Tom Rowland Podcast

Jere Hartman spent 19 years in the Army, including time as an Army Ranger, then went straight into the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center. Two years later he'd put on 50 pounds and was spending his nights sitting in the dark. So he walked into his performance review and resigned.

What came next was a six-month thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail (trail name: Clincher, and he'll tell you why). Ten years later, he answered a Facebook post in the Ranger community and signed on to row across the Pacific Ocean.

In this episode, Jere and I talk about:

Why leaving a structured military life with no transition nearly broke him

Trail magic, trail families, and what the AT gave him that he didn't expect

Rowing from Monterey to Kauai in 35 days with a five-man crew in the World's Toughest Row

Keeping the boat's water maker alive after it broke on day three

Riding out 30-foot seas at night in a rowboat, and the crew pact that "it's 100% or we don't make that decision"

Weeks of glowing phosphorescence, hundreds of dolphins, and a pint of rum split five ways

Corsair Racing, the nonprofit he helped build to get veterans out on the ocean, and the crew now training for a 3,000-mile Atlantic row from La Gomera to Antigua

Coaching CrossFit in Chattanooga, and why he believes it's for everyone, no matter how beat up you are

Support Corsair Racing: https://corsairracing.org

This episode is brought to you by Star brite, makers of Salt Off and a full line of boat-care products, and a company that invests heavily in conservation. Check them out at https://www.starbrite.com

🎙 Subscribe to the Tom Rowland Podcast for more conversations with people doing extraordinary things.

#TomRowlandPodcast #OceanRowing #Veterans #AppalachianTrail #ArmyRanger #WorldsToughestRow #CrossFit

Captain Rhett Morris of morefishflorida.com has guided the greater Charlotte Harbor area for three decades — and he kept a catch log almost every day of it. That data now tells a story the numbers on Florida's coast are backing up: a steady, decades-long decline in snook, redfish, and trout that's accelerated since the mid-2000s.

In this episode, Rhett walks Tom through what his records reveal, what actually caused the collapse (the record-shattering 2018 red tide, the nitrogen overload, and the algae that smothered the seagrass), and why Hurricane Milton turned out to be one of the best things to happen to the fishery in years. Then he lays out his proposal: treat Charlotte Harbor as a test zone, change the redfish and snook slot limits, and let the fishery become its own hatchery. It's not a mandate — it's the start of a conversation, and it comes with a real economic case for why even the developers should care.

If it resonates, there's a petition at morefishflorida.com. As Rhett says, sharing it may matter even more than signing it.

👉 Sign & share the petition: https://morefishflorida.com

This episode is brought to you by Star brite — makers of Salt Off and a full line of boat-care products, and a company that puts real effort into conservation. Check them out.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro & Star brite
00:47 Meet Capt. Rhett Morris
02:00 Bowhunting turkeys & the confiscated African poacher's bow
04:30 Growing up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
06:30 Landing in Florida & a biologist father
07:30 Quail hunting, bird dogs & vanishing habitat
12:30 How his dad's record-keeping shaped him
15:00 30 years of catch data — the decline
20:00 The bait situation
21:00 The record-breaking 2018 red tide
28:00 Seagrass loss & the algae that smothered the flats
32:00 How Hurricane Milton helped
37:30 The fix: rethinking slot limits
40:00 The redfish proposal (25–27")
44:00 The snook proposal & 75 billion eggs
47:30 Why the FWC hasn't acted
49:00 Charlotte Harbor as a test zone
54:00 The economic case — $497M and thousands of jobs
1:06:00 Where to sign: morefishflorida.com
1:07:00 The closure data that proves the point
1:11:00 A guide's responsibility & catch-and-release
1:20:00 Wrap-up & call to action
1:21:00 Next week: a bamboo fly rod & a permit

#TomRowlandPodcast #Fishing #Snook #Redfish #CharlotteHarbor #Conservation #FloridaFishing

Red snapper season in the South Atlantic got shut down the night before it opened — and most anglers still don't really know why. In this one, I sit down with David Moss, Fisheries Project Manager for The Nature Conservancy, to break the whole thing down in plain English: what an EFP actually is, the lawsuit that closed the season, why managers and anglers see two completely different oceans, and the surprising reason keeping your spots secret might be the very thing costing you fishing days.

David's a Florida-born fisherman first and a fisheries guy second, and he makes the case for why the catch data you throw away — including the days you get skunked — is exactly what the fishery needs to open more seasons, not fewer.

We get into:

Why red snapper are stacked up in the Atlantic but you can't keep one

How "rare event species" like tilefish and snowy grouper get shortchanged by old data

The truth about whether your secret numbers are actually safe in reporting apps

Gulf vs. Atlantic red snapper — two fisheries, same fish

The Goliath grouper problem everyone sees but no one can prove

How to actually get involved if you're fed up

Get in touch or get involved:
David Moss — david.moss@tnc.org
The Nature Conservancy Florida fishing: nature.org/floridafishing
Reporting apps mentioned: iAngler, Got One, MyFWC, Vessel
Councils: South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, Gulf of America Fishery Management Council, FWC
Also mentioned: Angler Action Foundation, West Palm Beach Fishing Club

Brought to you by Star brite — makers of Salt Off and a full line of boat care products, and a company doing real work in conservation. starbrite.com

Chapters:
00:00 – Intro & catching up (mangroves, lobster mini season)
02:20 – What The Nature Conservancy actually does
04:30 – Red snapper: what happened and why the season closed
07:30 – EFPs explained in plain terms + the lawsuit
10:00 – Three states reapply — what a real season could look like
12:00 – App-based reporting and the data managers need
14:00 – Discards, barotrauma & why released fish still count
15:30 – Deep-water "rare event species" & TNC's pilot project
17:30 – "Why should I give them my data?" — the honest answer
23:00 – How catch data gets collected now (dock surveys & mail-in)
25:30 – Do the apps work offshore? Are your spots protected?
33:30 – Gulf vs. Atlantic red snapper
37:00 – ACLs, sectors & how commercial reporting works
40:00 – How David got hooked on fisheries management
44:00 – The Goliath grouper problem
47:30 – How to get involved (councils, clubs, public comment)
51:00 – Soccer, family & a coaching detour
54:30 – From landscaping to The Nature Conservancy
59:00 – The one message: your information matters
1:04:30 – Secret spots, hunters vs. anglers & sharing data
1:09:30 – Wrap-up & resources

Everybody keeps asking me about red snapper — why they're everywhere and you can't keep them in one place, and nowhere to be found in another. So I brought on someone who lives on both sides of that fight.

Dylan Hubbard is VP of Hubbard's Marina in Madeira Beach — a fourth-generation, nearly 100-year-old operation — and he's also president of the Florida Guides Association, VP of the Charter Fisherman's Association, and chair of the Gulf Council Reef Fish Advisory Panel. He's one of the only guests we've had who's both a working charter operator and deeply embedded in the federal fisheries decision-making process. That combination makes this one of the clearest breakdowns of what's really happening with our fishery that I've heard.

In this conversation we get into:

Why red snapper is a Gulf success story but a crisis in the South Atlantic — and how discard mortality quietly shrinks the season every year

The EFP fight, the 11th-hour injunction, and MRIP vs. state (SRFS) data — why "letting them guess" hurts anglers

How his grandfather's handwritten notes from a 1988 meeting let Dylan change federal law in two meetings to save his 39-hour trips

The gag grouper rebound, the lag between what we see on the water and what the science says, and where AI is starting to change fisheries research

Getting fired by his own dad — and reopening the marina five days after Hurricane Helene

"If you're not in the room, you're on the menu." If you care about the future of the fishery, this is the one to watch.

Connect with Dylan & Hubbard's Marina:
🌐 hubbardsmarina.com
📺 Hubbard's Marina on YouTube & Facebook — plus their live Q&A show every second Sunday of the month, 7:30 PM ET
📞 Text or call 727-393-1947
✉️ info@hubbardsmarina.com

This episode is brought to you by Star Brite — makers of Salt Off and a full line of products to take care of your boat, and a company that gives back through conservation. Check them out.

Rich Hernandez can do 5,000 push-ups without ever touching his knees — and he's
chasing a world record that hasn't been broken since 1980. But as he tells me
here, it was never really about the push-ups. This time we're in person, right
after a morning workout together, digging into how an MIT engineer with a Yale
MBA walked away from the aerospace world to preach the gospel of hard work — and
why the same process that took him from 40 push-ups to 5,000 (and a 7-minute
plank to a 4-hour one) applies just as much to your business, your parenting,
and anything else you're trying to get better at.

Presented by Star brite — clean and protect your boat: https://bit.ly/4o80cws

▶ Rich's first time on the show (EP 974: Record-Breaking Conquest):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wL-YJXbbZM

CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome + Star brite (live and in person)
01:00 The push-up guy: 5,000 reps and chasing the world record
02:00 Receipts: livestreams and 12,345 push-ups in a day
04:00 From MIT and Northrop Grumman to a Yale MBA
05:00 The gospel of hard work: 333,000 push-ups in a year
06:00 What the family business taught him
08:00 How getting better at one thing spills into everything
10:00 Veronica, "Life Is Good," and the power of agency
12:00 The push-up progression: 40 to 5,000
14:00 Atomic Habits, 1% better, and the hockey stick
15:00 The planking journey: 7 minutes to 4 hours
17:00 Why the first five months are the hardest
18:00 Consistency, accuracy, intensity
19:00 The traveling salesman problem
21:00 Where to follow Rich

FOLLOW RICH — Do Hard Things 365
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Dohardthings365
Instagram: @dohardthings365

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Free fishing knot guide: https://bit.ly/3UnAeIP