Latest / The Long Haul with The Articulate Fly / S8, Ep 70: REDUX: Nomadic Waters and the Allure of Amazonian Peacock Bass - The Articulate Fly

Transcript

S8, Ep 70: REDUX: Nomadic Waters and the Allure of Amazonian Peacock Bass - The Articulate Fly · The Long Haul with The Articulate Fly

• 0:00
  Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly.
• 0:07
  On this episode, I'm joined by Michael Williams, the driving force behind Nomadic Waters.
• 0:13
  Michael shares his passion for the people, places and peacock bass of the Amazon and we take a deep dive into all things Nomadic Waters.
• 0:21
  I think you're really going to enjoy this one, but before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items.
• 0:27
  If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating review in the podcatcher of your choice.
• 0:34
  It really helps us out and thanks to our friends at the Fly Fishing Show for sponsoring the episode.
• 0:40
  The 2025 season kicks off in Marlborough on January 17 and then heads to Edison, Atlanta, Bellevue, Denver, Pleasanton and Lancaster.
• 0:50
  Come out and visit with old friends and make a few new ones.
• 0:53
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• 0:58
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• 1:06
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• 1:11
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• 1:31
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• 1:34
  Use code artfly20 for 20% off of your TroutRoutes Pro membership at maps.troutroutes.com now on to our interview.
• 1:48
  Well Michael, welcome to The Articulate Fly.
• 1:51
  Thank you.
• 1:52
  This is a big deal.
• 1:53
  I'm very honored to be a part of this.
• 1:55
  I'm excited to have you on and I was shocked when we did our pre interview call for you to tell me that you haven't done podcasts before.
• 2:01
  No, I've been waiting for you to invite me, so I'm glad you finally did.
• 2:06
  You sound like Tim Flagler.
• 2:11
  So you know we have a tradition on the Articulate Fly.
• 2:14
  We like to ask all of our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.
• 2:18
  Ah, well, earliest fishing memory was definitely with my uncle when I was a little boy fishing for Crappie in South Carolina with just absolute junk for equipment.
• 2:30
  But it didn't matter because, you know, it was time with my uncle.
• 2:34
  Yeah, that's super neat.
• 2:35
  And so when did you come to the dark side of fly fishing?
• 2:39
  You know, I Was absolutely obsessed.
• 2:41
  I was living in Denver and was just obsessed with the sport.
• 2:45
  Just loved it.
• 2:46
  But there was no one in my world who did it.
• 2:48
  You know, I didn't have a father who my father didn't really enjoy doing much outside of.
• 2:55
  He was just forced to do work all the time, so he didn't have time to play.
• 2:59
  And so I really read every book I could find, watched every video I could find, and I just spent a lot of time on the water.
• 3:07
  And actually, I remember the very first fish I ever caught on a fly, and it was actually with a spinning rod, with a bubble.
• 3:16
  And believe it or not, it was a Trico dry fly in Cheesman Canyon, of all things.
• 3:22
  And I don't even think I could duplicate that.
• 3:24
  Now, those fish are so hard to catch, but for some reason, there was one fish kind enough to eat my fly.
• 3:30
  And that.
• 3:30
  That fish changed everything for me.
• 3:33
  Yeah, that's pretty neat.
• 3:34
  I think literally, if they heard you, like, take the bubble out of the car, they would spook.
• 3:38
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:39
  It's a special place.
• 3:41
  Yep.
• 3:41
  Yeah.
• 3:42
  And so who are some of the folks that have mentored you on your fly fishing journey and what did you learn from.
• 3:48
  You know, it's interesting.
• 3:50
  I would have loved to have had a mentor.
• 3:52
  I really would have.
• 3:53
  There were definitely some up and coming celebrities in Denver, especially at that time.
• 3:59
  But, you know, when I decided to officially get into the business and into the industry, I should say before that, I really just wanted to spend as much time as I could on the water.
• 4:14
  And I realized that there weren't a lot of mentors out there that I had circled circle with.
• 4:19
  So, you know, my.
• 4:21
  My best friend in the world is my sister Jean, and we're five years apart.
• 4:26
  And I discovered that it's something that she wanted to learn as well.
• 4:31
  And so instead of having a mentor, really, Jean and I just kind of doubled up and worked together and learned together how to fly fish from the ground up.
• 4:41
  It was definitely the slow trail of learning the sport.
• 4:46
  A lot of trial and error, but it was just.
• 4:50
  It was a great time to have that.
• 4:52
  That time and experience with her.
• 4:55
  And, you know, we did something called.
• 4:58
  Called one rodding.
• 4:59
  You know, we only had enough money to buy one nice rod and real outfit.
• 5:05
  And so we would go into Cheeseman Canyon and we would just take one rod and basically one would fish and the other would stand there and observe and watch.
• 5:15
  And if that person would hook a fish, usually miss it, then we'd swap out and then the next person grabbed the rod.
• 5:23
  And it's pretty remarkable how much you can learn when you're not fishing.
• 5:32
  It sounds kind of strange, but when you are solely focused on observing, you're not actually physically holding the rod, you're not physically waiting to set that hook, but you're instead, you know, your peripheral vision's a little bit bigger.
• 5:48
  You can see a little bit more than the person that's actually fishing who's hyper focused on what that fish is doing.
• 5:54
  But you can actually see other opportunities.
• 5:56
  You can see what the fly is actually doing, see maybe with where that current should be.
• 6:01
  And that was just for us, that was just a master class, long answer, but that was just, that was just a really special time for us.
• 6:11
  Yeah, and it's an interesting thing too, right, because we kind of look at kind of YouTube and all the stuff there is today and there's a place for that.
• 6:20
  But I keep having these recurring conversations with people that have been in the sport longer about actually there being scarcity and having to have focus and not being able to just look up everything on your phone.
• 6:34
  And you actually ended up with a kind of a more well rounded and deeper foundation in terms of fishing and fishing skills.
• 6:42
  I would totally agree.
• 6:43
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:45
  Yeah.
• 6:45
  It's interesting because, I mean, kind of one of my sort of knocks kind of on the industry is I think we've in an effort to sell more stuff, we've kind of dumbed things down and we actually make it
• 6:53
  harder for people to become accomplished anglers.
• 6:56
  Yes.
• 6:57
  There's certainly something to be said about having too much information out there.
• 7:02
  And I think it's all well intended.
• 7:04
  You know, as I sit down to talk to other people who are, who are casting instructors or who teach fly fishing classes.
• 7:10
  You know, I taught at the Orvis schools for a long time and as I sit down and talk to those instructors, I find a lot of those instructors learned the hard way as well.
• 7:20
  I think we took the slow route to learn the sport.
• 7:24
  And in a lot of ways I think that motivated all of us to really be better teachers and help these people kind of shorten that learning curve with, with what we've learned over the years.
• 7:36
  Yeah, it's interesting because one of my observations has been that we've gotten to a place where everyone wants like a 90 second answer in an Instagram reel.
• 7:45
  And I think if we focus more on helping anglers understand why they're doing what they do, then they can become a lot better at solving problems for themselves when they don't have all the experts around.
• 7:56
  And they can't get a signal on their telephone.
• 7:58
  Absolutely.
• 7:59
  That.
• 7:59
  Very well said.
• 8:00
  That's a very good point.
• 8:01
  Yeah.
• 8:02
  And so, so you were eating up with it.
• 8:04
  You had one rod, you shared it with your sister.
• 8:06
  So when did you get the guide bug?
• 8:09
  Well, you know, we, we love to fish so much.
• 8:13
  It was basically all I could think about.
• 8:15
  Even while I was at work.
• 8:16
  I was in a corporate role.
• 8:19
  And it actually got to the point.
• 8:21
  Where.
• 8:24
  Just as we started to get our feet wet, get some success and, you know, that confidence kicked in.
• 8:29
  Then I could not wait to basically share it with everybody that I knew.
• 8:33
  And I started taking people out and, you know, I just learned from our mistakes and they, you know, we really celebrated their successes and it was just, there was just something inside me that just lit up like, wow,
• 8:46
  this, this is different.
• 8:48
  This is really fulfilling.
• 8:50
  Um, and I can say now, you know, many, many years ago, you know, that started many years ago.
• 8:57
  I can still say now that nothing I've done in my life has been more fulfilling than guiding someone on the water.
• 9:03
  It's just an incredible experience.
• 9:04
  So I actually ended up leaving my corporate job and moved to working as a shop hound at a fly shop in, in Denver.
• 9:14
  And, you know, working at the fly shop, eventually there were opportunities to get my foot in the door with a guide, as a guide.
• 9:24
  And once that happened, once I started taking people out on the river, that's again, that's all I, that's all I wanted to do.
• 9:33
  And they were kind enough to just give me opportunities to take customers out.
• 9:40
  And then working in the shop, it gave me a chance to just talk people into a guide trip and starting building that relationship.
• 9:47
  And it was just, it was a very, very good, good time in our lives.
• 9:52
  Yeah.
• 9:52
  It's interesting too because I think kind of that Denver metro area is such a super unique fly fishing location in terms of access to the resource.
• 10:04
  Although now you have traffic out there that's like LA traffic, but tons of access to the resource.
• 10:11
  I mean, probably, you know, in terms of like, probably the most fly shops spread out over that much of an area anywhere in the country.
• 10:20
  Yeah, I mean, just a phenomenally, you know, interesting culture and a lot of different ways to fish and a lot.
• 10:25
  Of variety in water.
• 10:27
  You know, you've got the, you've got the tail waters, you've got the freestones, you've got small walking wade spots and you have, you know, bigger rivers you can float.
• 10:35
  Just so much variety.
• 10:37
  Yeah.
• 10:37
  And so do, you know, do you have any mentors that Kind of mentored you on your guide journey.
• 10:42
  Anything that kind of, you know, someone that jumps out at you that was particularly kind of fundamental in your development.
• 10:49
  Again, most of it was just learned on the fly and through experience and through learning from mistakes and celebrating the successes.
• 10:57
  One thing that was interesting was that the shop I was working with actually partnered up with another shop in Evergreen.
• 11:05
  With the Blue Quill Famous shop in Colorado, we actually shared guide services.
• 11:11
  We had one guide manager that managed both groups of guides from each shop.
• 11:17
  And you know that that was a little awkward for some of the guides because it's hard not to look at those guides as, as competition.
• 11:27
  But I quickly saw the talent of the guide pool at the Blue Quill and instead of looking at this as competition, who really, really became friends and embraced as comrades.
• 11:41
  And you know, two that come to mind, those back in those days was Pat Dorsey, the legendary Pat Dorsey now and, and Matt Captain Matt Miles.
• 11:52
  You know, it was a real honor to share trips working with those guys.
• 11:56
  And I'll tell you, just stopping what you're doing and watching those guys at work is, is just a remarkable thing.
• 12:03
  Those talk about someone who's meant to be out on the water with customers.
• 12:08
  They are guiding machines.
• 12:10
  And honestly I learned so much just from observing them and watching them.
• 12:15
  Those are two big names to come to mind.
• 12:17
  And thankfully we are still very close, still good friends now and they've both come to Brazil many times with their customers.
• 12:25
  Yeah, it's funny, I think I told you when we were doing our pre interview call that I actually, I mean I grew up in a relatively small town in Virginia and I actually met Pat through Matt at like
• 12:35
  an itty bitty library at a TU meeting.
• 12:39
  That's right, I remember that.
• 12:40
  Yeah.
• 12:41
  But you know, it's an interesting thing too because I would flip that around like, you know, when you, when you're a client and you fish with guides that have that network, it's really helpful, you know, and you see
• 12:52
  that on like a multi day experience where you're able to kind of, you hear your guys talking to his guys and you're kind of figuring out where to fish and what's working, you know, which at least from my
• 13:03
  perspective, I always say, you know, you can't control the catching, but you can control, you know, having everything that can be humanly possible done for you to put you on fish.
• 13:11
  That's right, absolutely.
• 13:13
  So.
• 13:14
  So you're having the time of your life in Colorado.
• 13:17
  Right.
• 13:17
  You know, and you don't think it can get Any better.
• 13:20
  And then all of a sudden you're like, I want to do exotic destination travel.
• 13:24
  How did that come about?
• 13:25
  That's right.
• 13:26
  Well, you know, I've never been a person of means and there were a lot of places that I wanted to go, but I certainly could not personally afford to go to those.
• 13:38
  And.
• 13:38
  But the one thing that I did have was a client list and just good, really good friends that were customers that, you know, it's just like, hey, I know you guys want to travel, I want to travel.
• 13:49
  Where do you want to go?
• 13:51
  And let's pick a destination and let me plan the whole thing.
• 13:56
  This is before hosted trip ever really horsed travel was a thing.
• 14:03
  It just seemed like an easy option for me because, you know, being in Colorado is not a year round, sustainable year round business.
• 14:10
  So being able to sneak away and do something down in Baja or go up to Alaska or something like that, or trip to Montana was, was something that was very achievable.
• 14:20
  And it was wonderful because it certainly can.
• 14:23
  It's a great opportunity to build on that relationship with your customers and it really expands your knowledge.
• 14:31
  I've always felt like travel has been incredibly important to me and seeing new, new people, seeing new lands, new cultures, personally, honestly, that's one thing I really live for.
• 14:45
  I, I would much rather live in a very small house and drive an old car if I can afford to go and travel.
• 14:52
  And so the destination fishing is certainly something that fit in really well with, with what was important to me.
• 15:00
  Yeah, it's funny as you were telling me that it makes me think, I think, you know, Currier kind of got into the destination, traveled the same way because he didn't want to stay in Jackson and tune skis all
• 15:08
  winter.
• 15:08
  Yep, precisely.
• 15:10
  That's right.
• 15:13
  And so, you know, obviously there's a huge quantum leap to, you know, starting nomadic waters.
• 15:17
  And I know when you started, I mean, that was the house ship option, right?
• 15:20
  Yes.
• 15:21
  And so that's not just like, hey, let's go down here.
• 15:23
  And it's not like going to, you know, an estancia and Argentina and everything's kind of covered.
• 15:29
  So tell me a little bit about like the idea for forming nomadic waters and kind of a little bit about kind of building out the business.
• 15:36
  Sure.
• 15:37
  Well, I'll step back a little bit.
• 15:39
  You know, as much as I loved guiding, it really wasn't an opportunity for me to make much of a living financially.
• 15:46
  And so I moved up into more of the corporate part of the industry and worked at Patagonia and had A wonderful time working with Patagonia Corporate.
• 15:58
  And then I was recruited by another company and worked with them for a couple of years.
• 16:02
  And that just turned out to be an extremely difficult, difficult job.
• 16:08
  And it just was not the right fit.
• 16:10
  And in fact, the separation was so difficult, frankly, I actually stopped fishing altogether.
• 16:17
  I was living in Montana, I mean, living right on the Clarks Fork, and could care less about fishing.
• 16:23
  It was a really, really tough time in my life.
• 16:26
  So I stopped fishing for a few years.
• 16:28
  It was always still in the back of my mind.
• 16:29
  It was such a big, big part of who I was.
• 16:32
  But I just kind of had to process.
• 16:36
  Process things, and I really wanted to do something on my own.
• 16:39
  I really wanted to call my own shots and really make sure that people were taken well care of and just being fully responsible for.
• 16:52
  For what was going on.
• 16:53
  And so as I was trying to find the next opportunity, I actually started to do some humanitarian work down in Brazil.
• 17:01
  My.
• 17:02
  My church was doing some trips down there, taking doctors and eye surgeons down there.
• 17:07
  And what we would do is we would go on a mothership during high water, and during high water, we could get those motherships way up back into the far furthest reaches of the jungles and meet with communities and
• 17:22
  work with communities.
• 17:23
  And, you know, there's a lot of issues up there that.
• 17:26
  That.
• 17:27
  That we could help with.
• 17:28
  And that was an important time for me because it just.
• 17:33
  It really gave me some fulfillment that I was looking for, finding a way that I could give back.
• 17:39
  But it didn't take long at all.
• 17:41
  It took minutes for me to start looking at that water and looking at the opportunities and saying, wow, I'm in the Amazon jungle.
• 17:49
  This water is absolutely full of life.
• 17:54
  And I really got to know the Brazilian crew, the people that were really making those trips happen.
• 18:02
  And I started to think about it.
• 18:04
  It's like, here's a crew who's hosted American doctors, some of them, for.
• 18:08
  For almost 20 years.
• 18:11
  They've been to the.
• 18:12
  Some of the most remote regions of the areas.
• 18:15
  They've got really strong relationships with these communities.
• 18:20
  And frankly, they've seen a lot.
• 18:23
  All the mistakes that tourists make.
• 18:25
  You know, for some reason, tourists, they kind of check their brains at the door when they go on a big trip, and they're not really observant, and they make a lot of mistakes.
• 18:35
  And I watched this crew handle those different scenarios and just saw them and.
• 18:42
  And really, the bottom line was I suddenly had a crew of friends that I could trust.
• 18:49
  The number one single most challenging thing to find to starting an operation in a place like Brazil is finding a crew like that that are like minded, that I could trust.
• 19:01
  And so the more I, I talked to them and I realized that, well, wait a minute, this is, this is all work for you guys during the high water season.
• 19:09
  What are you doing during the low water season?
• 19:12
  Well, they're unemployed during the low water season.
• 19:14
  You know, there aren't a lot of jobs in Brazil.
• 19:17
  And so they were literally working three, four months a year.
• 19:20
  And they're just trying to pick up odd jobs after that.
• 19:23
  Well, low water season is fishing season in Brazil.
• 19:28
  And it didn't take long at all for me to connect those dots.
• 19:31
  And so I pulled a handful of that crew and just made a presentation to them.
• 19:37
  I'm like, look, this is my background, this is what I'm good at.
• 19:43
  Would you be interested in letting me teach you how to work with fly fishing customers and you can teach me how to run operations in Brazil?
• 19:57
  And they loved it.
• 19:58
  It is a great solution for them because essentially I'm doubling their income and they're learning a new skill.
• 20:06
  It gives them opportunities to work with foreigners, which gives them more opportunities to find work in Brazil.
• 20:12
  It was just a win, win, win as far as I could see.
• 20:15
  And then as I looked at that water, oh man, the opportunities for that water, it's just the kind of place where when you go, it's really hard to come back.
• 20:27
  It's just an incredible place.
• 20:28
  And so we had, in many ways, many of the essentials already figured out because this crew's already done so many mothership trips.
• 20:40
  And we knew that that was the best way for us to go.
• 20:44
  At the time, um, we met with communities and, you know, one of our challenges was finding a community that, that accepted our help, that needed our help, but also had a quality fishery.
• 21:01
  They were playing communities that wanted us to come and help them, but we needed to work in a place where we could also bring our customers.
• 21:08
  And that, that took a couple years, actually took about three years of exploring and we finally found the water that we wanted to work in.
• 21:20
  We found the communities we wanted to support.
• 21:23
  And in 2014, we had our first customers.
• 21:28
  Very, very neat.
• 21:29
  So you really kind of started kind of building out the fishing operation.
• 21:32
  What about 2010?
• 21:33
  Something like that?
• 21:34
  Yes.
• 21:35
  Yeah, exactly.
• 21:36
  Interesting.
• 21:37
  And so of course, I always love to talk to, like startups and all kinds of stuff.
• 21:40
  I always like to hear, you know, the biggest surprise or challenge that had you pulling your hair out in the early days in nomadic waters.
• 21:47
  Yeah, well, I think, I think it was a bit naive.
• 21:52
  I think I made the assumption that every fly fisherman wanted to go to the Amazon and fish in the jungle, because why wouldn't they?
• 21:58
  You know, I've seen it, so why wouldn't they all want to share the same experience?
• 22:03
  As I started to talk to prospects, I quickly realized that it's about 10% of the people that I talk to are remotely interested in coming to the Amazon.
• 22:14
  Now.
• 22:14
  This is back in 20, you know, 10, 11 and 12.
• 22:19
  It was definitely way off the radar at that time.
• 22:22
  It is far more on the radar now.
• 22:25
  But you know, at that time that was something that really surprised me.
• 22:28
  That was a big challenge.
• 22:28
  You know, if you don't have customers, you can't, you're dead in the water.
• 22:33
  And so that, that was something where I really had to say, okay, I just have to accept the fact that every single person that I speak to about coming to the Amazon has actually never even considered or thought
• 22:44
  about coming to the Amazon.
• 22:46
  And that just means it's a lot more work on the sales side.
• 22:53
  But the good thing is, is that the people that came were the right people.
• 22:57
  You know, I, the worst thing to do is to have someone come down and it's just not their kind of experience.
• 23:03
  And so the people who came down came back and brought their friends and then those friends brought their friends.
• 23:12
  And you know, we, we really have a minimal marketing budget.
• 23:17
  But you know, this is our 2024 marks our 10th anniversary of actually hosting customers in the Amazon.
• 23:26
  And you know, we still have people coming from that very first year, which is, it still just blows me away.
• 23:33
  We are so grateful for them.
• 23:35
  But you know, those people have all brought their friends and that's, that's really how we've grown.
• 23:40
  But man, it was a slow start.
• 23:43
  Yeah, it's interesting.
• 23:44
  I mean, you know, I think about it and you kind of think about kind of, let's just kind of say the predator fly game, you know, 15 years ago, I mean, and there were people doing it, but it's
• 23:53
  not like it is today.
• 23:56
  And you know, particularly for trouty anglers, I mean, that streamer skill set is kind of usually not like the core of what they do.
• 24:02
  Right?
• 24:03
  Absolutely.
• 24:04
  Yes.
• 24:04
  Yeah.
• 24:06
  You know, we would, we would, I would try to think about what guides are, are having their customers throw in streamers.
• 24:14
  You know, maybe I could start with them and see if, you know, maybe a warm water fish would be something they'd be interested in.
• 24:21
  And then what would you think about an exotic, just a Big trip down the jungles.
• 24:26
  And, you know, it was.
• 24:27
  At that time, it was just like pulling teeth, but certainly, certainly now.
• 24:31
  And I think.
• 24:34
  I don't know if.
• 24:35
  If the higher populations of anglers on the rivers, you know, our rivers are changing all around the world.
• 24:42
  I think people are maybe looking for more solitude and, and if we can share with them how really comfortable they can be in our situation and we can guarantee solitude, you know, you won't be.
• 24:56
  There will be another angler for miles.
• 25:00
  I think those types of things start to be a little more attractive and interesting to someone who may not have originally thought of coming to the jungles.
• 25:10
  But it's been interesting to see how just the crowds on our rivers in the States have really certainly had a positive impact on the destination travel game.
• 25:25
  Interesting.
• 25:25
  And I know you don't like bucket list describing traveling to the Amazon, but kind of building out kind of on the previous answer, who is.
• 25:35
  Because people are like, gee, is this a good trip for me?
• 25:39
  Kind of.
• 25:39
  What's the profile, the angler who can come to the Amazon and be happy and successful?
• 25:46
  Oh, that's such a good question.
• 25:48
  That's an important question.
• 25:50
  You know, people who are real adventurers, I mean, that just seems like an obvious answer.
• 25:56
  But people who are willing to just go out and explore with us, they're really excited about, hey, see that lagoon?
• 26:05
  There's a lagoon on the other side of that little creek.
• 26:07
  And if we cut our way into there, there's a really high chance that there's big, big fish in there.
• 26:13
  But there's also a chance that there's nothing in there.
• 26:16
  Go explore.
• 26:17
  And some people are energized by that because that's part of a story, that's a big adventure, and it's something at the end of the day that they can come back and share with their buddies.
• 26:27
  Like, man, you're not going to believe what we did.
• 26:29
  We got in there and we saw monkeys and we saw macaws and there were three big fish in there.
• 26:35
  And.
• 26:35
  Or we have people like, you know, we got in there, it was a bus.
• 26:38
  We turned around and found another spot.
• 26:39
  But it was fine because we know the guides are working their tails off.
• 26:43
  That's the kind of customer who really enjoys our.
• 26:47
  Our type of trip.
• 26:48
  If there's a customer who may.
• 26:51
  They may only fish once a year.
• 26:54
  And when they do that, they fish with a guide.
• 26:57
  You know, they may fish for 20 years, but what that means is that they fish for 20 times.
• 27:04
  That kind of customer often wants more of A sure thing of, you know, I know that if I stand by this rock and I nymph through this current that I will eventually hook up on fish.
• 27:16
  And then I've got my fish.
• 27:18
  And this is a great experience for me.
• 27:20
  And for bang for Buck, this is, this is the kind of experience that I want.
• 27:23
  That kind of guy, that kind of customer is probably not going to really connect with the kind of operation and kind of experience that we have.
• 27:33
  We are really explorers and, and I love that.
• 27:37
  That's what fires me up, that's what keeps me going back there.
• 27:39
  Because every day is different down there.
• 27:44
  You know, the fishing.
• 27:45
  The fishing is remarkable.
• 27:47
  Honestly, I've never experienced, I've traveled the world.
• 27:49
  I've never experienced fishing like Amazon fishing, with numbers, with sheer power, with sheer size.
• 27:58
  But these fish don't come easy.
• 28:01
  And so you need to have someone with the mindset of understanding that, you know, just because I'm getting the fly out there doesn't mean I'm automatically going to catch fish.
• 28:11
  We need to work closely with the guy.
• 28:13
  We need to work on the presentation, work on our casting a little bit, make sure that we are ready, that we understand a strip set, hook set, we understand how to fight these fish because, you know, it's, it's
• 28:25
  hard to imagine until you actually hook into a peacock bass.
• 28:28
  Just the sheer power of these fish.
• 28:32
  Like a 12 pound peacock bass will shatter 40 pound leader in, in one run on his first run.
• 28:41
  And people don't believe that until they suddenly are like, what just happened there?
• 28:46
  You know, they never even saw the fish that absolutely shattered their leader.
• 28:50
  And, and so for us, I get fired up about that because, well, that's great.
• 28:55
  That means the next time it won't happen and you're going to be that much of a better angler.
• 28:59
  I don't know if that makes sense.
• 29:01
  Yeah, it does.
• 29:02
  And I guess, you know, so we've got kind of, let's just say the attitude profile and then we have to overlay that on the skill profile.
• 29:09
  Right.
• 29:09
  I know that's a tremendous challenge, you know, where you have to get people, you know, and you've got the guide experience, you know, what they tell you and what's the truth, Right?
• 29:18
  Yes.
• 29:18
  And then what they need.
• 29:19
  And so, you know, what do people need to think about being able to do or being willing to do before they decide to come down to the Amazon and chase peacock bass and some of those other toothy critters
• 29:30
  you've got down there?
• 29:32
  Sure.
• 29:32
  As far as skill sets with With.
• 29:34
  Exactly, exactly.
• 29:35
  I'm, I'm so glad you asked that question.
• 29:38
  We, I tell people all the time we will take all levels of experience.
• 29:42
  Absolutely.
• 29:43
  Even beginners.
• 29:44
  We've had beginners.
• 29:45
  We've had a couple of never evers and.
• 29:48
  Which is amazing.
• 29:49
  Can you imagine your first fly fishing trip being the Amazon?
• 29:53
  And you know, they're usually a friend that, that's come along with someone or a husband or a wife or something like that.
• 29:59
  And you know, one thing that's unique about us is on, you know, I try to host every trip.
• 30:05
  We're now running multiple camps, so I can't be at every location.
• 30:09
  But you know, when I'm down there the whole season and so that I literally fish every day with customers.
• 30:15
  And we'll talk to guests at night, I'll talk to the guides at night.
• 30:19
  We have guide meetings every night, just talking about what can we do better, who needs a little extra help, who needs a little dose of confidence or who just wants to go out and, and explore.
• 30:29
  And I'll take that person out.
• 30:30
  And I love teaching casting.
• 30:33
  I, I just love the whole process of that, of watching that light turn on as the customer suddenly is like, oh, did you see that?
• 30:42
  I totally felt that rod just kick the fly out.
• 30:45
  And that was amazing.
• 30:46
  I just love those moments.
• 30:47
  And so any, any and all levels are absolutely welcome.
• 30:54
  Honestly, the, the hardest customers we have are the customers who arrive that are already the experts.
• 31:01
  We have guests who have never fly fish or peacock bass in their lives, but they're the experts.
• 31:05
  And so they don't.
• 31:07
  They're not interesting in being taught or given direction or given ideas.
• 31:12
  They're just there to catch fish.
• 31:13
  And those are the hardest ones.
• 31:16
  You know, I went tarpon fishing once, and I'm not a tarpon expert.
• 31:22
  They kicked my butt.
• 31:23
  And I just can't imagine just arriving and saying, hey, hey, you.
• 31:26
  I don't need to hear anything from the guide.
• 31:28
  I've got this.
• 31:28
  You know, this is, it's just, is completely foreign to me.
• 31:31
  So I would say if you're thinking about coming down, you know, think about your skills.
• 31:38
  And I would just say, be ready to ask for help and say, hey, my double haul.
• 31:42
  Could you clean.
• 31:42
  Help me clean this up and we'll fix it and we'll have a great time.
• 31:46
  And I just, we're really drawn, I think, to people who are really want to get better with their craft, who really want to see the success and, you know, the success kicks in.
• 32:00
  There are so many fish in our rivers.
• 32:02
  There's so many opportunities.
• 32:04
  And once it clicks, once a customer completely understands what that cast needs to be, what that presentation needs to be, and then way, way, way, way, way down the line in priority, what the fly is.
• 32:18
  If they get that presentation right, those fish will respond.
• 32:21
  And then.
• 32:23
  And then people are just having the time of their lives because they did it.
• 32:26
  It's a huge achievement.
• 32:28
  And then the numbers start kicking in.
• 32:30
  You know, we.
• 32:31
  When I start telling people the numbers, people just don't believe it, but you come down and you'll see it.
• 32:37
  Now, this.
• 32:38
  This last year, we had record low water levels, and so our numbers weren't.
• 32:42
  Weren't what they typically are.
• 32:45
  But, you know, on a.
• 32:47
  On a typical week, for example, in the Rio Negro, which is our mothership trip, we'll have usually around 10 guests on that trip, and we'll land about 1200 fish each week.
• 32:58
  On a typical week, I think our record is almost 1700.
• 33:02
  I think it was 1680.
• 33:04
  And, you know, with 10 anglers, that's a lot of fish.
• 33:08
  And so it's.
• 33:10
  It's just an incredible experience that if you're a real fly angler, if you're a fly angler and you're open for adventure as you just.
• 33:19
  You don't want to miss this opportunity.
• 33:21
  Yeah.
• 33:22
  And then I guess, kind of the last piece of the puzzle, I would say, is, you know, streamer fishing.
• 33:27
  Sometimes it's not for the faint of heart kind of on the physical side.
• 33:30
  You know, what do people need to be able to kind of tolerate from kind of a climate, you know, because it's different for, you know, being in the bow of a boat in Montana and watching a bobber for
• 33:39
  a week.
• 33:39
  Right.
• 33:40
  That's a total true.
• 33:42
  That's.
• 33:42
  That's different.
• 33:43
  Like I always say, you know, I'm lucky enough to.
• 33:46
  To usually fish with Blane every muskie season, and that's the most physically demanding fishing I.
• 33:51
  During the year.
• 33:51
  So kind of, what.
• 33:52
  What is it like chasing peacock bass down the Amazon?
• 33:55
  Now, see, that's a perfect example, because just imagine doing that on the equator in the middle of summer.
• 34:02
  It's the same thing.
• 34:04
  Imagine now we don't cast as many big flies.
• 34:08
  People make the assumption that peacock bass only eat big flies.
• 34:13
  That is not true at all.
• 34:14
  And so I'll.
• 34:15
  I'll.
• 34:15
  I'll trim it down to smaller flies, but it's.
• 34:20
  It's very similar to muskie fishing.
• 34:21
  And as you're.
• 34:22
  As you're floating down with Blaine and you're casting the structure or you're casting to points or you, you're casting to, to humps, anticipating where that ambush strike will happen.
• 34:34
  You know, that's, that's how we spend our days.
• 34:37
  And a lot of this, of our guests come down are industry guys.
• 34:41
  They're professional either guides or in the industry, one way or another.
• 34:47
  And they come down and man their first day.
• 34:49
  When they roll in at the end of the day, they are beat up because they're casting.
• 34:54
  You know, everything looks fishy.
• 34:56
  Every inch of that place looks fishy.
• 34:59
  And they try to cover every single inch because they want to maximize the time that they're there.
• 35:04
  And I totally get it.
• 35:05
  Then we have a conversation.
• 35:07
  I usually let them beat themselves up on the first day and then this.
• 35:10
  Then that night we talk about, let's talk about picking our shots and let's talk about what do we do in our cast to make sure it's as efficient as possible.
• 35:20
  What are we doing to make sure the rod is doing the work and not your shoulders?
• 35:25
  Because chucking these flies all day long can really beat you up.
• 35:29
  And then by day two, they start to really pick their battles.
• 35:33
  They, they, they, they'll go in and they'll wait to take their shots, and, and often they catch more fish.
• 35:40
  Because if you cast too much standing in the heat like that, you know, you're, there's no way that you can keep your skills up high like that.
• 35:49
  You know, I, I tell people it's much like, you know, professional baseball pitcher.
• 35:53
  You know, they've only got so many great pitches per game.
• 35:58
  So that's how you look at fly casting in the Amazon.
• 36:01
  You could cast all day, but if you get tired, you're going to start getting sloppy, you're going to start missing strikes, you're going to, your fly is going to be stuck in the trees, your fly is going to
• 36:11
  be stuck in your shoulder.
• 36:14
  And so if people are willing to kind of take a step back and really take care of themselves and make sure they're, they're picking their shots and spending the day being relaxed and not overworking themselves.
• 36:26
  You know, it's, it's a hot environment.
• 36:27
  I live in Georgia, so I would say down there is the very much equivalent of Atlanta in August.
• 36:34
  You know, it's that hot.
• 36:37
  People always ask me how hot it is, and I'm like, I don't measure it.
• 36:39
  I don't want to know.
• 36:42
  But, you know, we, we do things to make sure everybody's well hydrated.
• 36:46
  And one thing we do that's unique is we have mandatory Siestas in the middle of the day.
• 36:52
  And at first, guys are very resistant to that concept because they're there to fish.
• 36:58
  I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna hang out and rest.
• 37:00
  Well, I tell them, and it's true.
• 37:03
  The guides need it too.
• 37:05
  You know, this is the sixth week this guy's been out on the water.
• 37:08
  He needs, he needs an afternoon siesta.
• 37:11
  So we have a nice lunch and air conditioning and then guests go back to their cabins and they can rest for a couple of hours and then we get back out on the water for just the last couple
• 37:25
  of hours of light.
• 37:26
  And I'll tell you what's really interesting is, well, number one, guests are much happier and healthier.
• 37:34
  They're well rested.
• 37:35
  They cooled off at the hottest time of the day.
• 37:37
  But you know what, our fish count actually goes up.
• 37:41
  Since we started implementing this, we're literally taking three hours off of the fishing day, but our fish count has gone up.
• 37:49
  So that just tells you with people that go out and do all dares, they're just, they're just tired and they're just sloppy.
• 37:57
  So I, you know, I feel like we've really implemented some good systems to make sure that people are comfortable and rested out of the heat, but they still have plenty of opportunities to, to just catch lifetime fish.
• 38:12
  Yeah.
• 38:12
  I think maybe we need to bring this.
• 38:14
  Yes.
• 38:14
  To top water fishing for smallmouth in Virginia in August.
• 38:19
  It makes so much sense.
• 38:21
  Yeah.
• 38:21
  I try to explain to people, I said, just so we're clear, you're not in the shade and the fish are.
• 38:26
  And that's like that all day long.
• 38:28
  Right.
• 38:28
  And it's in the 90s and it's humid, you know, or, or you know, like you're talking about.
• 38:33
  It's like I was talking to Austin Conrad at Virginia Trophy Guides about, he had a guy out and he talked about him losing concentration.
• 38:41
  I said, I bet it was about 2:30 or 3:00 clock in the afternoon, right as the bite window opened up where the water got as warm it was going to get all day long.
• 38:48
  He's like, exactly, exactly.
• 38:50
  Yes, I can see it.
• 38:52
  Absolutely.
• 38:54
  And you know, it's, it's, it's fun because by day three, I start to hear.
• 38:59
  I always like to position myself where I can listen to customers talking to each other, but they don't know that I'm eavesdropping.
• 39:06
  And you know, just to make sure if there's any problems, I'm, I'm there, ready to hear and ready to, to help.
• 39:11
  But by day three.
• 39:13
  3.
• 39:13
  I usually start hearing guys saying, man, I can't wait.
• 39:15
  I can't wait for that siesta today.
• 39:17
  It's going to be awesome.
• 39:19
  Yeah.
• 39:20
  And so, you know, for.
• 39:21
  And we were talking to.
• 39:22
  Before we started recording, you know, both of us are kind of spoiled because we're around this a lot.
• 39:26
  And so we don't think is, you know, about people that maybe do one or two or three of these trips in their entire lifetime.
• 39:31
  And so, you know, if you're someone sitting down and saying, I'm going to take, you know, one or two of these great destination trips in my kind of fly fishing life and you know, I can go to the
• 39:41
  Caribbean, I can go out west, I can go to Alaska, I can go.
• 39:44
  I guess now you can go back to Kimchatka.
• 39:46
  I think I saw a post from Will Blair saying that you wouldn't get rendered if you went back there to fish.
• 39:51
  Now I saw that yesterday.
• 39:53
  I'm psyched.
• 39:53
  I hope you can get that business back on the ground.
• 39:55
  That's great.
• 39:56
  Yeah.
• 39:57
  And so what is it about the Amazon that's different?
• 40:01
  That kind of, let's just say the destination travel consumer should think about that's kind of the differentiator or the tiebreaker.
• 40:09
  You're absolutely right.
• 40:10
  There are so many options, I think for me.
• 40:15
  And it's, it's a.
• 40:16
  Well, it's a point I haven't really brought up yet.
• 40:18
  But for me, the big part of our trip, the big part of our adventure, a lot of it has to do with the fishing.
• 40:28
  And that's what's going to bring people down.
• 40:30
  But this, there's a much bigger experience that we, that my customers really have.
• 40:37
  And there's nothing like being in a mothership running up the Rio Negro River.
• 40:46
  If you haven't seen it or experienced it, it's almost impossible to explain it.
• 40:50
  Well, I'll put it this way.
• 40:52
  There's a.
• 40:52
  There's a place that we run on the Rio Negro River.
• 40:55
  It's the fifth largest river in the world by volume.
• 40:59
  And it's a 13 miles wide where we run the mothership wide.
• 41:05
  Just imagine that.
• 41:09
  Imagine braids and rivers and creeks and lakes and lagoons all side by side by side by side for 13 miles.
• 41:16
  You know, that's.
• 41:18
  That's what that stretch of the Rio Negro looks like.
• 41:21
  And you're not going to see that or experience that anywhere else on the planet.
• 41:26
  And then our trophy fishery, the Rio da Lua, you have to fly in on a float plane because the water's so small and we had to, we stand on these floating air conditioned cabins that are really comfortable and
• 41:40
  you're hunting 20 pound peacock bass in really small water.
• 41:45
  That's an incredible experience that you're really not going to experience anywhere else.
• 41:49
  But I would say, you know, if I'm the kind of, if I've got one trip that I'm going to do next year and I have a lot of different options if I've done saltwater, you know, most people start
• 42:01
  with trout.
• 42:01
  I'll just make the big assumption.
• 42:03
  You know, you start with trout with the fly and then you've done some salt water.
• 42:06
  If you really enjoy sight fishing, if you really enjoy fighting extremely power, powerful fish.
• 42:15
  But you want to see that and experience that in a completely different environment.
• 42:19
  Basically you can take the fundamentals that you already have and have a completely new experience.
• 42:25
  I think there's something really attractive about that if you have never been out of the country.
• 42:32
  I had four customers this last season that have never been out of the country.
• 42:36
  Two of them were retired and they actually chose our trip to be their first out of the country trip.
• 42:43
  They were, it was bold.
• 42:44
  I was very, very proud of them.
• 42:45
  And they were all trout anglers.
• 42:49
  Some of them have done a little bit of bass, but not much.
• 42:52
  And that angler is just such an amazing big adventure.
• 42:57
  They just ate it up.
• 42:58
  Everywhere they look there was something that they have never seen or experienced before.
• 43:04
  And all I can speak to is just the uniqueness of this.
• 43:07
  And it's something very few people have really done.
• 43:11
  So many people have done Bahamas and Belize and those are fantastic, great, great places.
• 43:17
  But so few people have really experienced the jungle and seen, seen what lives in the jungle.
• 43:22
  You look up and see, you know, 30 macaws flying over your head.
• 43:27
  I, for me, I can't imagine a life without experiencing the Amazon.
• 43:33
  When I close my eyes at night, when I go to bed, I, I'm in the Amazon.
• 43:37
  That's just, that's what my mind gives me a picture of.
• 43:42
  And that's, that's definitely what our customers see as well.
• 43:47
  Yeah, very neat.
• 43:48
  And you know, we haven't even talked about the peacock bass at all.
• 43:50
  Yeah.
• 43:51
  Oh yeah.
• 43:52
  Oh yeah, that's right.
• 43:53
  Yeah.
• 43:53
  And so, you know, obviously that's what people think of when they think about making the trip down to South America to fish on the Amazon.
• 44:00
  You know, tell us a little bit more about how, you know, anglers, you know, target peacock bass on the fly and kind of the unique attributes of your peacock bass fishery.
• 44:09
  Sure.
• 44:10
  There are a lot of favorite things for me and for my customers when it comes to peacock bass.
• 44:15
  One of them is, you know, we fish from boats.
• 44:19
  We fish from either bass trackers on the bigger rivers, or we fish in smaller john boats that have casting platforms on the smaller rivers.
• 44:28
  One thing that I really enjoy about our strategies is it is very much a partner to style of fishing.
• 44:36
  It's not one person gets up and fishes, and then when he misses his shot, they switch around, which would be, you know, very common in a saltwater experience.
• 44:46
  Or it's not a competitive thing at all.
• 44:48
  And I'll explain that.
• 44:50
  Peacock bass are the apex predators of their environment.
• 44:56
  And think about that for a minute.
• 44:58
  Think about just how hostile that environment is.
• 45:01
  Everything is trying to kill something in their environment, and they're at the top of their game.
• 45:07
  The only way that a peacock bass can really get eaten is if they are injured, then they're, you know, then they're taken.
• 45:15
  But otherwise, they can outmaneuver out power or just eat anything that's trying to get to them.
• 45:21
  So because of that, they're not afraid of us.
• 45:24
  They're not afraid of anything.
• 45:25
  We can literally move our boat into a lagoon.
• 45:31
  We can make a cast to a fish that might be hiding up under some structure that's ready to ambush.
• 45:37
  And as we pull our fly out of that structure, that fish will come out and will charge the fly.
• 45:44
  And at that moment, you want to actually speed up your fly.
• 45:48
  The minute you stop moving your fly, he loses interest, and he's gone.
• 45:51
  But if you speed up the fly, you cannot get that fly away from that fish fast enough.
• 45:57
  They come and bolt at it.
• 45:58
  And what's really fun is that they will come right to the boat.
• 46:01
  Most of the takes, most of the eats that we get are right at the rod tip, easily within 20ft of our.
• 46:08
  Of our.
• 46:08
  Of our.
• 46:10
  Of our rod tip.
• 46:11
  So we can actually see every.
• 46:13
  Every strike, which is so exciting and coming in.
• 46:17
  Coming back to circling back to the partner idea, they're always in numbers.
• 46:24
  So if you draw one peacock bass out of the structure, you're doing everything right.
• 46:30
  Your speed is right, your depth is right, and you're ready to hook up.
• 46:33
  That fish eats and turns well, there's another fish right behind it.
• 46:37
  In fact, there's probably six fish right behind it.
• 46:39
  And.
• 46:40
  And probably that second fish is bigger.
• 46:43
  So what that means is that the second angler now has an opportunity to lay that fly literally 25ft away from them, right behind his buddy's fish.
• 46:52
  And you get a double.
• 46:54
  And you can literally spend the day having doubles.
• 46:58
  So you're not competing with your buddy, you're working with each other.
• 47:01
  You want your buddy to catch a fish because you can snake the fish right behind him.
• 47:06
  That's just really fun.
• 47:07
  And to me, that's unique.
• 47:09
  I don't know of any other fishery that's like that.
• 47:11
  So when I, when I go back, when I go back to talk about the numbers, once we implemented that doubles strategy, you know, our numbers went up 30%, 40%.
• 47:21
  And so it's just a day of laughing and it's a day of like, I can't believe we actually had.
• 47:27
  Years ago, I had a peacock bass.
• 47:29
  Charged my flies so fast, I pulled it out of the water, took completely did the wrong thing.
• 47:34
  And that fish literally swam and hit the boat, literally ran right into the boat.
• 47:40
  So they're just, they're just beasts.
• 47:43
  They bully everything in the, in the lagoons.
• 47:46
  And you can catch them as an ambush predator.
• 47:52
  Sometimes they will go out in schools and very much like in saltwater, basically, the, the, the smaller the fish, the bigger the school.
• 48:01
  The bigger the fish, the smaller the school.
• 48:03
  So, you know, if you see a school of six or seven or eight pounders, there's probably going to be six or seven of those.
• 48:12
  If there's 20 pounders, there's probably two or three of those.
• 48:15
  If there's two pounders, there's probably 50 of those.
• 48:18
  And we love finding those schools of the smaller fish on day one because those two pound fish will teach you exactly the proper presentation, the proper speed, the proper depth.
• 48:34
  And they really teach you how to set the hook because they're so quick.
• 48:38
  And a lot of times we'll target those, those smaller fish on the first day just to get everyone's confidence up and understanding of what these fish want and what it'll take to get them to do that kill, hit
• 48:53
  and all those things.
• 48:55
  You can see now why I fish every day there.
• 48:57
  I literally fish six days a week, 10 hours a day, eight to 10 hours a day.
• 49:03
  And I'll do it for three months, almost four months every year because I can't get enough of it.
• 49:09
  And we literally learn every week.
• 49:12
  We learn something new every week about those fish.
• 49:15
  Yeah, that's really neat.
• 49:16
  And the cool thing is because, I mean, I watch your Instagram feed.
• 49:19
  There are lots of others, I wouldn't call them bycatch, but there's some other interesting stuff that people like to catch down in the Amazon too, right?
• 49:25
  Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 49:28
  There are a lot of species, subspecies of peacock bass.
• 49:31
  There's about 16 species of peacock bass, so there's a lot of variety there.
• 49:36
  And each of our locations is chosen to kind of feature a particular species of peacock bass.
• 49:44
  But there's a lot of other things if you just want to take a break.
• 49:48
  You can catch all the, all the piranha you want on any of our locations.
• 49:52
  A lot of times I'll hook up little spinning rods with a bait hook and just some bait from lunch, some, some extra food from lunch.
• 50:03
  And on the, on our Rio Negro trips on the mothership, we'll just sit off the back of the ship and just catch piranha after piranha after piranha.
• 50:11
  It's just like fishing for bluegill.
• 50:12
  You know, they're everywhere.
• 50:14
  We also have catfish in all of our locations, and that's not something we fish for a lot.
• 50:19
  You know, most of my guests don't really care about bait fishing.
• 50:22
  But just this last season we had some wonderful return guests come.
• 50:27
  They actually came rigged and ready for catfish.
• 50:30
  And the guys were thrilled.
• 50:32
  They're like, oh, yeah, we know exactly where they are.
• 50:33
  I'm like, wait, you know where they are and you've never told me?
• 50:36
  Like, well, you never asked because I'm always throwing a fly.
• 50:39
  And so those customers are catching big red tail catfish every day.
• 50:44
  Just an absolute blast.
• 50:46
  I think one was up to 70, 75 pounds.
• 50:48
  We had another one that was over 80 pounds.
• 50:51
  Talk about variety.
• 50:53
  And then there are plenty of others too.
• 50:55
  There's a small fish called a matrincha, which is very trout shaped and they holding current just like trout.
• 51:03
  And you can throw little ant patterns or beetle patterns and they'll come up and sip it dry.
• 51:10
  Actually this year just started to bring in a couple six and seven weights with a floating line for those fish.
• 51:16
  And so, you know, if you just, if you want to experience, you know, we're seeing more and more anglers that have starting kind of a species checklist and they'll by the end of the week, they want to check
• 51:30
  off five or six new species and, and thankfully we have the fisheries that can do that.
• 51:35
  Very, very neat.
• 51:36
  And I know you've got three distinct angling experiences and one of them is relatively new.
• 51:41
  You want to let folks kind of know the three flavors of ice cream you have.
• 51:44
  Oh, sure, yeah.
• 51:45
  You know, the, the easiest one for people to understand and often the first trip that people book with us is the Rio Negro and big, beautiful, big, big river.
• 51:57
  We're in a gorgeous mothership.
• 52:00
  It's a 130 foot long, three level yacht and it is built with beautiful Brazilian woods on the inside.
• 52:10
  Just stunning.
• 52:11
  We're not, we're not super luxurious, but that particular boat is very, very nice.
• 52:17
  And one, one nice thing about that trip is that everyone gets their own room.
• 52:21
  It's just our standard operation.
• 52:23
  There is single occupancy staterooms with your own private bath and air conditioning.
• 52:30
  And to my knowledge, I don't know of anybody else who offers that in the Amazon.
• 52:34
  And because of that, we can comfortably hold 10 to 12 customers.
• 52:39
  They all get their own space.
• 52:41
  And then we go out on bass trackers and we just, we just go and explore.
• 52:50
  We move that boat almost every night, which is a big expense, but it's something that I absolutely insist that we do it.
• 52:59
  I want to make sure our customers see as much variety as possible and just, I want them to be in fresh water every day.
• 53:08
  And it's also better for the fishery.
• 53:10
  We don't want to pound the fishery.
• 53:12
  So we will move that ship upriver and then midweek we'll go and we'll meet with a community that we're working very closely with.
• 53:20
  We do some humanitarian work with them.
• 53:23
  And if the fishing hasn't been stellar like we had planned, we actually have access to their private waters if we want to do this.
• 53:34
  Nice to have that option in our back pockets While we're at the community, we'll always do community lunch.
• 53:43
  So my kitchen crew will make lunch for everyone in the village and all of my staff and all of my guests, we all just hang out and play soccer with the kids and eat lunch together.
• 53:53
  And you know, I find that on that trip home, regardless of how good the fishing was, people talk about the community.
• 54:03
  That's the thing that really sticks with them.
• 54:06
  And on interesting, that's what brings people back.
• 54:10
  So that's a really unique, a unique trip for us.
• 54:12
  And then, you know, the Rio Negro has great fishing.
• 54:17
  We do have big fish in there, but we don't have high populations of big fish.
• 54:21
  It's not like what it used to be and it's still outstanding.
• 54:25
  We still catch 22 pound fish there every season.
• 54:28
  We just don't get a lot of those.
• 54:30
  So a lot of times the second trip, people come back for our trophy fishery.
• 54:34
  So our trophy fishery is the Rio da Lua.
• 54:38
  It's actually a tributary of a tributary of the Rio Negro.
• 54:42
  It's extremely remote, it's small, it is clear water.
• 54:47
  And for those of you who don't know clear water in the Amazon is absolutely unheard of.
• 54:53
  It's very difficult to find.
• 54:54
  It's usually kind of a like a coffee with milk.
• 54:58
  Color, coloration.
• 55:00
  And this water is absolutely beautiful.
• 55:03
  It's still tannic, it has that beautiful red color to it.
• 55:07
  But it, it gives us opportunities to see those fish moving into sight.
• 55:12
  Fish.
• 55:13
  And when you suddenly can see how many fish are in that water, you can really pick and choose which fish you're going to cast to.
• 55:22
  It's a completely different experience compared to the Rio Negro.
• 55:27
  So the Rio Negro is lots of fish in big, big, big water.
• 55:31
  And the Rio da Lua is giant fish and very small water.
• 55:36
  It comes with its own challenges.
• 55:38
  Because it's small water, we can't get a mothership in there.
• 55:41
  So we do floating cabin strategy and that is double occupancy.
• 55:47
  So bring a buddy and you do have your own private bath.
• 55:50
  It's all air conditions, very, very comfortable.
• 55:54
  We had cocktails and appetizers out on the beach.
• 55:57
  And one thing that nobody believes us until they come down and experience it themselves.
• 56:01
  We don't have mosquitoes in the jungle, so it's very easy to hang out on the beach.
• 56:07
  We'll set up a pergola so we're in the shade and we'll just sip cocktails and watch the monkeys hop on the branches and we don't have to worry about bugs at all.
• 56:15
  It's pretty remarkable.
• 56:17
  And then we'll have dinner in a nice air conditioned floating cabin and have a little barbecue if we want.
• 56:26
  Hang out on the beach, watch the stars and then crash and get ready for the next day.
• 56:31
  So our third location is new and it is Tatuagem.
• 56:37
  Tatuagem means tattoo.
• 56:39
  And there's a very unique, rare species of peacock bass in that one and they call the Vazzoleri and they are absolutely beautiful.
• 56:50
  If you have a chance, you can look on our website.
• 56:52
  That's the best place to find photos of them.
• 56:54
  They're very rare, very hard to find.
• 56:57
  Bright yellow bodies, black, black marks that look like tattoos and then beautiful azul, beautiful blue dorsal fins.
• 57:07
  They're just striking.
• 57:09
  And they aren't as big that species as a Temensis peacock bass, which is what we typically target in the Rio da Lua.
• 57:19
  But the Vazzoleri make up for it in their aggressiveness.
• 57:24
  They are incredibly aggressive.
• 57:26
  Even more so.
• 57:27
  The reason why there aren't any Temensis in this river system is because the Vazzoleri basically pushed them all out or eaten them.
• 57:36
  So, you know, a world record for Vazzoleri is close to 18 pounds.
• 57:42
  And we've caught 16 and 17 pounders in this water.
• 57:46
  So they're a very, very big fish.
• 57:48
  We for that customer who's maybe fished our other locations or that customer who really wants to experience a species that very few people have caught, the Tatuagem is a great option.
• 58:01
  And again, that's small water, that's also clear water.
• 58:04
  We're extremely blessed to have those, those fisheries.
• 58:08
  And that's floating cabins.
• 58:11
  So very similar setup to our Rio da Lua.
• 58:14
  So we've really got some good variety, good options for guests.
• 58:18
  Interesting.
• 58:18
  And in terms of time of year, you know, how does that work?
• 58:21
  I think you mentioned you don't, you know, you're not on the Rio Negro during high water but you know, it's just for people that are working that, that travel calendar, you know, what windows of time should they be
• 58:31
  looking for?
• 58:32
  Yeah, you know, the million dollar question is always what time of year.
• 58:35
  You know, when are the water levels going to be optimal?
• 58:38
  And it is hard to imagine.
• 58:41
  But you know, I talked a little bit about how big the Rio Negro is.
• 58:45
  Well, you know that river will go up or down in depth by 30ft in a typical day, I'm sorry, in a typical season.
• 58:54
  So just imagine for a moment a river that's 10 miles across, 13 miles across in places and it goes up 30ft.
• 59:01
  It's just a massive amount of water.
• 59:05
  So we are very careful to time our season right when that water has, has come, started to come down for a couple of weeks and then continues to go down.
• 59:17
  And so we're there mid January through February, sometimes into into March.
• 59:25
  And that is a, that is a really special time on the Rio Negro because those fish have been, have not been fished to, for about three months by any, any outfitters.
• 59:36
  And we can get in there and fish in these areas that they've just been untouched.
• 59:45
  And the, the fish are very aggressive, they're very hungry.
• 59:48
  So we really love that time frame for the Rio Negro.
• 59:51
  Rio da Lua are the same, same reasons.
• 59:54
  And the Tatuagem, quite often that water is too low to get a boat in there to get our job, even our john boats in there.
• 1:00:01
  And so September and October are ideal water levels for our trophy fishery, Rue da Lua.
• 1:00:08
  And then really we're just in the Tatuagem in November and I mean that's the only time those, those two rivers are fished.
• 1:00:16
  So those, those rivers are basically rested for, for 10 months a year which is just a mind boggling to think about.
• 1:00:26
  Again, we're really blessed to have those fisheries.
• 1:00:28
  So we're there January and February and then September through November, right up until Thanksgiving.
• 1:00:35
  Nobody wants to travel on Thanksgiving.
• 1:00:37
  And I totally get that.
• 1:00:39
  Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
• 1:00:41
  I mean, particularly now, you know, fast forward and think about Cheeseman Canyon and thinking about that not being fished for 10 months, right?
• 1:00:47
  Oh, exactly, exactly.
• 1:00:49
  Mind boggling.
• 1:00:50
  Yeah.
• 1:00:51
  And so, you know, I think people have been able to get a little bit of an idea about kind of, you know, how you think about things and how your approach is different.
• 1:00:58
  You know, why don't you put a finer point on kind of what sets Nomadic Waters apart from other outfitters that are in the Amazon?
• 1:01:06
  Sure, that that's an important question.
• 1:01:07
  You know, we.
• 1:01:09
  We are blessed to have great competition.
• 1:01:11
  There's great competitors out there.
• 1:01:13
  There's some really good outfitters in the Amazon.
• 1:01:16
  I think as people are looking at who they should book with, there are a couple things that just make us different and unique.
• 1:01:25
  And one of them is, you know, there are a lot of agencies out there.
• 1:01:28
  There's a lot of booking agencies.
• 1:01:30
  They're American companies who actually hire Brazilian fishing companies to run things for them.
• 1:01:37
  We are actually not a booking agency.
• 1:01:38
  This is our family business.
• 1:01:40
  I think that makes us really unique.
• 1:01:42
  I think the owner fishing with guests every day, that's extremely unique.
• 1:01:48
  We are actually the only Orvis we're the exclusive Orvis endorsed expedition for the country of Brazil.
• 1:01:54
  We're very proud of that.
• 1:01:56
  That's a very big deal for us.
• 1:01:58
  Good partnership there.
• 1:02:00
  And we, as soon as we can get it on the website, we will announce that we are part of the Winston Preferred Lodge program, which is very important to me.
• 1:02:10
  I've been a lifelong fan of Winston as a company and with Cabela's.
• 1:02:17
  Cabela's has a special signature hosted event where it's invitation only, basically.
• 1:02:23
  And they're booking with us.
• 1:02:25
  They're booking us two to three weeks every year in the Rio Negro.
• 1:02:28
  They just, they just bought up the rest of my Rio Negro season in 2026, those things.
• 1:02:36
  It sounds like I'm name dropping, but I think for someone who's just going into this fresh, they need to understand that some of the biggest brands in the business are supporting us and booking with us and they're coming
• 1:02:50
  back.
• 1:02:51
  And I think this is really important.
• 1:02:52
  I think that should really put some people's minds at ease.
• 1:02:57
  And I think probably the biggest thing that sets us apart, there's a lot of things, but I think our humanitarian work, the work that we do with the communities there are Plenty of fishing companies that do that kind
• 1:03:09
  of thing.
• 1:03:10
  And I'm psyched.
• 1:03:11
  There needs to be more and more and more.
• 1:03:13
  But I think what's unique about us is that that's our heritage, that's our roots.
• 1:03:18
  That's where we started.
• 1:03:19
  We originally started as a humanitarian group with a great, great passion and experience in the fishing industry.
• 1:03:26
  But we, that's the purpose of us being in Brazil, frankly, that's why we're in the Amazon, is to do the work that we do and, and, and we can do it while we're sharing this amazing experience with our
• 1:03:40
  customers.
• 1:03:41
  So I think there's some, a few things there that really make us different.
• 1:03:46
  Yeah, and I would say too, you know, I know you've even gone so far as to form a separate, not for profit.
• 1:03:51
  What is it?
• 1:03:51
  Parallel research, parallel resource to support your work.
• 1:03:56
  That's right.
• 1:03:58
  We, you know, post pandemic, all outfitters were in trouble for many, many reasons.
• 1:04:04
  And we went, we lost two years of work.
• 1:04:08
  And when we were able to get back in there, when everything opened up again, you know, we suddenly realized that, you know, we, we were self funding all this humanitarian work.
• 1:04:19
  We were paying with our own, our own private money or if we had a profitable year, we would have the, the company profits paid for the humanitarian work.
• 1:04:29
  And when we rolled into the Rio Negro, we just suddenly realized this is, we cannot afford to, to do any of this work.
• 1:04:36
  And it was really difficult.
• 1:04:39
  It was a hard thing to swallow because again, that's our heartbeat.
• 1:04:43
  That's incredibly important to us.
• 1:04:45
  And we had some customers fishing with us from Texas and I, man, thank God for Texans.
• 1:04:52
  I just have to say these gentlemen came to me on the second to the last night of their trip and they said, michael, we're, we're not going to fish tomorrow.
• 1:05:04
  I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 1:05:05
  Everything okay?
• 1:05:06
  Oh, yeah, everything's fine.
• 1:05:08
  Instead, you know, we're going to sleep in, get some breakfast, rest up, and then we want you guys to present to us and we really want to hear all the details about what you're doing with these communities.
• 1:05:20
  We want to hear it all.
• 1:05:22
  Don't hold back.
• 1:05:23
  Because at the, up until this point, we really hadn't.
• 1:05:27
  It's not something that we've shared with a lot of people.
• 1:05:28
  The customers see the work that we do, but it's not something we actually, you know, present.
• 1:05:34
  And they wanted to hear all the details.
• 1:05:36
  And so make a long story short, we spent the day in meetings telling them what we wanted to do and, and how We've done it in the past and what we want to do in the future.
• 1:05:47
  And they made a, an offer and they said, look, you need to do this the right way.
• 1:05:54
  And that would include starting your own non profit organization entity that is 501c3 approved with the IRS.
• 1:06:05
  And.
• 1:06:07
  You know, we set a schedule with the exact work that, that you want to do.
• 1:06:12
  And we will fund this season of humanitarian work.
• 1:06:17
  And let me tell you, Marvin, that was a lot of money.
• 1:06:21
  That was a big check.
• 1:06:23
  And they just stepped right up and said, we're going to fund it.
• 1:06:26
  It's up to you to raise the money in the future, but this year we've got you.
• 1:06:30
  And it was a remarkable experience.
• 1:06:34
  And the work that we were able to do, especially post pandemic, there's so much work to do.
• 1:06:41
  And so that was a genesis of parallel resource.
• 1:06:44
  And we call it parallel resource because on the Rio Negro, for example, we have a separate support boat that follows our mothership.
• 1:06:53
  It'll hold supplies and things like that, but it basically houses our medical clinic and our dental clinic and it stores all of our water filtration systems.
• 1:07:03
  And so that is actually a parallel resource vessel.
• 1:07:08
  And it can run independently or it can run alongside with us as we're, as we're fishing.
• 1:07:14
  Sometimes there'll be an emergency and villagers will come up to us and say, hey, someone just took a bad fall.
• 1:07:19
  Do you have any medical attention?
• 1:07:20
  It's like, absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:07:22
  We have exactly, you know, get them here to the boat and we can help them out.
• 1:07:27
  We love those kind of opportunities because we want to be able to, to help them when they come to us.
• 1:07:33
  And so I'm not great at asking for donations.
• 1:07:39
  In fact, I'm pretty terrible at it.
• 1:07:40
  But customers see what we do and especially on those days where we're having lunch and they can see it's an authentic relationship.
• 1:07:50
  It's not something, it's not a business transaction that, that we have with these families.
• 1:07:56
  These are our partners, these are our friends and we help them a lot and they help us.
• 1:08:00
  You know, they watch our backs too.
• 1:08:03
  And so that, that's the side of the business that, as you can tell, we're passionate about.
• 1:08:09
  Yeah, and I think it's so important too, particularly, you know, once you start traveling kind of outside of the United States or, you know, Europe and places like that, you know, you know, not to treat these places like,
• 1:08:21
  you know, consumable resources like, you know, Kansas offerings, right?
• 1:08:25
  Oh, absolutely.
• 1:08:27
  A part of our core values is exploration without exploitation.
• 1:08:31
  It's you know, that's one of the filters that we run every decision through.
• 1:08:36
  You know, are you really doing this for the right reasons?
• 1:08:38
  And what are the long term impacts of our, of our choices?
• 1:08:43
  You know, here's a great example of a bad, of well meaning people making really bad decision.
• 1:08:52
  About 15 years ago, a group of well meaning foreigners came through that were dentists.
• 1:08:58
  And you know, dental health is a major issue in these communities.
• 1:09:03
  I mean, most people have lost all their teeth by their mid-20s.
• 1:09:07
  And anyways, 15 years ago, a group came in and put braces on all the kids in the community.
• 1:09:17
  I mean, that's a real head scratcher.
• 1:09:18
  Who thought this up?
• 1:09:19
  I have no idea.
• 1:09:20
  I know they meant well.
• 1:09:21
  I know they thought they were helping, but the problem is they never came back.
• 1:09:29
  So we came into this village and my, my dentist Anderson at the end of the day came in, I'm like, all right, well how many, how many teeth did you pull today?
• 1:09:39
  Because a lot of times we'll, we'll have a little chart on the wall of like, this is how many fish we caught today.
• 1:09:44
  This is how many teeth we pulled today.
• 1:09:46
  And he goes, you know, Michael, I, we didn't pull any teeth at all today.
• 1:09:50
  I'm like, what were you doing?
• 1:09:51
  Everything okay?
• 1:09:53
  He goes, you will not believe what I did today.
• 1:09:56
  He says, I spent the day taking braces off of adults.
• 1:10:01
  And just imagine the pain those people went through.
• 1:10:04
  Imagine the discomfort of having to live with that.
• 1:10:08
  And I'm shocked they allowed us into their village.
• 1:10:12
  If you think about it, you know, you just think about these could not have had good memories of those foreigners coming in there and thinking they were doing good work.
• 1:10:23
  So for us, it's very important that we are not doing more damage thinking that we're actually helping these people.
• 1:10:29
  And I think we've got a really good track record of that.
• 1:10:33
  And a story like that, it's easy to see the contribution that my people are making with these families is just remarkable.
• 1:10:43
  It's an interesting thing.
• 1:10:44
  You know when you watch and you see people being helpful to feel good about themselves as opposed to being truly helpful.
• 1:10:50
  Boy, you said it right there.
• 1:10:53
  And you see that in a lot of different places.
• 1:10:55
  And we don't need to go down that philosophical rat hole, but it's a really interesting thing.
• 1:11:00
  It's like you go somewhere and it's like, well, they lose all their teeth by their mid-20s.
• 1:11:03
  You're like, well, clearly they need to be straight.
• 1:11:06
  Yeah, right, exactly.
• 1:11:07
  It's like, who thought of this who approved of this?
• 1:11:12
  So, you know, Michael, folks have questions.
• 1:11:14
  I know.
• 1:11:15
  I think I originally met you probably on the show circuit.
• 1:11:18
  Are you guys going to be out there with everybody else and early 2025?
• 1:11:22
  Absolutely.
• 1:11:22
  You know, we, we love the shows.
• 1:11:25
  Typically we'll do three or four of Ben shows with the fly fishing show this year.
• 1:11:30
  We've got some health issues at home, closer to home.
• 1:11:34
  So we'll only be able to do the Atlanta show this year.
• 1:11:37
  We'll be back in full force in 2026 and definitely will support Ben.
• 1:11:42
  Big, big fans.
• 1:11:43
  And then, you know, Bo Beasley with the Virginia Fly Fishing and Wine Festival or definitely a big part of those shows.
• 1:11:52
  Really enjoy that crowd.
• 1:11:55
  That's a great show.
• 1:11:56
  If you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth the drive up and be there.
• 1:12:01
  And then Trout Fest, we won't be able to do this year, but we'll be back there next year.
• 1:12:06
  And shows are just a great time to catch up with friends and customers.
• 1:12:11
  And interestingly enough, we don't book a lot at the shows.
• 1:12:15
  A lot of the booking that we do happens before those shows with just return customers.
• 1:12:21
  But the shows are worth it for us just so that we can be face to face with a lot of our friends again.
• 1:12:27
  Yeah, it's definitely a great time of year.
• 1:12:29
  And Michael, before I let you go this evening, is there anything else you want to share with our listeners?
• 1:12:34
  You know, I've probably talked enough.
• 1:12:37
  I just appreciate this opportunity.
• 1:12:40
  I would just say in closing, if, if you have any interest in seeing the Amazon, if it is something that has just kind of been in the back of your mind or you just want to have a jungle
• 1:12:52
  experience like that in a really safe, comfortable place with honestly, some of the most remarkable people you will ever meet in your life, I would say do it sooner than later.
• 1:13:04
  This year has been a reminder to me and our family that, you know, life is short and surprises can happen.
• 1:13:11
  And I'll talk to gentlemen at the shows or customers, potential customers at the shows.
• 1:13:16
  And they're like, yeah, one day I'm going to do that.
• 1:13:18
  One day I'm going to do that.
• 1:13:19
  And then they come in, they're like, you know, I can't do it anymore.
• 1:13:23
  I should have done it when I, when I thought about it earlier.
• 1:13:25
  And I hear that all the time.
• 1:13:27
  And, you know, why wouldn't you go?
• 1:13:30
  Why wouldn't you experience this?
• 1:13:33
  It's just, it's a very, very special place.
• 1:13:35
  So that's all I have to say.
• 1:13:37
  Yeah, well, I'll just echo that and say I 100% agree with.
• 1:13:40
  And you know, if folks want to learn more about Nomadic Waters, Michael, where should they go?
• 1:13:45
  You know, I would say our, our best photos and videos are on Instagram.
• 1:13:50
  So just @NomadicWaters, we'll, we'll show you our, you know, we, when we're in the jungle, we have wi fi in all of our locations, unfortunately.
• 1:13:59
  So we actually do daily updates.
• 1:14:00
  You can see what we caught that day, which is a lot of fun.
• 1:14:04
  And then we have a, a real strong website at nomadicwaters.com and a lot of that website is hidden behind a password protected area because it has all my tips and tricks of how to catch peacock bass for our
• 1:14:20
  customers.
• 1:14:21
  But there's still a lot of really fun videos and good information there.
• 1:14:25
  And if you've got questions about specific time of year, specific location, or just all those other questions that you're afraid to ask, those answers are right there.
• 1:14:36
  So that would be a good place to look.
• 1:14:38
  Well, there you go.
• 1:14:39
  And I'll drop all that stuff in the show notes.
• 1:14:40
  And Michael, I super appreciate you taking some time to chat with me this evening.
• 1:14:44
  Oh, you're very kind.
• 1:14:45
  It's been an honor.
• 1:14:46
  Thank you so much, Marvin.
• 1:14:48
  Oh, it's been my pleasure.
• 1:14:49
  Take care.
• 1:14:50
  We hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.
• 1:14:54
  If the fly fishing show is coming to a town near you, head over to flyfishingshow.com to plan your visits.
• 1:15:00
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• 1:15:06
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• 1:15:13
  Tight lines, everybody.