Tom Rowland Podcast

The Everglades National Park is home to a wide variety of species.  One of the most popular is the Snook.  Capt Anthony Vargas runs the Saltwater Experience boat out of Hawks Cay Marina and targets the snook often with anglers of all skill levels.  Anthony goes over everything from A-Z on how he targets, locates and catches Snook on his charters.  Knowledge is dropped on this one and you can take...

Experienced waterman and spear fisherman Capt. Scott Brown joins us to talk about how to get physically prepared for lobster season or spear fishing. Workouts you can do in a pool or on dry land to extend breath hold times, become a stronger swimmer and simply be better than you were last season. This episode is brought to you by these great sponsors: Barracuda Tackle - Makers of the best cast net...

Michael Medrano is an angler and author who recently published a book on the Stilt Houses of Texas. Together with the photographer, Tim Romano, they traveled the entire Intracoastal waterway in Texas by boat, knocking on the doors of the homes found along that path—over 400 doors to be exact. Nowhere else in the country does a community exist where homes are constructed on stilts and placed in the...

Nick Davis from 239 Flies stops in today to talk about the connection between the backing and fly line. Nick tells us how they do it at 239 Flies and how you can do it to make sure you get the best connection. Visit Nick at his shop in Bonita Springs, Forida. Follow him on Instagram @239Flies Barracuda Tackle - Makers of the best cast nets on the market BarracudaTackle.com Get 30% off any order on...

We have discussed workout acronyms before on this podcast.  EMOM stands for Every minute On The Minute.  This means that the athlete starts at the top of the minute and completes a task, for example, 15 burpees.  If this takes 30 seconds to complete the athlete has 30 seconds of rest before having to start again with another 15 burpees. This would be an example of a single movement in the EMOM for...

Sergeant Major (r) Jamey Caldwell, spent more than 21 years in the United States Army, serving his entire career in Special Operations. SGM Caldwell served 7 years with the 75th Ranger Regiment then spent the following 14 years in a Special Missions Unit that maintained a high operational tempo in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and numerous other countries in the world. He has deployed to combat 14 ti...

There are 42 bridges in the Florida Keys and most of them will hold tarpon at some time. Capt Anthony Vargas runs the Saltwater Experience boat out of Hawks Cay and fishes the bridges for tarpon often; sometimes triple half days. He has to know how to find the fish fast, get rigged up and instruct his anglers very efficiently to catch fish on a short time schedule.  Anthony joins us today for a Ho...

“There are better things ahead than any we leave behind” -C.S. Lewis This quote was meaningful to me today as I decided to turn off many of the ads that are running on the podcast.  After some thought, I made this decision based on trying to maintain the highest quality possible.  Of course, for anything to be sustainable, some revenue must be generated.  This comes in the form of ads.  However, t...

Our 100-day burpee challenge is a good analogy for life in general.  Take a massive amount of work and stare it down.  It is easy to become intimidated and quit.  However, successful people don’t do it that way.  Winners look at that work and start to break it into manageable pieces.  They use momentum to begin to accept and overcome larger challenges along the way and before they know it they hav...

For one week each June, nearly two hundred crews prepare their state-of-the-art multimillion-dollar boats and head to the Gulf Stream in pursuit of the prize of the Atlantic—a prize-winning blue marlin. Thousands of spectators flock to the Big Rock Landing hoping to catch a glimpse of history at the weigh-ins, while out in the blue anglers engage in lengthy battles with marlin in the range of five...

This season marks Matson's 29th year guiding! Growing up in a family immersed in the sport of fly fishing and living next to fabled trout streams like the Roaring Fork in Colorado and the Brule in northern Wisconsin, he has been fly fishing since the age of 4. Matson holds a degree in Environmental Economics from St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY, and is a former instructor at the Western Rive...

Flyfishing for tarpon is definitely one of the most exciting ways to fish for this incredible gamefish.  It takes a coordinated effort between angler and guide and many things can go wrong in the process of presenting the fly, stripping, setting the hook and landing the fish.  Often when you set the hook you have 30-50 feet of line at your feet.  Getting that line onto the reel is a major obstacle...

The Multistage Fitness Test, also called the Beep Test or even the Bleep Test in some places, is a simple test of fitness.  All you need is 20 m of open space and the audio linked in this article and you can test your fitness.  You simply follow the cues on the audio and at the sound of the beep, run 20 m to the other line.  Stop there and wait for the next beep which sends you to the other line. ...

Chris “Tatted Strength” Luera started down a very bad road at a young age.  Beginning with tagging buildings, Chris quickly escalated his criminal activity to include drugs.  He was smoking crack cocaine long before he could drive and this life led him to be incarcerated many times.  Chris thought he was a career criminal and if it wasn’t for the love of his mom who believed in him, he may have be...

Jimmy Houston is a true icon of fishing.  He has been on the air for 43 years which makes him a true icon of the television world as well.  I talk to him about how it all started and go through the ups and downs of the business over all those years.  Recently, Jimmy has embraced YouTube and social media so we also discuss where fishing entertainment is going.  Thank you to Jimmy for his time.  It...

Capt Scott Walker explains Trackback and how he uses it to mark spots he finds while fishing. This podcast is available in both audio and video.  If you would like to see Scott go through his menu, scroll down, the video is below. Follow Scott @captscottwalker or @intothebluetv You can learn more about Simrad Electronics by VISITING HERE. You can learn more about CMAP Reveal by VISITING HERE. Barr...

As it gets further into summer and it gets hotter, I look for ways that I might be able to get workouts in cooler times of the day.  Another way to get a reprieve from the heat is to incorporate water into your workouts. Swimming is one of the best exercises that a human being can do but not everyone has a pool big enough to swim laps.  Some people find lap swimming really boring as well.  There a...

Ross Enamait is a professional boxing trainer who has also written several books.  Never Gymless and Infinite Intensity are, in my opinion, 2 of the best books on physical training ever written.  Ross has an old school simplistic approach that is incredibly effective.  He advocates a “Low Tech, High Effect” protocol that uses common implements, classic movements, and often homemade equipment.  Fit...

Dr. Patrick H. Rice is currently the Chief Science & Research Officer (CSRO) and the Principal Investigator for Marine Research at Florida Keys Community College (FKCC).  Dr. Rice earned his Ph. D. (2008) in Marine Biology & Fisheries at the University of Miami.  His Ph. D. project was focused on reducing bycatch on longline boats.  With his business partner Dr. Eric Stroud they have worked on pro...

Capt Scott Walker joins us to answer a question about using Fish Icons and Alarms on the Simrad units.  How can an alarm or icon help you to catch more sailfish, marlin, and dolphin?  Scott tells us exactly how he sets up his units for maximum performance This podcast is available in both audio and video.  If you would like to see Scott go through his menu, scroll down, the video is below. Follow...

A callous is created as a beautiful response from your body to adapt to a stimulus.  You are doing something that is wearing off skin in a certain area like pullups, poling the boat, rowing the boat, lifting weights and your body develops a callus right at that spot.  It also develops a callous only as thick as the work you are doing with it.  So if you only do a little poling or lifting or a few...

Cameron Kirkconnell is one of the best spear fishermen in the World.  He has 18x spearfishing World Records, 30+ World records for clients on guided spearfishing trips, holds an Unlimited tonnage Master Mariner (ship captain), has been awarded the USCG SILVER LIFESAVING MEDAL, he has visited 90 countries including Antarctica and Arctic.  He runs the premier spearfishing guide service for internati...

Tony Young runs Forever Young Charters in the Florida Keys where he takes parties out spearfishing.  Tony hunts all types of fish, but one that he specializes in is the invasive Lionfish.  We talk about how the invasion started and how his efforts and those of other spearfishermen are paying off. This episode is brought to you by these great sponsors: Barracuda Tackle - Makers of the best cast net...

High Chirp, Low Chirp, Downscan…What is the difference and when should you use each setting?  Capt. Scott Walker joins us today to walk us through how he sets up his Simrad units for maximum performance both inshore and offshore.  He shows how he changes the settings to find pilchards over grass beds and then go offshore to find tuna on the humps.  He goes over removing clutter on the screen to ge...

We are one week away from Memorial Day.  For many, that means that a big workout or race is coming up to honor those who have served and sacrificed.  As we get ready for any event that we have been training for, it is important to scale back our activity so that we can rest, recover, and show up at our best.  How do we do that?  Lay off completely?  Back off 20%?  Today, I go over protocols that h...