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

Marvin: and we're back with an exotic on the salt with Captain David Blinken and special

Marvin: guest Steve Ramirez. David, how are you?

David: I'm great. We're down here in Piche, Mexico at Tarpon Town, and I'm here with

David: Steve and got to watch him experience his first tarpon yesterday on the fly.

Marvin: Yeah, that's pretty fantastic. I saw the picture on Instagram,

Marvin: Steve, of you kissing the fish before you let it go back.

Steve: Well, you know, I always thank them. But here at Tarpontown,

Steve: they wanted me to kiss it too. So I was happy to oblige.

Marvin: A little bit of extra love. So, David, talk a little bit about the kind of for

Marvin: folks that haven't been following this kind of, you know, what to expect when

Marvin: you come to Tarpontown and what you've seen today in terms of conditions and

Marvin: what you expect kind of for the rest of your time down there.

David: Well, in terms of conditions, it's perfect tarpon weather.

David: It's hot, it's humid, low wind in the morning with a little wind picking up in the afternoon.

David: We have a high falling tide all day.

David: And we've got a lot of fish cruising as they do in the summer.

Marvin: That's pretty neat. And have you had to pour cold water on anybody to get them

Marvin: out of bed first thing in the morning before the sun comes up?

David: No, but we've had to pour cold water on ourselves while we're out fishing.

Marvin: Fair enough. And, you know, Steve, it's interesting before we started recording,

Marvin: you know, you know, we've been lucky enough to do a couple of interviews together.

Marvin: And, you know, I know for you, you travel to these destinations and you fish

Marvin: with fishing friends and miraculously these things become chapters and books or essays.

Marvin: And so I thought it'd be interesting for folks to kind of understand,

Marvin: you know, what it is for lack of a better word, when you're on assignment,

Marvin: you know, are you taking notes? Do you write at night before you go to bed?

Marvin: Do you just wait until you get home? But I thought we could give folks a little

Marvin: bit of an insight into that.

Steve: Sure that's great so i

Steve: actually uh everywhere i travel i carry these

Steve: little waterproof notebooks um and when i buy them at rei one of the guys actually

Steve: asked me do you actually write into rain and i said yeah i actually do all the

Steve: time so uh so i do take notes not always when i'm right there doing it but sometimes

Steve: i'll just sit on a rock and start writing.

Steve: And I also take a lot of photographs that I'm not going to keep,

Steve: you know, photo of flowers or growing out of a log or whatever.

Steve: Something strikes me, the clouds, to remind me.

Steve: So I take my notes and actually just before we got on here, I was taking notes

Steve: about my day today, which was a solo with Roberto. And.

Steve: Saw we're seeing easily i saw 100 tarpon each day easily probably more and getting

Steve: a lot of calf and bringing some to the boat so that's pretty good uh so i'll take those notes,

Steve: but then the other thing i do is very organic so

Steve: i'm writing a fifth book which is the start of a new

Steve: series for lions press this will be part of it it's

Steve: also going to show up in a different formatted fly fisherman magazine

Steve: but the way i write i'm able to kind of place myself back where i was and relive

Steve: it and i never know what a chapter is going to be until i start creating it

Steve: it's almost like it's being funneled through me as silly as that may sound it just flows,

Steve: and to this i'm out on the water today and i was thinking hmm what would this

Steve: one be like Like, I was trying to decide whether I was going to name it in Spanish or English.

Steve: So I'll get thoughts, and I'll write down things that have nothing to do with

Steve: fishing, as you know, Marvin.

Steve: Like seeing yellow butterflies going across the ocean.

Steve: It makes me think of something. Or hearing parrots and then seeing them in the trees.

Steve: I know people have told me when they read my writing that they love that,

Steve: that they feel like they're there.

Steve: And that's how I do it. But I actually go, I'm able to go back there in my mind

Steve: and write it with as much passion and depth and description as I can.

David: I can tell you this. Last night at dinner, Steve was reliving a lot of yesterday.

David: Watching the fish for the first time, seeing them in the air.

David: I think if it wasn't a night, it would have been, it would have been a nightmare

David: had Steve not landed one.

Steve: Yes, quite a challenge.

Marvin: And so, Steve, it's interesting. So, you know, I know obviously you don't travel every single day.

Marvin: So do you generally, you know, have a really good rough draft of that chapter

Marvin: from that experience before you go to the next one? Or do you sometimes have to?

Steve: No, I haven't. I know exactly. Well, I know roughly how the book will lay out

Steve: because I've created it in my mind.

Steve: And so I know the places I'm trying to go to because I know what the book needs to say.

Steve: I mean, it is a lot of fishing stories that are interesting.

Steve: So this one's going to have Portugal and Mexico and maybe something in Central

Steve: America and definitely the Amazon and then end up in Patagonia.

Steve: I know what I'm trying to say, but I don't know what's going to happen until I arrive at a place.

Marvin: Got it. So, you know, the general arc is you're going.

Marvin: And so, David, you know, you and I have talked and I've met Raul with you in Edison.

Marvin: You want to let folks know. I know you regularly visit Raul multiple times a year.

Marvin: You want to tell them a little bit about kind of how the fishing varies over

Marvin: the seasons and kind of what people can expect if they come with you or if they

Marvin: come on their own to Tarpontown?

David: Absolutely. And in fact, there's two distinct seasons.

David: There's the spring, summer, early fall, where you can get lots of fish numbers.

David: Numbers but November through April you

David: have the chance of getting bigger fish maybe not

David: as many but certainly bigger and I'll give you an idea of size like today we

David: were catching fish between five and like 20 pounds but in the other season you

David: can certainly expect to catch fish in excess of 25,

David: 30 pounds up to like 50, 60.

David: It's not a regular thing, but they're around that time of year.

David: So we tend to bring eight through 10 weights is the range of rods.

Marvin: Got it. And so if I remember correctly, you guys have two more days of fishing.

Marvin: Is that right? And then you fly home on Wednesday?

David: Well, I have two more days. Steve has one more day because he's going up to

David: the Mayan ruins tomorrow. and checking things out in the upcountry.

Steve: As you know Marvin it's not all about fishing for me hmm so tomorrow role and

Steve: I are gonna be doing some exploring and I'm gonna see the history of the landscape

Steve: of his home and I can tell you I've only been here two days and,

Steve: I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. There's no way I would come down here

Steve: and fish and not do it here with Raul and Turpentine. There's no way.

David: It's funny. It's funny. I've been to the Mayan ruins once by choice,

David: but three other times because we got blown out.

David: And it's not an everyday thing. When you come in the winter,

David: you come for five days, you expect to lose one because when cold fronts come

David: down out of the north, you just can't fish.

David: So you know we'll go to the Mayan ruins go to art galleries great restaurants

David: so you have a lot of things you can do here but in that in that winter season

David: you kind of have that expectation,

David: it probably happens one set of every four trips but you got to be ready for it well.

Marvin: I hope you both of you have an uneventful trip back on Wednesday I was lucky

Marvin: enough to make it out of to dodge when I cast when the crowd flare problem happened.

Marvin: So I think I've probably used up all of my travel mojo for 2024.

Marvin: But also too, you know, we're on the countdown. And so in less than a month,

Marvin: Steve, your final book of the casting series will be out, Casting Homeward.

Marvin: I know people can pre-order that on Amazon. I will drop a link in the show notes to that for folks.

Marvin: And also drop a link, David, to Tarpon Town as well.

Marvin: And, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.

Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.

Marvin: And as I always say, we need to make David's life easy, so just send them to

Marvin: me. Don't send them to David.

Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.

Marvin: And we're here in a drawing for a Royal Wolf line of your choice.

Marvin: And David and I, I wouldn't say we're smitten with Royal Wolf lines, but we do like them.

Marvin: And I don't fish the tropical saltwater ones, but I definitely fish the triangle tapers.

Marvin: And they're great lines. So send us your questions. and as I always say,

Marvin: folks, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.

Marvin: Tight lines, everybody.