:37Andy: we've been doing that for i don't know close to i've been doing it close to maybe 15 years,
- 16:42Andy: maybe a little bit more 20 years when we fish in the salt we hunt and now i
- 16:49Andy: find myself hunting for trout so when i go trout fishing i'm looking for a fish
- 16:53Andy: that's feeding on the surface or i may find a riffle and try to find a fish
- 16:57Andy: that's feeding in that riffle on nymphs,
- 16:59Andy: and i'll try to catch that one fish i don't want to catch 15 or 20 or 30 fish
- 17:03Andy: i want to catch that one fish.
- 17:07Andy: Now I'm riveted. I see that animal right there, and I want him.
- 17:13Andy: That's where I get my fill as a trout fisherman.
- 17:17Marvin: Got it. Andy, how would you define what being a great tarpon angler means?
- 17:25Andy: Being a great tarpon angler is an angler who can catch the fish that doesn't want to be caught.
- 17:33Andy: Not everybody's going to graduate or gravitate to tournaments.
- 17:36Andy: And I just want to put that aside.
- 17:38Andy: That was my bag, you know, and I don't want to say that you're not going to
- 17:42Andy: be a great tarpon fisherman unless you win the gold cup. That is, that is total false.
- 17:47Andy: There's a lot of fit, a lot of great fishermen out there that have never,
- 17:50Andy: never fished a tournament, but that was my, that was my baseline for, for greatness.
- 17:55Andy: But when you put that term baseline to the side, a great guide is the guide
- 18:02Andy: who can find the fish that doesn't want to be found.
- 18:04Andy: And when you put that great guide with an angler that can catch the fish that
- 18:08Andy: doesn't want to be found, that's a home run.
- 18:12Andy: You are going to empty the ocean when you put those two guys together.
- 18:18Andy: And so when I was fishing tournaments, I wanted to be with that guide who can
- 18:22Andy: find the fish that doesn't want to be found. And those guys wanted me.
- 18:26Andy: And that's why we ended up doing so well.
- 18:30Marvin: Yeah, that's neat. It's always interesting Cause I mean, I always,
- 18:32Marvin: you know, I put a lot of pressure on myself when I fish with guides,
- 18:36Marvin: cause I always want to, um, fish as an extension of the guide, right.
- 18:40Marvin: You know, cause there's only like, he can't catch the fish for you,
- 18:42Marvin: right. He can help you put the boat in the right place, find the fish.
- 18:46Marvin: But, um, I always think that there's a kind of, it's almost like running a relay
- 18:49Marvin: and then he passes the baton to you.
- 18:51Marvin: Um, and so that's always kind of my goal when I'm on the water is to kind of
- 18:55Marvin: honor that commitment and all that time and energy and thought that the guide
- 18:58Marvin: put into creating that situation.
- 19:00Andy: Let me tell you, that's hopeful thinking. And I'll tell you why.
- 19:07Andy: The average saltwater fisherman does not fish that often to be able to do that for that guide.
- 19:17Andy: And casting dexterity, right there. They're really good fishermen,
- 19:26Andy: really good saltwater fishermen.
- 19:28Andy: They don't have casting dexterity.
- 19:33Andy: Casting dexterity is regardless of the position of the boat and the direction
- 19:37Andy: of the wind, whether the fish is at 9 o'clock,
- 19:43Andy: 1 o'clock over here, 3 o'clock, a backhand cast into a 20-mile-an-hour wind,
- 19:49Andy: forehand cast over your head.
- 19:52Andy: So your head's between your rod and your fly line where you
- 19:55Andy: where you cut that fly line in the middle of the boat between the
- 19:58Andy: guide and that angler making a forehand cast out
- 20:02Andy: there at nine nine o'clock at 70 feet with the wind blowing 20
- 20:05Andy: miles an hour right into your face you can't make a forehand cast because you're
- 20:10Andy: going to pull the fly right into your face you can't make a backhand cast so
- 20:14Andy: you're going to hook your guide so that forehand cast that rod's got to be high
- 20:18Andy: and when When you come back with that backhand cast, that fly is coming over your left shoulder.
- 20:26Andy: Cutting the boat, cutting the string, casting between the boat,
- 20:29Andy: not very many people can do that.
- 20:31Andy: And it takes years. A lot of guides don't even know how to teach this stuff.
- 20:37Andy: So when you fall short on the bow of your boat, you got to remember,
- 20:42Andy: most people fish tarpon maybe only a week a year.
- 20:50Andy: It's so hard to do well with your casting without being on the water.
- 20:56Andy: It's hard to learn in a park. Most people, when the guide says you need to practice,
- 21:01Andy: need to go to the park and practice, right?
- 21:04Andy: They don't know how to fix mistakes. They don't even know what a mistake looks like.
- 21:10Andy: So how do you practice? It's like telling somebody to go to the golf range and
- 21:14Andy: practice. They've never had a lesson. Right?
- 21:19Andy: So that's the issue with saltwater anglers, is that it's really hard.
- 21:26Andy: It's really hard, especially if you, let's just say you fish two weeks a year.
- 21:33Andy: They're doing the best they can with what they've got.
- 21:39Andy: And sometimes I feel sorry for them because they want to get better,
- 21:44Andy: But unless they fish really a lot for a long time, it's really hard to get really, really good.
- 21:51Marvin: Yeah, I think that's kind of the whole, you know, I always say people never
- 21:55Marvin: fish as much as they want to.
- 21:56Marvin: So then the question is, given how much you can fish, how good can you really get?
- 22:01Andy: Right. But you can study on the internet how to double haul,
- 22:05Andy: how to make a backhand cast.
- 22:08Andy: You know, there's a lot of information on the internet.
- 22:11Andy: That so most people when they see a tailing loop they don't even know what a tailing loop is,
- 22:16Andy: so how do you fix a tailing loop so you
- 22:19Andy: got two problems they don't they can't identify
- 22:22Andy: it and they don't know how to fix it you know so all i all i can say you know
- 22:29Andy: is that keep the enthusiasm up ask your guides you know um i'm you know and
- 22:36Andy: when people guides get hard on their anglers it's I was like, dude,
- 22:40Andy: don't you understand that these anglers are doing the best they can?
- 22:44Andy: They're doing everything they can to catch that fish. So you can't get mad at them. You can't.
- 22:52Marvin: Yeah. So Andy, can you share the specific moment that you realized that you
- 22:58Marvin: had become a great tarpon angler?
- 23:02Andy: I knew I was pretty good fairly quickly because I could cast well.
- 23:07Andy: I had really good eyes. I had a great mentor.
- 23:13Andy: I didn't, I don't, I didn't think I was proven until I won until I,
- 23:18Andy: you know, I always felt like everybody can get lucky and win once.
- 23:22Andy: But when I started dominating and winning, you know, I won the gold cup five
- 23:26Andy: out of six years, you know, but right now my son is better than I will ever be.
- 23:34Andy: My son is incredible, but he, And he's fished a few tournaments.
- 23:39Andy: He's gotten second and third in some of the tournaments. But it's not that important to him.
- 23:44Andy: But to see somebody see his eyes, oh, my God, young eyes.
- 23:50Andy: Passing ability is crazy. You know, look, I was really great at one time,
- 23:56Andy: but I'm not great anymore. I'm a solid good.
- 24:00Marvin: And how long? So, you know, I read the story like, you know,
- 24:04Marvin: you went on your first tarpon fishing trip, got the bug. How long was that journey
- 24:09Marvin: from there to winning your first tournament?
- 24:13Andy: Well, I fished with Harry Spear, who was my mentor, for seven years.
- 24:19Andy: A lot. 40 days a year for seven years. That's a lot.
- 24:23Andy: More than most people will ever be able to fish because they have jobs,
- 24:26Andy: they have families. I was very fortunate to be able to have that kind of free time.
- 24:34Andy: I won my first Golden Fly. I would say about eight years before I won,
- 24:39Andy: but it was only the second year I was fishing tournaments.
- 24:43Andy: But that's kind of unfair because I felt like for a long time,
- 24:47Andy: I had that tournament mindset.
- 24:51Andy: It takes a long time to get really good at anything. This is,
- 24:54Andy: say, matching the hatch, tying your own flies, weeding trout water,
- 24:58Andy: being able to figure that stuff out.
- 25:02Andy: I'm not a great trout fisherman. I'm not. I can catch fish, but I'm not great.
- 25:09Andy: Oh, my God. I'm just okay at it. My son is really good.
- 25:15Marvin: Yeah. So it's interesting. So, I mean, I was doing the math in my head.
- 25:18Marvin: I mean, you spent over a year of fishing days on the water for tarpon,
- 25:22Marvin: right, before you won your first cup.
- 25:24Andy: Yeah. I mean, by the time I was fishing tournaments, I was really good.
- 25:31Marvin: Yeah.
- 25:32Andy: I wasn't great yet, but I was pretty solid.
- 25:35Marvin: And we've talked about this a couple times kind of just in phone calls before the interview.
- 25:41Marvin: You, you know, really curious about how, you know, you learned a lot of lessons
- 25:46Marvin: skiing, but kind of how you took
- 25:48Marvin: that preparation regime and applied it to becoming a great tarpon angler.
- 25:55Andy: Here's the deal. When I was on the Olympic team, I was 23 years old.
- 25:59Andy: I did not understand the kind of discipline I needed.
- 26:03Andy: I figured out discipline after my ski career.
- 26:07Andy: I didn't figure out how to win as a skier until my very last year as a skier,
- 26:11Andy: just before I got hurt. I got fifth in the Olympics.
- 26:15Andy: No, I got fifth in the pre-Olympics, and I got sixth in the Olympics.
- 26:20Andy: But I still didn't have the understanding of how to be a really high-end professional
- 26:25Andy: as a skier. We were a bunch of amateurs.
- 26:28Andy: The team was pretty far behind the eight ball. We didn't have great equipment.
- 26:32Andy: I'll give you a prime example about equipment.
- 26:36Andy: One year, we get to Val d'Isere, France. It's the first World Cup.
- 26:39Andy: And Erwin Stricker on the Italian team, he had this rubberized downhill suit.
- 26:45Andy: He had this fairing on the back of his helmet. He had bent ski poles.
- 26:49Andy: He had a fairing on his legs behind his knees. And I looked at my roommate,
- 26:53Andy: Carl Anderson, and I said, dude, we are toast.
- 26:57Andy: I'll give you an example of what that means.
- 27:01Andy: A rubberized downhill suit. We had downhill suits that still breathed the porosity of the fabric.
- 27:09Andy: Versus a rubberized suit, that's a two-second difference just in aerodynamics
- 27:15Andy: in a two-minute downhill.
- 27:17Andy: Two seconds. When you're traveling, so we were averaging 66 miles per hour.
- 27:23Andy: So if you're going 60 miles an hour, that's 88 feet per second times two.
- 27:29Andy: That's what we were giving up just with the difference of our downhill suit.
- 27:34Andy: So this whole sphere of professionalism and preparedness and expertise and knowledge
- 27:42Andy: was so far above our heads. We had no idea.
- 27:47Andy: I had no idea at 23 how to be a professional athlete against these Europeans
- 27:53Andy: that were getting paid a lot of money, great coaches, great training regimes.
- 27:59Andy: Jeans you know um but as
- 28:02Andy: a fisherman you know once i got to be a
- 28:05Andy: fisherman i knew what it was going to take to win because i
- 28:08Andy: didn't learn all that until my very last year as a skier i was
- 28:10Andy: on the on the uh the u.s ski team for what 10
- 28:13Andy: years but my last year i finally understood
- 28:16Andy: about i finally understood about dedicating my
- 28:20Andy: life to winning training every
- 28:23Andy: day in the summer getting really fit
- 28:26Andy: getting really strong having the best skis that rosinol had
- 28:30Andy: available for me having a great coach that taught
- 28:33Andy: me how to move to the inside with my hip you know hip angulation versus knee
- 28:37Andy: and it's a technical thing where you can put your hip your knee and your ankle
- 28:43Andy: in the same plane so at 80 miles an hour in a corner you have much more stability
- 28:47Andy: than having the knee outside of that plane.
- 28:51Andy: Now I was stable. I could make one smooth arc and I had great skis.
- 28:56Andy: Now I could compete against the Europeans. Now I had a chance to win.
- 29:02Andy: And that's what I learned over that 10-year period as a ski team athlete.
- 29:09Andy: I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what it took to win.
- 29:12Andy: I didn't have anybody helping me. I was not smart enough to get it.
- 29:15Andy: So when I made that transformation from skiing to fishing and winning tournaments
- 29:20Andy: as a fisherman, I knew the difference.
- 29:23Andy: I knew the difference, what it was going to take to win. And I was fishing against
- 29:26Andy: a lot of guys that were not previously, you know, skiing in the Olympics and
- 29:33Andy: skiing at a professional level or any athletes.
- 29:35Andy: They were great fishermen. They were doing the best I could.
- 29:38Andy: But I think I had an edge because I understood the difference between doing well and winning.
- 29:44Marvin: And how did that sort of break down? I think we talked before we started rolling,
- 29:48Marvin: too, you know, kind of thinking about like there's the physical aspect.
- 29:51Marvin: There's the mental aspect. We were talking earlier about how you try to perfect
- 29:55Marvin: everything in the chain so that there's no weak link.
- 29:59Andy: Right, exactly right. So let's just say there's a ginormous puzzle with a thousand
- 30:08Andy: million little pieces to that puzzle.
- 30:11Andy: And if you're a sportsman at a high level trying to win against the best in
- 30:17Andy: the world, you have all these small little nuances,
- 30:20Andy: little pieces of the puzzle that have to be perfectly polished before you're ready to win.
- 30:28Andy: And those pieces might be a backhand cast, you know, casting between the boat.
- 30:33Andy: How do you feed a fish? Bump, bump, bump. How do you talk to a fish?
- 30:36Andy: How do you see, how do you know what that fish is going to do before he does it?
- 30:41Andy: That takes miles and miles and miles. And those are the things that I was really concentrating on.
- 30:49Andy: The smallest pieces of the puzzle could get you that win.
- 30:55Andy: Because if you have a piece that's not polished, that might expose itself in a certain situation.
- 31:03Andy: And the great fishermen, the great tournament fishermen, whether it be freshwater
- 31:08Andy: guys, Euro nymphing, competing against all the other teams around the world,
- 31:13Andy: they have the same issues.
- 31:17Andy: Everything is refined.
- 31:19Marvin: And how do you, in some ways, that's sort of the physical stuff.
- 31:24Marvin: How do you kind of work on the mental component and prepare for the things that
- 31:29Marvin: you can't control, right?
- 31:30Marvin: Like, so you try to take everything you possibly can and get your arms around it.
- 31:34Marvin: But how do you, you know, become mentally tough and prepare for the unknown
- 31:38Marvin: to have a chance to be elite?
- 31:42Andy: To be mentally tough, you cannot lose your concentration for one minute. it.
- 31:50Andy: When it's a dark, cloudy day, you might only have one shot.
- 31:55Andy: But if you're not grinding, staring into the ocean, looking,
- 31:59Andy: looking for that little difference of color, whatever it might be,
- 32:03Andy: you might miss your only shot.
- 32:07Andy: And you have to be able to make up great distances
- 32:16Andy: on a lousy day you have
- 32:19Andy: to be able to catch fish when no one else is going to catch fish like
- 32:23Andy: i always was hoping for wind windy conditions like an open blue sky so i can
- 32:29Andy: see but windy conditions because i knew that at least 50 of the field is going
- 32:34Andy: to go away when it's blowing 20 miles an hour they can't make that cast but
- 32:38Andy: and i'll tell you one of the the mental things that
- 32:42Andy: really came up a year after I made a mistake.
- 32:47Andy: It was at a gold cup and I had a fish come up and it was the last day of the
- 32:51Andy: tournament. I had a chance to win. We were in contention.
- 32:55Andy: This tarpon came up and sipped my fly like this. Very, very, very slow bite.
- 33:00Andy: And it takes so much composure to wait for that fish to shut its mouth,
- 33:06Andy: to wait to feel the weight of the fish in your stripping hand here before you
- 33:10Andy: set the hook. and I slid that fly out of its mouth and I missed it.
- 33:16Andy: It bothered me immensely that full year because when you lose,
- 33:23Andy: you don't have a chance to win again for another year because these termites,
- 33:27Andy: the gold cup, the gold fly, there's only one chance a year. We only have three tarpon termites a year.
- 33:32Andy: So when you lose, it's like it drives you crazy. You have to wait a whole another year.
- 33:37Andy: So the following year.
- 33:40Andy: This is kind of an interesting story because I'm not superstitious.
- 33:45Andy: It was the fifth day of the Gold Cup, the five-day tournament.
- 33:49Andy: And we're on the starting grid getting ready to take off. I may have told this story before.
- 33:57Andy: But on the starting grid, what happens is you have five boats for every two minutes.
- 34:02Andy: You have a 25-boat team, one angler per boat, one guide per boat.
- 34:07Andy: So we're getting ready to – the gun's about ready to go off.
- 34:10Andy: And Kenny Collette, an Isla Mirada guide, was fishing with a Japanese guide.
- 34:15Andy: And they had won the Gold Cup twice. They were really good.
- 34:19Andy: And Kenny yells over to me, goes, Andy, you got to move your truck.
- 34:23Andy: I go, what are you talking about? I knew he was messing with me.
- 34:27Andy: I said, why? He said, your truck's in a bad parking spot.
- 34:31Andy: He said, you're normally in the top two or three going into the last day.
- 34:36Andy: You're dead last. and I knew it had been a bad week we had fish falling off
- 34:42Andy: bad weather I said are you serious he said yes.
- 34:48Andy: So I said, Timmy, take me to the dock. And my guide, Timmy Hoover,
- 34:51Andy: he really didn't want to do this. He's like complaining. I said,
- 34:53Andy: take me to the dock. I got to move my truck.
- 34:55Andy: So I go and move my truck. We get in the boat. We're starting to run out of the marina there.
- 34:59Andy: I said, Timmy, today is the best day we've had. It's a great weather day.
- 35:05Andy: Big sun. You find me the fish. We're going to catch them. And we're going to win.
- 35:10Andy: So we were on the ocean. And I caught three tarpon on the ocean.
- 35:14Andy: They were weight fish, over 70 pounds. Then we went into this basin where the
- 35:19Andy: year before where there was this fish laying there and I slid the fly out of his mouth too soon.
- 35:24Andy: We go into this basin, we can't find a fish. We get up to where we had seen
- 35:28Andy: this fish the year before, laying in the same position, laid up.
- 35:32Andy: I slide my fly in there, same fly.
- 35:36Andy: Start sliding it. This fish moves up, same bite, same bite.
- 35:43Andy: And I'd been waiting a year to do this again, never knowing I was going to have this opportunity.
- 35:50Andy: This fish slid over, opened its mouth, had this real, real slow bite,
- 35:54Andy: exactly the same way as the year before. I waited.
- 35:58Andy: I waited. I started sliding my fly and it gets tight.
- 36:02Andy: 115 pound fish, we caught him. I said, Timmy, we need to catch one more fish.
- 36:07Andy: We run around the back country, go into this other basin, we catch one more,
- 36:10Andy: run home, we win the tournament.
- 36:13Andy: But these are the type of mental things that will drive you crazy when you make a mistake.
- 36:20Andy: If you're just fun fishing, you blow it off, but when it costs you a tournament,
- 36:25Andy: these are the things you think about that make you better.
- 36:29Andy: When you can't sleep because you've made a mistake, when you can't let it go,
- 36:35Andy: when you demand perfection.
- 36:39Andy: These are the type of things that bothered me. These are the type of things
- 36:43Andy: that I would never let go.
- 36:45Andy: This is why I feel like I didn't sleep 15 years because I was so possessed.
- 36:51Marvin: And it's interesting too, because we were talking before we started recording
- 36:54Marvin: as well about, you know, whether you're fishing against yourself or you're fishing against other people.
- 37:00Andy: In a tournament, you're always fishing against the field because you want to win.
- 37:05Andy: But ultimately, you're always fishing against yourself.
- 37:10Andy: Because as a prime example, I was playing golf with my father-in-law yesterday.
- 37:17Andy: And he was saying, you know, he's like an 11 handicap. And he's saying,
- 37:21Andy: well, I win all these tournaments with my buddies.
- 37:24Andy: I said, well, are you trying to fix your mistakes and get better with what you do?
- 37:32Andy: Do you want to be like a three or a scratch golfer, three handicap, five handicap?
- 37:37Andy: You're 12, but you're okay with that because you're beating your buddies.
- 37:43Andy: If you really want to get good at something, you can't grade yourself on the
- 37:47Andy: curve because those guys all suck.
- 37:51Andy: You have to demand greatness, you know, for yourself.
- 37:57Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting. And, you know, we, when we spoke in Edison,
- 38:00Marvin: or might've been on the phone call after Edison, and you had mentioned to me,
- 38:04Marvin: you know, you, and you mentioned in the interview earlier that you, you know,
- 38:07Marvin: you weren't, you know, happy necessarily being a ski broadcaster and that this
- 38:12Marvin: great door opened for you when the outdoor life network called you and you were
- 38:16Marvin: We're able to kind of pivot out of the ski world and have this entirely new beginning, right,
- 38:22Marvin: in fly fishing in a very different way that I think you found more fulfilling.
- 38:26Marvin: I was wondering if you could share a little bit of that with our listeners.
- 38:30Andy: When I got hurt in 1981 with that fall in Switzerland, it ended my ski career.
- 38:36Andy: I broke my neck, my back, my leg, and all the ligaments in my right knee.
- 38:39Andy: It's like, okay, what am I going to do now for the rest of my life?
- 38:42Andy: I don't have an education. I graduated from high school. never went to college and I thought,
- 38:51Andy: How am I going to make a living? And I thought, the only way I can make a living is through exposure.
- 38:57Andy: So I started this TV show called Ski with Andy Mill. It was a barter syndicated show.
- 39:03Andy: To make a long story short, I sold advertising. It was a five-minute show.
- 39:09Andy: I distributed it all around the country.
- 39:11Andy: I was the director of skiing here in Aspen.
- 39:14Andy: But my five-minute show, I was getting paid from all the products I was wearing.
- 39:19Andy: Boots, blinding, skis, sunglasses, clothing.
- 39:22Andy: I was making a lot of money with that little show.
- 39:25Andy: And now I'm also doing the broadcast work for CBS in the Olympics.
- 39:29Andy: I covered Albertville in 92 and Lillehammer in 94.
- 39:33Andy: I was the director of skiing here in Aspen. I was on top of the world, so to speak, right?
- 39:39Andy: But I was flatline. My life was not moving up.
- 39:44Andy: I was no longer an athlete trying to win stuff. I was never pushing myself personally.
- 39:51Andy: I was maintaining. I was making a lot of money, but it was flat.
- 39:55Andy: And I hated broadcasting because I was speaking about something I wanted to be doing.
- 40:00Andy: And now all of a sudden, I'm in this life where I'm making money.
- 40:03Andy: I was a professional, but there was nothing exciting to it.
- 40:07Andy: And then I did a couple of specials for the Outdoor Life network,
- 40:10Andy: and I was a host on a couple of shows, and they wanted me to host a fishing show.
- 40:16Andy: I said, I have no time, none.
- 40:19Andy: I am tapped. But I'll tell you what, you match what I make as a skier,
- 40:25Andy: all my contracts, all of them.
- 40:29Andy: You give me that amount of money, you give me a five-year contract,
- 40:34Andy: and if I produce this TV show, all the money I save on the production costs, I get to keep as my bonus.
- 40:42Andy: So now, all of a sudden, I leave skiing fully.
- 40:48Andy: I am now producing fishing shows, and I was making about $750,000 fishing.
- 40:55Andy: And now I get to fish all over the world with the best guides in the world,
- 41:00Andy: telling these great stories.
- 41:02Andy: And I was making a lot of money. It was a massive home run for me because now
- 41:07Andy: I was excited to wake up in the morning.
- 41:10Andy: I was going to go fish the Seychelles. I was fishing St.
- 41:13Andy: Thomas for 800-pound marlin, Guatemala, Costa Rica. I did a TV show in the the
- 41:18Andy: Arctic circle with, with former president Bush.
- 41:21Andy: And now all of a sudden I start doing this tarpon thing and now I get to go fish tournaments.
- 41:29Andy: My life is, is climbing, climbing the mountain again. It's the greatest thing
- 41:34Andy: that ever happened to me.
- 41:36Marvin: Yeah. And, you know, why do you think people sometimes get stuck kind of flat? Right.
- 41:43Marvin: And, you know, cause it's an interesting thing and it's, you know,
- 41:45Marvin: you know, when I kind of, so my, you know, I try to kind of coach my boys growing
- 41:50Marvin: up and talk about, you know, finding those things that make you passionate,
- 41:53Marvin: right? That'll give you that energy.
- 41:56Marvin: You know, why do you think so many people just kind of look up in late middle
- 41:58Marvin: age and they kind of have wasted 30 or 40 years of their life?
- 42:03Andy: Look, I think a lot of people get married too young. They have kids too young.
- 42:08Andy: They have bills they got to pay.
- 42:11Andy: Man, they're stuck. They're stuck for a long time.
- 42:16Andy: There's no freedom. They don't have, they're not financially free.
- 42:22Andy: The wife's got a job. You've got a job. The kids are driving them crazy.
- 42:26Andy: Get home. Everybody's hungry.
- 42:30Andy: And sometimes you don't even have a job you like.
- 42:35Andy: Got to find work. Right. And when I look around, um, I see that a lot in a lot
- 42:44Andy: of places, you know, So, and then two, how do you take that gamble?
- 42:50Andy: How do you take that gamble? Like I said, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going
- 42:55Andy: to go fishing. I want to work in a fishing store.
- 42:58Andy: And I'll give you an example. My father was like that.
- 43:02Andy: He was in the lumber business his entire life. He never had two nickels to rub together.
- 43:09Andy: But he got a great job here in Aspen running the lumber yard,
- 43:14Andy: pushed forward a number of years.
- 43:15Andy: He was working in Denver as a lumberman.
- 43:19Andy: I don't think he really liked his job. He was not a very happy man because he was kind of stuck.
- 43:24Andy: And he came here when he was like 60-some years old, 66, I think it was.
- 43:29Andy: I taught him how to nymph fish. I taught him how to catch fish.
- 43:33Andy: He went back to Denver and quit his job like four months later.
- 43:38Andy: And he got a job at at at um what
- 43:43Andy: the hell is the name of that um well it's
- 43:46Andy: a little fishing store in in littleton colorado anglers all my dad was tying
- 43:52Andy: flies for anglers all working the desk and he was ecstatic because he could
- 43:58Andy: fish on the weekends and he was tying flies anyway i used to bussing a lot of
- 44:03Andy: times. I said, dad, what kind of flies are you tying?
- 44:06Andy: He said, I'm tying San Juan worms and eggs.
- 44:10Andy: I said, dad, those are not flies, dude. You're not a fly tire.
- 44:14Andy: But he was living large again because he was on the river and he was talking
- 44:19Andy: to fishermen and it changed his life entirely. But he didn't have a lot of bills at the time.
- 44:28Andy: He was later in his years in life, close to retirement.
- 44:31Andy: So I think he's talking about people getting stuck.
- 44:35Andy: I was very fortunate. I was stuck at a high level because I was making a lot of money.
- 44:40Andy: I was doing really cool things that no one ever dreams of being,
- 44:45Andy: a broadcaster for the Olympics, the director of skiing in Aspen.
- 44:49Andy: But me personally, I was flatlined.
- 44:53Marvin: It's an interesting thing. I know when I coach my boys, I always talk.
- 44:57Marvin: I'm a Generation X guy. Growing up in the 70s, I feel like we can a little bit
- 45:04Marvin: more rough and tumble maybe than millennials and younger kids.
- 45:07Marvin: And I think some of that is a function of, you know, growing up and having grandparents
- 45:12Marvin: that came of age in the Depression and just a different sensibility.
- 45:16Marvin: And it's kind of an interesting thing where, you know, given kind of,
- 45:20Marvin: you know, my background in law and finance, I saw a lot of people that were
- 45:23Marvin: really spending money just to keep from being completely miserable in what they were doing.
- 45:27Marvin: And if you could kind of dial back, you know, what you thought you had to have,
- 45:31Marvin: you can maybe find a little bit of a crack of light in the door and maybe find
- 45:36Marvin: a way to kind of squeak out.
- 45:37Andy: Yeah.
- 45:40Andy: Well, look, I have been the most fortunate person, you know,
- 45:44Andy: I could possibly ever imagine dreaming of being.
- 45:49Andy: I have an ex-wife that was a superstar in the tennis world. We have three great kids.
- 45:55Andy: I have chapters. I look back at and I go, oh, my God, how did I ever get here?
- 46:00Andy: How did I ever be so lucky to be able to have this life?
- 46:04Andy: You know, I mean, some people are just luckier than others. You know,
- 46:09Andy: sometimes luck plays a huge role.
- 46:11Andy: And I had, my son said, Dad, you get the biggest horseshoe up your ass.
- 46:20Andy: I said, yeah, I agree, you know.
- 46:23Andy: But I think a lot of luck comes from being very fortunate, a lot of doors open for you.
- 46:33Andy: But being lucky is having the ability to not only step through that door,
- 46:40Andy: but being able to excel on the other side of that door.
- 46:44Andy: And it comes from with me, I had this passionate heart.
- 46:48Andy: I was a really hard worker. you know i even i mean i will work till the day
- 46:55Andy: i die i don't know anything different i want to work and i want to do well i
- 46:58Andy: don't want to just make money i want to excel at what i do,
- 47:03Andy: um so i think i was gifted you know with that desire to work hard and and it
- 47:08Andy: was not about the money it was about the chasing dreams i think we live fully all of us,
- 47:18Andy: while we are chasing our dreams.
- 47:22Marvin: And you've done so much, you know, what do you have left on your to-do list
- 47:27Marvin: that you want to accomplish and achieve?
- 47:31Andy: I'm going to go to Mags Bay. I want to catch a striped marlin,
- 47:34Andy: free cast into a striped marlin without bait and switch.
- 47:37Andy: I want to go to Bolivia and catch a golden dorado.
- 47:42Andy: Other than that, I'm 71. I've had 24 operations. My body's killing me.
- 47:49Andy: I need another knee. My left knee's replaced. My right knee needs replaced.
- 47:54Andy: My neck is fused. My back is fused. Everything hurts. I can barely play golf anymore. more.
- 48:00Andy: I just really want to try to be able to stay active and do things.
- 48:05Andy: I still want to elk hunt in the high country.
- 48:07Andy: And I got back to Aspen. I've been in Florida all winter.
- 48:10Andy: I went on not even a hard hike yesterday. I've got so much lactic acid in my
- 48:15Andy: body. It's like, are you serious?
- 48:17Andy: My God, I used to be an athlete. What happened?
- 48:22Andy: And now I know I've got to look forward to of September when I got to chase
- 48:26Andy: my son at 12,000 feet, 11,000 feet chasing elk, you know?
- 48:29Andy: So my dreams are to see my son's about ready to have a baby this week.
- 48:34Andy: The dreams I have now is to see really great happiness, you know,
- 48:40Andy: with my entire family, you know, my kids, my young grandson,
- 48:44Andy: that's going to be born here this week.
- 48:46Andy: And really being able to, I've been very fortunate to be able to be connected
- 48:50Andy: to the fishing industry.
- 48:53Andy: And I don't take that lightly. I think that there's a big responsibility to
- 49:00Andy: do what Nicky and I do with our podcast, bring to light a lot of stories that
- 49:05Andy: are going to go away with age and time.
- 49:08Andy: I want to help maintain the history of our sport,
- 49:12Andy: the evolution of our sport, and the people that created our sport,
- 49:16Andy: you know and what they did to innovate what they what they've done and give
- 49:20Andy: respect to the people that came before me you know i will never take for granted
- 49:26Andy: what i have in my life um it did not come easily um.
- 49:34Andy: But with that said, I have a lot of work in trying to help preserve these other
- 49:40Andy: stories that came before me, these icons,
- 49:45Andy: these legends, and their stories are going to die if they don't get on your
- 49:49Andy: podcast, on our podcast, and let them tell their stories.
- 49:53Andy: So the younger generation will realize what took place to get this game to where
- 49:58Andy: we are today and who did it.
- 50:00Andy: So that it gives them a baseline not a
- 50:03Andy: baseline that just so what they know now i
- 50:07Andy: think it's important to know how we got here conservation too if we don't know
- 50:12Andy: how we got here it's really hard to understand the direction we're going to
- 50:16Andy: go into the future and and so what i have left often in my life is, is really trying to,
- 50:24Andy: you know, be kind and humble and let people,
- 50:29Andy: you know, I want to be treated the way I want people to treat me the way I want to treat them.
- 50:36Andy: Um, and I always want that and never, never think that I'm nothing more than
- 50:40Andy: a mountain guy that did okay.
- 50:43Marvin: And it's, you know, as a father, um, it's gotta be just absolutely fantastic
- 50:48Marvin: to have the podcast and get to work with your son.
- 50:51Andy: Yeah. Look, we were speaking about that earlier. I have three sons.
- 50:56Andy: I love them all dearly, equally. But Nicky has gravitated to the things that I've always loved.
- 51:04Andy: He's always wanted to be on my shoulders and seeing what I saw.
- 51:08Andy: I'd be signing up in a tournament. He would be on my shoulders.
- 51:12Andy: We'd be on the boat getting bullet, playing with the
- 51:15Andy: mullet started bow hunting
- 51:18Andy: he's a great bow hunter kills kills all
- 51:21Andy: kinds of great animals and now we work together it's a dream to be able to be
- 51:27Andy: to have a son like nikki who connects with the things that i love and i think
- 51:33Andy: too for him to have a father that that understands the things that that he loves goes both ways yeah.
- 51:39Marvin: It's very very neat andy is there anything else this evening you want to share
- 51:42Marvin: with our listeners before i let you go.
- 51:44Andy: I would just say wherever you are whatever you're doing,
- 51:57Andy: make sure you you find the the time and place to listen to silence hear how loud,
- 52:05Andy: silence is and when you hear and when you're in the presence of silence You
- 52:10Andy: can hear your inner voice of what you want to do, who you are,
- 52:16Andy: where you want to go with your life.
- 52:19Andy: What does love mean? What does your family mean to you?
- 52:22Andy: How can I make my family better? How can I be a better dad, a better father,
- 52:26Andy: a better fisherman, better employee, better owner of a company? Right?
- 52:33Andy: Because we're not really, we're not grading ourselves by what other people are doing.
- 52:38Andy: We're grading ourselves by how, who we are and what kind of a person we are.
- 52:44Andy: And remember, always try to dream big and chase those dreams.
- 52:51Marvin: And Andy, if folks want to follow your adventures on the water and in the field,
- 52:55Marvin: running after Nikki going up the mountain chasing elk, where should they look?
- 53:01Andy: Look yeah so you know
- 53:04Andy: our our podcast millhouse podcast you can
- 53:06Andy: watch it on youtube and our instagram
- 53:09Andy: site uh millhouse podcast podcast instagram you
- 53:13Andy: can watch and see some tips and some uh
- 53:16Andy: some words of wisdom but you can
- 53:18Andy: also listen to our podcast on you know where we
- 53:21Andy: find your your podcast spotify you know all i don't know anything about that
- 53:26Andy: stuff i'm just i'm just the voice my son does all that i i have just a figurehead
- 53:32Andy: with the talking lips here you know yeah but but we're out there and um you
- 53:37Andy: know we have now i think we've done 111 podcasts,
- 53:41Andy: and if you scroll through it you can find offshore captains you know great great
- 53:46Andy: guys have done a lot of great things in the world of fishing yeah.
- 53:49Marvin: As i always say you know you have people which is good to take care of all that
- 53:52Marvin: stuff i'll drop links to all that stuff and in the show notes and And I super
- 53:57Marvin: appreciate you spending the time with me. Incredibly generous of you.
- 54:00Marvin: And I look forward to seeing you on the show circuit again soon.
- 54:03Andy: Well, I'm honored you have asked me to be here. And again, thank you so much.
- 54:07Marvin: Take care.
- 54:08Andy: You too.
- 54:10Intro: Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.
- 54:13Intro: Again, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and
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- 54:19Intro: And don't forget to check out our community on Patreon. Tight lines, everybody.