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

Intro: On this episode, I'm joined by Olympic skier, angler, and podcaster, Andy Mill.

Intro: Andy generously shares life lessons and wisdom from his skiing,

Intro: angling, and broadcasting journey.

Intro: I think you're really going to enjoy this one. But before we get to the interview,

Intro: just a couple of housekeeping items.

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Intro: And we recently released an interview-only show, The Long Haul with the Articulate Fly.

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Intro: Now, on to the interview.

Marvin: Well, Andy, welcome to the Articulate Fly.

Andy: Well, my pleasure to be here, and thanks for the invite.

Marvin: Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. And, you know, one of the things we like to

Marvin: do, we have a tradition on the Articulate Fly. we like to ask all of our guests

Marvin: to share their earliest fishing memory.

Andy: Oh.

Andy: I just remember a photograph. I don't really remember actually catching the fish.

Andy: I was probably maybe five or six years old. The photograph of me with a fish I was gutting.

Andy: I remember with my father in Laramie, Wyoming, he was giving me a piggyback ride. We were fishing.

Andy: It was getting late, and you could see the cast flies flying.

Andy: I remember that. The actual fishing part, I don't really remember much about that aspect of it.

Andy: I just remembered I just always loved doing all the different things I did as

Andy: a kid. Nothing really stood out.

Andy: But in saltwater fly fishing, those kind of memories you'll never forget because

Andy: we're talking really big fish, really powerful fish.

Andy: And when something like a tarpon, he opens his mouth, eat your fly,

Andy: it knocks your teeth out of your head.

Andy: I mean, it's like, oh, my God, how could you ever forget that, you know?

Andy: But I've always loved fishing. And I grew up here in Aspen, Colorado,

Andy: once my family moved here in 1960.

Andy: And I learned how to tie flies. I saw this fly line going across space.

Andy: And the great Ernie Sweebert was in town giving these clinics for the country

Andy: store. I was on my bike going to baseball practice, and I veered over there,

Andy: and all of a sudden, I had a fly rod in my hand.

Andy: I think I was probably eight or maybe nine years old.

Andy: From that point forward, I was a fly fisherman.

Andy: I was a fly fisherman. I loved the whole fly line part of the whole thing.

Andy: Then once I tied my first fly and I caught a fish with my first fly that I tied, it was game over.

Marvin: Yeah, it's a great thing, too. You know, it's funny, you know,

Marvin: trying to explain to kind of younger people today what it was like to learn to fly fish.

Marvin: And, you know, there was no YouTube and you had to read books.

Marvin: And, you know, I tell my boys I sent away, you know, self-addressed stamped

Marvin: envelopes to get catalogs. And it was really just kind of a neat time to kind

Marvin: of be outdoors and do those things.

Andy: Yeah, for sure. You know, you asked me the first time, my first memories,

Andy: I don't remember the very first time because I was so young,

Andy: but the first time I saw that, that trout eat my renegade that I had tied,

Andy: that was probably a big light switch.

Andy: And the saltwater switch was the first time I saw a tarpon eat my fly,

Andy: you know, so both freshwater and saltwater, it's all about the take.

Andy: It's all about the bite, you know, then, you know, you're in the game.

Marvin: Yeah. It's It's interesting, too. And, you know, you've been fortunate.

Marvin: You had a really long career in fishing even before you were kind of officially in fishing.

Marvin: And you've been able to fish and be mentored by a lot of people.

Marvin: So I won't say ask you to list them all, but are there a couple that kind of

Marvin: stand out as being particularly impactful on your development as an angler?

Andy: Chuck Fothergill, he had a very famous, well-known name in this country.

Andy: He first started learning or teaching how to put weight on your leader with

Andy: nymphs. He taught me how to tie flies.

Andy: And then the great Ernie Schwiebert taught me how to fly cast.

Andy: In the saltwater world, it was Harry Spear. He and Steve Hoff had won more saltwater

Andy: fly rod tournaments than anyone in the lower keys.

Andy: And so harry was my mentor i

Andy: fished with him 40 40 days a

Andy: year before for seven years before

Andy: i ever fished a tournament and i didn't realize

Andy: it at the time but he was grooming me for to be a tournament angler he knew

Andy: he was very adamant about about how to do things the difference between right

Andy: and wrong um i had other great people in my life like lefty cray uh flip pallet Steve Huff.

Andy: I had all these icons in the periphery of my world, but they're not mentors per se.

Andy: I think Lefty was a great mentor in the fact, not necessarily a mentor,

Andy: but he was very inspirational in that he taught the world of saltwater fly fishing,

Andy: how celebrities should act.

Andy: He was just so genuine and real

Andy: and common and but but

Andy: bigger than life he did everything wrote all the books the casting the humor

Andy: but he was always so humble and kind that's what i take from him flip palette

Andy: brought me to the saltwater world because i was a skier here in aspen well after

Andy: my athletic competitive years,

Andy: but I couldn't wait for Saturday morning to see Flip and his show,

Andy: Walker's Gate Chronicles. I wanted to be on his boat.

Andy: Oh my God, he was everywhere. And then when I finally met him,

Andy: it was like, it was so profound.

Andy: It was like me meeting Jean-Claude Keeley because this was Flip, you know, my hero.

Andy: And then many years later, I had written a book.

Andy: It was kind of a funny, you know, come to Jesus moment for me and an pinch me, oh my God moment.

Andy: I was eventually well down the road. Many years later, I was doing a tarpon

Andy: presentation at the International Game Fish Association in the big lobby.

Andy: And there were about, I don't know, maybe 100 people in there.

Andy: And in the audience was Stu App, Lefty Cray, Flip Pallet.

Andy: And I'm looking out. Here I am trying to tell them my methodology.

Andy: And then two hours later, we went across the street at Bass Pro Shops,

Andy: and we're all signing autographs. I'd written a book by then.

Andy: And I look down the line, and I'm looking. Here's Chico Fernandez.

Andy: Here's Lefty. Here's Flip.

Andy: There's Lefty. It was just like, oh, my God, this is my world now.

Andy: All of a sudden, that was my world. And to ever think that I was going to go

Andy: from an Olympic skier to having written a book and speaking about tarpon and

Andy: winning tarpon tournaments,

Andy: I mean, it's like somebody hit me with a magic wand and placed me down the road in that realm.

Marvin: Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, it's interesting, too. We were talking before

Marvin: we started recording that, you know, we met. I mean, it was kind of amazing.

Marvin: I tell people the story, and I'm just like, it's crazy. They're like,

Marvin: how was Edison? I was like, well, I met Andy Mill. They're like, no way.

Marvin: And, you know, I say, you know, I was literally walking the show.

Marvin: I think it was on that Friday with David Blinken.

Marvin: And he introduced me, and you graciously agreed to be on the podcast.

Marvin: But I thought the interesting thing, we started talking about,

Marvin: you know, being a competitive skier and how it translated.

Marvin: And you're like, well, I just never thought of myself as a great skier,

Marvin: right? I was a good skier, but I became a great tarpon angler.

Marvin: And I thought that was an incredibly fascinating thing to say because,

Marvin: I mean, I think of you as being a great skier and a great tarpon angler.

Marvin: And I was wondering if you could kind of explain that a little bit for our listeners

Marvin: because I think it's so interesting.

Andy: Here's the deal.

Andy: It's really hard to ski in the Olympics. They only take four Americans to ski in the downhill.

Andy: So I was ranked the number one American downhiller for nine years.

Andy: I skied in two Olympics and four world championships.

Andy: Great skiers win the Olympics. If you don't win, how can you be great?

Andy: In my book, for the average guy, of course I was great.

Andy: I represented the country.

Andy: But I didn't realize the difference between great and good until I became a tarpon fisherman.

Andy: My last year skiing, I was finally on the cusp of winning. I got fifth in the

Andy: pre-Olympics. I got sixth in the 76th Olympics.

Andy: I was right on the edge. My last year as an athlete, I finally got a great mentor.

Andy: I got great skis. I finally got to the point that I can win.

Andy: And then I hit a fence in Switzerland and I broke my neck, my back,

Andy: my leg, and my ski career was over.

Andy: As I mentioned to you earlier, I basically ran out of body.

Andy: I'd already had like 10 knee operations. Now, I had a broken neck and a broken back.

Andy: Once I got into tarpon fishing, and it's comparing apples to oranges because

Andy: you can't compare skiing in the Olympics to winning the gold cup.

Andy: They're completely two different things. It was so much easier to win the gold

Andy: cup than it is to win the Olympics because you have all these countries,

Andy: the best skiers in all these countries.

Andy: It's a high-end professional sport.

Andy: People are being paid a lot of money to win the Olympics.

Andy: But in the fly fishing world, winning the gold cup was like winning the Olympics.

Andy: So once I started to taste, you know, victory, success with Harry Spear being

Andy: my mentor, we fished my first tournament together.

Andy: I got second in the bonefish, spring bonefish fly tournament. We won the fall fly.

Andy: I got third in the first tarpon tournament with Harry. It was the gold cup.

Andy: Then I started understanding the difference between winning and doing well.

Andy: And once I tasted that, there was no let up.

Andy: It was like, since I never won as a skier, as a fisherman, it was like,

Andy: I am not going to allow myself to lose.

Andy: And I wasn't quite there yet because I won a bonefish tournament,

Andy: but I hadn't won a tarpon tournament.

Andy: But once I realized I was knocking on that door, I got fourth in the first tournament.

Andy: I won the very first golden fly tournament I fished in. I won the first permit

Andy: tournament I fished, the only, the Dell Brown.

Andy: But once I tasted that, it was like there was no let up.

Andy: And the difference or the years, the span of years with my victories were 18 years.

Andy: My first one to my last one. But I feel like I did not sleep for 15 years.

Andy: I was so driven. In the winter, I was like tying flies and tying leisure and

Andy: pulling on tippets and pulling on scales.

Andy: I was a maniac. yet but i felt like that was the difference in really becoming

Andy: as great as i became as a fisherman,

Andy: it was i was i was relentless but as a skier i was too young i didn't have a

Andy: great mentor i didn't not i didn't have the the understanding of what it takes

Andy: to win i was just trying to do well,

Andy: but but like the european skiers and some of the other americans once the american

Andy: team got from from out of behind the eight ball, then we had a chance to win,

Andy: but it took a long time. It was right at the end of my career.

Andy: But if you take a look at fishing in tournaments, it's almost like an oxymoron.

Andy: It's a contrast in what we should be doing as fishermen.

Andy: I just happened to become a tournament fisherman, and it was very,

Andy: very important for me to win tournaments.

Marvin: Yeah. And was that something that, you know, kind of cracking the code and having

Marvin: your body run out in skiing that kind of haunted you, that gave you that drive?

Andy: I didn't learn how to win until I got hurt. That last year, I finally realized what it took to win.

Andy: I reapplied myself. I rededicated my life to skiing.

Andy: And I realized I had just maybe a couple years left. And I went all in.

Andy: But I never did that before. I was too immature. I was too young.

Andy: I skied in my first Olympics when I was 23.

Andy: I was not mature enough.

Andy: I was distracted by the lifestyle of Aspen, which was on fire back in the 70s.

Andy: Aspen was a generation of innocence.

Andy: Sexual revolution was taking place. It was a total anarchy of this country post-Vietnam.

Andy: And I wanted to take a big bite out of that apple, and I did.

Andy: But in doing so, I sacrificed that as an athlete.

Andy: But in my later years, I was married to Chrissy. I had kids.

Andy: I had my TV show that I was producing and hosting. And now I had a chance to

Andy: fish these tournaments. And it gave me a complete understanding of perspective

Andy: from being a skier to now a fisherman.

Andy: And I knew the difference. And I knew what it was going to take for me to win.

Marvin: Yeah. And I imagine, too, you also knew that that opportunity wasn't going to last forever, right?

Andy: I didn't think about that.

Marvin: Really?

Andy: I never thought I was going to be 71.

Marvin: Fair enough.

Andy: You just think this road's going to last forever, you know?

Andy: But I couldn't have put more effort into what I did to win tournaments than I did.

Andy: And looking back, I didn't have that as a skier, but you don't get second chances.

Andy: And so I was very lucky to have a second chance as a fisherman,

Andy: and I count my blessings for that.

Marvin: And what was it that, you know, I know you grew up fishing for trout,

Marvin: but, you know, what was it that attracted you to the salt and tarpon in particular?

Andy: Well, I think it really stems, you know, initially with Flip Pallet and his TV show,

Andy: you know, catching these great fish on flies, you know, sailfish and marlin

Andy: and bonefish and carp and just the adventure of running in a little 16-foot

Andy: skiff out over the cross,

Andy: the surface of the ocean and catching these giants, right?

Andy: Trout are not giants. I skied at 80 miles an hour for a living.

Andy: I wanted to catch big fish that would scare the shit out of me that was what

Andy: I wanted to do trout don't scare me you know that's.

Marvin: Funny and so did it you know you know and I know you went into bone fishing

Marvin: permit but does that all do you also like have an interest in like catching

Marvin: makos and sailfish and billfish on the fly or is that not interest you you.

Andy: Know what I've caught marlin on a fly I've cut you know a number of sailfish

Andy: on a fly um that kind of stuff doesn't really interest me a whole lot because

Andy: you're waiting for the fish to hit your teaser you you tease them in and you do the bait and switch,

Andy: that's cool marlin are huge i get seasick that's the biggest problem i have

Andy: um but i cut gts in the seychelles i am i am more of a hunter and my son and

Andy: i hunt uh elk in the fall with bone arrows,

Andy: we've been doing that for i don't know close to i've been doing it close to maybe 15 years,

Andy: maybe a little bit more 20 years when we fish in the salt we hunt and now i

Andy: find myself hunting for trout so when i go trout fishing i'm looking for a fish

Andy: that's feeding on the surface or i may find a riffle and try to find a fish

Andy: that's feeding in that riffle on nymphs,

Andy: and i'll try to catch that one fish i don't want to catch 15 or 20 or 30 fish

Andy: i want to catch that one fish.

Andy: Now I'm riveted. I see that animal right there, and I want him.

Andy: That's where I get my fill as a trout fisherman.

Marvin: Got it. Andy, how would you define what being a great tarpon angler means?

Andy: Being a great tarpon angler is an angler who can catch the fish that doesn't want to be caught.

Andy: Not everybody's going to graduate or gravitate to tournaments.

Andy: And I just want to put that aside.

Andy: That was my bag, you know, and I don't want to say that you're not going to

Andy: be a great tarpon fisherman unless you win the gold cup. That is, that is total false.

Andy: There's a lot of fit, a lot of great fishermen out there that have never,

Andy: never fished a tournament, but that was my, that was my baseline for, for greatness.

Andy: But when you put that term baseline to the side, a great guide is the guide

Andy: who can find the fish that doesn't want to be found.

Andy: And when you put that great guide with an angler that can catch the fish that

Andy: doesn't want to be found, that's a home run.

Andy: You are going to empty the ocean when you put those two guys together.

Andy: And so when I was fishing tournaments, I wanted to be with that guide who can

Andy: find the fish that doesn't want to be found. And those guys wanted me.

Andy: And that's why we ended up doing so well.

Marvin: Yeah, that's neat. It's always interesting Cause I mean, I always,

Marvin: you know, I put a lot of pressure on myself when I fish with guides,

Marvin: cause I always want to, um, fish as an extension of the guide, right.

Marvin: You know, cause there's only like, he can't catch the fish for you,

Marvin: right. He can help you put the boat in the right place, find the fish.

Marvin: But, um, I always think that there's a kind of, it's almost like running a relay

Marvin: and then he passes the baton to you.

Marvin: Um, and so that's always kind of my goal when I'm on the water is to kind of

Marvin: honor that commitment and all that time and energy and thought that the guide

Marvin: put into creating that situation.

Andy: Let me tell you, that's hopeful thinking. And I'll tell you why.

Andy: The average saltwater fisherman does not fish that often to be able to do that for that guide.

Andy: And casting dexterity, right there. They're really good fishermen,

Andy: really good saltwater fishermen.

Andy: They don't have casting dexterity.

Andy: Casting dexterity is regardless of the position of the boat and the direction

Andy: of the wind, whether the fish is at 9 o'clock,

Andy: 1 o'clock over here, 3 o'clock, a backhand cast into a 20-mile-an-hour wind,

Andy: forehand cast over your head.

Andy: So your head's between your rod and your fly line where you

Andy: where you cut that fly line in the middle of the boat between the

Andy: guide and that angler making a forehand cast out

Andy: there at nine nine o'clock at 70 feet with the wind blowing 20

Andy: miles an hour right into your face you can't make a forehand cast because you're

Andy: going to pull the fly right into your face you can't make a backhand cast so

Andy: you're going to hook your guide so that forehand cast that rod's got to be high

Andy: and when When you come back with that backhand cast, that fly is coming over your left shoulder.

Andy: Cutting the boat, cutting the string, casting between the boat,

Andy: not very many people can do that.

Andy: And it takes years. A lot of guides don't even know how to teach this stuff.

Andy: So when you fall short on the bow of your boat, you got to remember,

Andy: most people fish tarpon maybe only a week a year.

Andy: It's so hard to do well with your casting without being on the water.

Andy: It's hard to learn in a park. Most people, when the guide says you need to practice,

Andy: need to go to the park and practice, right?

Andy: They don't know how to fix mistakes. They don't even know what a mistake looks like.

Andy: So how do you practice? It's like telling somebody to go to the golf range and

Andy: practice. They've never had a lesson. Right?

Andy: So that's the issue with saltwater anglers, is that it's really hard.

Andy: It's really hard, especially if you, let's just say you fish two weeks a year.

Andy: They're doing the best they can with what they've got.

Andy: And sometimes I feel sorry for them because they want to get better,

Andy: But unless they fish really a lot for a long time, it's really hard to get really, really good.

Marvin: Yeah, I think that's kind of the whole, you know, I always say people never

Marvin: fish as much as they want to.

Marvin: So then the question is, given how much you can fish, how good can you really get?

Andy: Right. But you can study on the internet how to double haul,

Andy: how to make a backhand cast.

Andy: You know, there's a lot of information on the internet.

Andy: That so most people when they see a tailing loop they don't even know what a tailing loop is,

Andy: so how do you fix a tailing loop so you

Andy: got two problems they don't they can't identify

Andy: it and they don't know how to fix it you know so all i all i can say you know

Andy: is that keep the enthusiasm up ask your guides you know um i'm you know and

Andy: when people guides get hard on their anglers it's I was like, dude,

Andy: don't you understand that these anglers are doing the best they can?

Andy: They're doing everything they can to catch that fish. So you can't get mad at them. You can't.

Marvin: Yeah. So Andy, can you share the specific moment that you realized that you

Marvin: had become a great tarpon angler?

Andy: I knew I was pretty good fairly quickly because I could cast well.

Andy: I had really good eyes. I had a great mentor.

Andy: I didn't, I don't, I didn't think I was proven until I won until I,

Andy: you know, I always felt like everybody can get lucky and win once.

Andy: But when I started dominating and winning, you know, I won the gold cup five

Andy: out of six years, you know, but right now my son is better than I will ever be.

Andy: My son is incredible, but he, And he's fished a few tournaments.

Andy: He's gotten second and third in some of the tournaments. But it's not that important to him.

Andy: But to see somebody see his eyes, oh, my God, young eyes.

Andy: Passing ability is crazy. You know, look, I was really great at one time,

Andy: but I'm not great anymore. I'm a solid good.

Marvin: And how long? So, you know, I read the story like, you know,

Marvin: you went on your first tarpon fishing trip, got the bug. How long was that journey

Marvin: from there to winning your first tournament?

Andy: Well, I fished with Harry Spear, who was my mentor, for seven years.

Andy: A lot. 40 days a year for seven years. That's a lot.

Andy: More than most people will ever be able to fish because they have jobs,

Andy: they have families. I was very fortunate to be able to have that kind of free time.

Andy: I won my first Golden Fly. I would say about eight years before I won,

Andy: but it was only the second year I was fishing tournaments.

Andy: But that's kind of unfair because I felt like for a long time,

Andy: I had that tournament mindset.

Andy: It takes a long time to get really good at anything. This is,

Andy: say, matching the hatch, tying your own flies, weeding trout water,

Andy: being able to figure that stuff out.

Andy: I'm not a great trout fisherman. I'm not. I can catch fish, but I'm not great.

Andy: Oh, my God. I'm just okay at it. My son is really good.

Marvin: Yeah. So it's interesting. So, I mean, I was doing the math in my head.

Marvin: I mean, you spent over a year of fishing days on the water for tarpon,

Marvin: right, before you won your first cup.

Andy: Yeah. I mean, by the time I was fishing tournaments, I was really good.

Marvin: Yeah.

Andy: I wasn't great yet, but I was pretty solid.

Marvin: And we've talked about this a couple times kind of just in phone calls before the interview.

Marvin: You, you know, really curious about how, you know, you learned a lot of lessons

Marvin: skiing, but kind of how you took

Marvin: that preparation regime and applied it to becoming a great tarpon angler.

Andy: Here's the deal. When I was on the Olympic team, I was 23 years old.

Andy: I did not understand the kind of discipline I needed.

Andy: I figured out discipline after my ski career.

Andy: I didn't figure out how to win as a skier until my very last year as a skier,

Andy: just before I got hurt. I got fifth in the Olympics.

Andy: No, I got fifth in the pre-Olympics, and I got sixth in the Olympics.

Andy: But I still didn't have the understanding of how to be a really high-end professional

Andy: as a skier. We were a bunch of amateurs.

Andy: The team was pretty far behind the eight ball. We didn't have great equipment.

Andy: I'll give you a prime example about equipment.

Andy: One year, we get to Val d'Isere, France. It's the first World Cup.

Andy: And Erwin Stricker on the Italian team, he had this rubberized downhill suit.

Andy: He had this fairing on the back of his helmet. He had bent ski poles.

Andy: He had a fairing on his legs behind his knees. And I looked at my roommate,

Andy: Carl Anderson, and I said, dude, we are toast.

Andy: I'll give you an example of what that means.

Andy: A rubberized downhill suit. We had downhill suits that still breathed the porosity of the fabric.

Andy: Versus a rubberized suit, that's a two-second difference just in aerodynamics

Andy: in a two-minute downhill.

Andy: Two seconds. When you're traveling, so we were averaging 66 miles per hour.

Andy: So if you're going 60 miles an hour, that's 88 feet per second times two.

Andy: That's what we were giving up just with the difference of our downhill suit.

Andy: So this whole sphere of professionalism and preparedness and expertise and knowledge

Andy: was so far above our heads. We had no idea.

Andy: I had no idea at 23 how to be a professional athlete against these Europeans

Andy: that were getting paid a lot of money, great coaches, great training regimes.

Andy: Jeans you know um but as

Andy: a fisherman you know once i got to be a

Andy: fisherman i knew what it was going to take to win because i

Andy: didn't learn all that until my very last year as a skier i was

Andy: on the on the uh the u.s ski team for what 10

Andy: years but my last year i finally understood

Andy: about i finally understood about dedicating my

Andy: life to winning training every

Andy: day in the summer getting really fit

Andy: getting really strong having the best skis that rosinol had

Andy: available for me having a great coach that taught

Andy: me how to move to the inside with my hip you know hip angulation versus knee

Andy: and it's a technical thing where you can put your hip your knee and your ankle

Andy: in the same plane so at 80 miles an hour in a corner you have much more stability

Andy: than having the knee outside of that plane.

Andy: Now I was stable. I could make one smooth arc and I had great skis.

Andy: Now I could compete against the Europeans. Now I had a chance to win.

Andy: And that's what I learned over that 10-year period as a ski team athlete.

Andy: I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what it took to win.

Andy: I didn't have anybody helping me. I was not smart enough to get it.

Andy: So when I made that transformation from skiing to fishing and winning tournaments

Andy: as a fisherman, I knew the difference.

Andy: I knew the difference, what it was going to take to win. And I was fishing against

Andy: a lot of guys that were not previously, you know, skiing in the Olympics and

Andy: skiing at a professional level or any athletes.

Andy: They were great fishermen. They were doing the best I could.

Andy: But I think I had an edge because I understood the difference between doing well and winning.

Marvin: And how did that sort of break down? I think we talked before we started rolling,

Marvin: too, you know, kind of thinking about like there's the physical aspect.

Marvin: There's the mental aspect. We were talking earlier about how you try to perfect

Marvin: everything in the chain so that there's no weak link.

Andy: Right, exactly right. So let's just say there's a ginormous puzzle with a thousand

Andy: million little pieces to that puzzle.

Andy: And if you're a sportsman at a high level trying to win against the best in

Andy: the world, you have all these small little nuances,

Andy: little pieces of the puzzle that have to be perfectly polished before you're ready to win.

Andy: And those pieces might be a backhand cast, you know, casting between the boat.

Andy: How do you feed a fish? Bump, bump, bump. How do you talk to a fish?

Andy: How do you see, how do you know what that fish is going to do before he does it?

Andy: That takes miles and miles and miles. And those are the things that I was really concentrating on.

Andy: The smallest pieces of the puzzle could get you that win.

Andy: Because if you have a piece that's not polished, that might expose itself in a certain situation.

Andy: And the great fishermen, the great tournament fishermen, whether it be freshwater

Andy: guys, Euro nymphing, competing against all the other teams around the world,

Andy: they have the same issues.

Andy: Everything is refined.

Marvin: And how do you, in some ways, that's sort of the physical stuff.

Marvin: How do you kind of work on the mental component and prepare for the things that

Marvin: you can't control, right?

Marvin: Like, so you try to take everything you possibly can and get your arms around it.

Marvin: But how do you, you know, become mentally tough and prepare for the unknown

Marvin: to have a chance to be elite?

Andy: To be mentally tough, you cannot lose your concentration for one minute. it.

Andy: When it's a dark, cloudy day, you might only have one shot.

Andy: But if you're not grinding, staring into the ocean, looking,

Andy: looking for that little difference of color, whatever it might be,

Andy: you might miss your only shot.

Andy: And you have to be able to make up great distances

Andy: on a lousy day you have

Andy: to be able to catch fish when no one else is going to catch fish like

Andy: i always was hoping for wind windy conditions like an open blue sky so i can

Andy: see but windy conditions because i knew that at least 50 of the field is going

Andy: to go away when it's blowing 20 miles an hour they can't make that cast but

Andy: and i'll tell you one of the the mental things that

Andy: really came up a year after I made a mistake.

Andy: It was at a gold cup and I had a fish come up and it was the last day of the

Andy: tournament. I had a chance to win. We were in contention.

Andy: This tarpon came up and sipped my fly like this. Very, very, very slow bite.

Andy: And it takes so much composure to wait for that fish to shut its mouth,

Andy: to wait to feel the weight of the fish in your stripping hand here before you

Andy: set the hook. and I slid that fly out of its mouth and I missed it.

Andy: It bothered me immensely that full year because when you lose,

Andy: you don't have a chance to win again for another year because these termites,

Andy: the gold cup, the gold fly, there's only one chance a year. We only have three tarpon termites a year.

Andy: So when you lose, it's like it drives you crazy. You have to wait a whole another year.

Andy: So the following year.

Andy: This is kind of an interesting story because I'm not superstitious.

Andy: It was the fifth day of the Gold Cup, the five-day tournament.

Andy: And we're on the starting grid getting ready to take off. I may have told this story before.

Andy: But on the starting grid, what happens is you have five boats for every two minutes.

Andy: You have a 25-boat team, one angler per boat, one guide per boat.

Andy: So we're getting ready to – the gun's about ready to go off.

Andy: And Kenny Collette, an Isla Mirada guide, was fishing with a Japanese guide.

Andy: And they had won the Gold Cup twice. They were really good.

Andy: And Kenny yells over to me, goes, Andy, you got to move your truck.

Andy: I go, what are you talking about? I knew he was messing with me.

Andy: I said, why? He said, your truck's in a bad parking spot.

Andy: He said, you're normally in the top two or three going into the last day.

Andy: You're dead last. and I knew it had been a bad week we had fish falling off

Andy: bad weather I said are you serious he said yes.

Andy: So I said, Timmy, take me to the dock. And my guide, Timmy Hoover,

Andy: he really didn't want to do this. He's like complaining. I said,

Andy: take me to the dock. I got to move my truck.

Andy: So I go and move my truck. We get in the boat. We're starting to run out of the marina there.

Andy: I said, Timmy, today is the best day we've had. It's a great weather day.

Andy: Big sun. You find me the fish. We're going to catch them. And we're going to win.

Andy: So we were on the ocean. And I caught three tarpon on the ocean.

Andy: They were weight fish, over 70 pounds. Then we went into this basin where the

Andy: year before where there was this fish laying there and I slid the fly out of his mouth too soon.

Andy: We go into this basin, we can't find a fish. We get up to where we had seen

Andy: this fish the year before, laying in the same position, laid up.

Andy: I slide my fly in there, same fly.

Andy: Start sliding it. This fish moves up, same bite, same bite.

Andy: And I'd been waiting a year to do this again, never knowing I was going to have this opportunity.

Andy: This fish slid over, opened its mouth, had this real, real slow bite,

Andy: exactly the same way as the year before. I waited.

Andy: I waited. I started sliding my fly and it gets tight.

Andy: 115 pound fish, we caught him. I said, Timmy, we need to catch one more fish.

Andy: We run around the back country, go into this other basin, we catch one more,

Andy: run home, we win the tournament.

Andy: But these are the type of mental things that will drive you crazy when you make a mistake.

Andy: If you're just fun fishing, you blow it off, but when it costs you a tournament,

Andy: these are the things you think about that make you better.

Andy: When you can't sleep because you've made a mistake, when you can't let it go,

Andy: when you demand perfection.

Andy: These are the type of things that bothered me. These are the type of things

Andy: that I would never let go.

Andy: This is why I feel like I didn't sleep 15 years because I was so possessed.

Marvin: And it's interesting too, because we were talking before we started recording

Marvin: as well about, you know, whether you're fishing against yourself or you're fishing against other people.

Andy: In a tournament, you're always fishing against the field because you want to win.

Andy: But ultimately, you're always fishing against yourself.

Andy: Because as a prime example, I was playing golf with my father-in-law yesterday.

Andy: And he was saying, you know, he's like an 11 handicap. And he's saying,

Andy: well, I win all these tournaments with my buddies.

Andy: I said, well, are you trying to fix your mistakes and get better with what you do?

Andy: Do you want to be like a three or a scratch golfer, three handicap, five handicap?

Andy: You're 12, but you're okay with that because you're beating your buddies.

Andy: If you really want to get good at something, you can't grade yourself on the

Andy: curve because those guys all suck.

Andy: You have to demand greatness, you know, for yourself.

Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting. And, you know, we, when we spoke in Edison,

Marvin: or might've been on the phone call after Edison, and you had mentioned to me,

Marvin: you know, you, and you mentioned in the interview earlier that you, you know,

Marvin: you weren't, you know, happy necessarily being a ski broadcaster and that this

Marvin: great door opened for you when the outdoor life network called you and you were

Marvin: We're able to kind of pivot out of the ski world and have this entirely new beginning, right,

Marvin: in fly fishing in a very different way that I think you found more fulfilling.

Marvin: I was wondering if you could share a little bit of that with our listeners.

Andy: When I got hurt in 1981 with that fall in Switzerland, it ended my ski career.

Andy: I broke my neck, my back, my leg, and all the ligaments in my right knee.

Andy: It's like, okay, what am I going to do now for the rest of my life?

Andy: I don't have an education. I graduated from high school. never went to college and I thought,

Andy: How am I going to make a living? And I thought, the only way I can make a living is through exposure.

Andy: So I started this TV show called Ski with Andy Mill. It was a barter syndicated show.

Andy: To make a long story short, I sold advertising. It was a five-minute show.

Andy: I distributed it all around the country.

Andy: I was the director of skiing here in Aspen.

Andy: But my five-minute show, I was getting paid from all the products I was wearing.

Andy: Boots, blinding, skis, sunglasses, clothing.

Andy: I was making a lot of money with that little show.

Andy: And now I'm also doing the broadcast work for CBS in the Olympics.

Andy: I covered Albertville in 92 and Lillehammer in 94.

Andy: I was the director of skiing here in Aspen. I was on top of the world, so to speak, right?

Andy: But I was flatline. My life was not moving up.

Andy: I was no longer an athlete trying to win stuff. I was never pushing myself personally.

Andy: I was maintaining. I was making a lot of money, but it was flat.

Andy: And I hated broadcasting because I was speaking about something I wanted to be doing.

Andy: And now all of a sudden, I'm in this life where I'm making money.

Andy: I was a professional, but there was nothing exciting to it.

Andy: And then I did a couple of specials for the Outdoor Life network,

Andy: and I was a host on a couple of shows, and they wanted me to host a fishing show.

Andy: I said, I have no time, none.

Andy: I am tapped. But I'll tell you what, you match what I make as a skier,

Andy: all my contracts, all of them.

Andy: You give me that amount of money, you give me a five-year contract,

Andy: and if I produce this TV show, all the money I save on the production costs, I get to keep as my bonus.

Andy: So now, all of a sudden, I leave skiing fully.

Andy: I am now producing fishing shows, and I was making about $750,000 fishing.

Andy: And now I get to fish all over the world with the best guides in the world,

Andy: telling these great stories.

Andy: And I was making a lot of money. It was a massive home run for me because now

Andy: I was excited to wake up in the morning.

Andy: I was going to go fish the Seychelles. I was fishing St.

Andy: Thomas for 800-pound marlin, Guatemala, Costa Rica. I did a TV show in the the

Andy: Arctic circle with, with former president Bush.

Andy: And now all of a sudden I start doing this tarpon thing and now I get to go fish tournaments.

Andy: My life is, is climbing, climbing the mountain again. It's the greatest thing

Andy: that ever happened to me.

Marvin: Yeah. And, you know, why do you think people sometimes get stuck kind of flat? Right.

Marvin: And, you know, cause it's an interesting thing and it's, you know,

Marvin: you know, when I kind of, so my, you know, I try to kind of coach my boys growing

Marvin: up and talk about, you know, finding those things that make you passionate,

Marvin: right? That'll give you that energy.

Marvin: You know, why do you think so many people just kind of look up in late middle

Marvin: age and they kind of have wasted 30 or 40 years of their life?

Andy: Look, I think a lot of people get married too young. They have kids too young.

Andy: They have bills they got to pay.

Andy: Man, they're stuck. They're stuck for a long time.

Andy: There's no freedom. They don't have, they're not financially free.

Andy: The wife's got a job. You've got a job. The kids are driving them crazy.

Andy: Get home. Everybody's hungry.

Andy: And sometimes you don't even have a job you like.

Andy: Got to find work. Right. And when I look around, um, I see that a lot in a lot

Andy: of places, you know, So, and then two, how do you take that gamble?

Andy: How do you take that gamble? Like I said, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going

Andy: to go fishing. I want to work in a fishing store.

Andy: And I'll give you an example. My father was like that.

Andy: He was in the lumber business his entire life. He never had two nickels to rub together.

Andy: But he got a great job here in Aspen running the lumber yard,

Andy: pushed forward a number of years.

Andy: He was working in Denver as a lumberman.

Andy: I don't think he really liked his job. He was not a very happy man because he was kind of stuck.

Andy: And he came here when he was like 60-some years old, 66, I think it was.

Andy: I taught him how to nymph fish. I taught him how to catch fish.

Andy: He went back to Denver and quit his job like four months later.

Andy: And he got a job at at at um what

Andy: the hell is the name of that um well it's

Andy: a little fishing store in in littleton colorado anglers all my dad was tying

Andy: flies for anglers all working the desk and he was ecstatic because he could

Andy: fish on the weekends and he was tying flies anyway i used to bussing a lot of

Andy: times. I said, dad, what kind of flies are you tying?

Andy: He said, I'm tying San Juan worms and eggs.

Andy: I said, dad, those are not flies, dude. You're not a fly tire.

Andy: But he was living large again because he was on the river and he was talking

Andy: to fishermen and it changed his life entirely. But he didn't have a lot of bills at the time.

Andy: He was later in his years in life, close to retirement.

Andy: So I think he's talking about people getting stuck.

Andy: I was very fortunate. I was stuck at a high level because I was making a lot of money.

Andy: I was doing really cool things that no one ever dreams of being,

Andy: a broadcaster for the Olympics, the director of skiing in Aspen.

Andy: But me personally, I was flatlined.

Marvin: It's an interesting thing. I know when I coach my boys, I always talk.

Marvin: I'm a Generation X guy. Growing up in the 70s, I feel like we can a little bit

Marvin: more rough and tumble maybe than millennials and younger kids.

Marvin: And I think some of that is a function of, you know, growing up and having grandparents

Marvin: that came of age in the Depression and just a different sensibility.

Marvin: And it's kind of an interesting thing where, you know, given kind of,

Marvin: you know, my background in law and finance, I saw a lot of people that were

Marvin: really spending money just to keep from being completely miserable in what they were doing.

Marvin: And if you could kind of dial back, you know, what you thought you had to have,

Marvin: you can maybe find a little bit of a crack of light in the door and maybe find

Marvin: a way to kind of squeak out.

Andy: Yeah.

Andy: Well, look, I have been the most fortunate person, you know,

Andy: I could possibly ever imagine dreaming of being.

Andy: I have an ex-wife that was a superstar in the tennis world. We have three great kids.

Andy: I have chapters. I look back at and I go, oh, my God, how did I ever get here?

Andy: How did I ever be so lucky to be able to have this life?

Andy: You know, I mean, some people are just luckier than others. You know,

Andy: sometimes luck plays a huge role.

Andy: And I had, my son said, Dad, you get the biggest horseshoe up your ass.

Andy: I said, yeah, I agree, you know.

Andy: But I think a lot of luck comes from being very fortunate, a lot of doors open for you.

Andy: But being lucky is having the ability to not only step through that door,

Andy: but being able to excel on the other side of that door.

Andy: And it comes from with me, I had this passionate heart.

Andy: I was a really hard worker. you know i even i mean i will work till the day

Andy: i die i don't know anything different i want to work and i want to do well i

Andy: don't want to just make money i want to excel at what i do,

Andy: um so i think i was gifted you know with that desire to work hard and and it

Andy: was not about the money it was about the chasing dreams i think we live fully all of us,

Andy: while we are chasing our dreams.

Marvin: And you've done so much, you know, what do you have left on your to-do list

Marvin: that you want to accomplish and achieve?

Andy: I'm going to go to Mags Bay. I want to catch a striped marlin,

Andy: free cast into a striped marlin without bait and switch.

Andy: I want to go to Bolivia and catch a golden dorado.

Andy: Other than that, I'm 71. I've had 24 operations. My body's killing me.

Andy: I need another knee. My left knee's replaced. My right knee needs replaced.

Andy: My neck is fused. My back is fused. Everything hurts. I can barely play golf anymore. more.

Andy: I just really want to try to be able to stay active and do things.

Andy: I still want to elk hunt in the high country.

Andy: And I got back to Aspen. I've been in Florida all winter.

Andy: I went on not even a hard hike yesterday. I've got so much lactic acid in my

Andy: body. It's like, are you serious?

Andy: My God, I used to be an athlete. What happened?

Andy: And now I know I've got to look forward to of September when I got to chase

Andy: my son at 12,000 feet, 11,000 feet chasing elk, you know?

Andy: So my dreams are to see my son's about ready to have a baby this week.

Andy: The dreams I have now is to see really great happiness, you know,

Andy: with my entire family, you know, my kids, my young grandson,

Andy: that's going to be born here this week.

Andy: And really being able to, I've been very fortunate to be able to be connected

Andy: to the fishing industry.

Andy: And I don't take that lightly. I think that there's a big responsibility to

Andy: do what Nicky and I do with our podcast, bring to light a lot of stories that

Andy: are going to go away with age and time.

Andy: I want to help maintain the history of our sport,

Andy: the evolution of our sport, and the people that created our sport,

Andy: you know and what they did to innovate what they what they've done and give

Andy: respect to the people that came before me you know i will never take for granted

Andy: what i have in my life um it did not come easily um.

Andy: But with that said, I have a lot of work in trying to help preserve these other

Andy: stories that came before me, these icons,

Andy: these legends, and their stories are going to die if they don't get on your

Andy: podcast, on our podcast, and let them tell their stories.

Andy: So the younger generation will realize what took place to get this game to where

Andy: we are today and who did it.

Andy: So that it gives them a baseline not a

Andy: baseline that just so what they know now i

Andy: think it's important to know how we got here conservation too if we don't know

Andy: how we got here it's really hard to understand the direction we're going to

Andy: go into the future and and so what i have left often in my life is, is really trying to,

Andy: you know, be kind and humble and let people,

Andy: you know, I want to be treated the way I want people to treat me the way I want to treat them.

Andy: Um, and I always want that and never, never think that I'm nothing more than

Andy: a mountain guy that did okay.

Marvin: And it's, you know, as a father, um, it's gotta be just absolutely fantastic

Marvin: to have the podcast and get to work with your son.

Andy: Yeah. Look, we were speaking about that earlier. I have three sons.

Andy: I love them all dearly, equally. But Nicky has gravitated to the things that I've always loved.

Andy: He's always wanted to be on my shoulders and seeing what I saw.

Andy: I'd be signing up in a tournament. He would be on my shoulders.

Andy: We'd be on the boat getting bullet, playing with the

Andy: mullet started bow hunting

Andy: he's a great bow hunter kills kills all

Andy: kinds of great animals and now we work together it's a dream to be able to be

Andy: to have a son like nikki who connects with the things that i love and i think

Andy: too for him to have a father that that understands the things that that he loves goes both ways yeah.

Marvin: It's very very neat andy is there anything else this evening you want to share

Marvin: with our listeners before i let you go.

Andy: I would just say wherever you are whatever you're doing,

Andy: make sure you you find the the time and place to listen to silence hear how loud,

Andy: silence is and when you hear and when you're in the presence of silence You

Andy: can hear your inner voice of what you want to do, who you are,

Andy: where you want to go with your life.

Andy: What does love mean? What does your family mean to you?

Andy: How can I make my family better? How can I be a better dad, a better father,

Andy: a better fisherman, better employee, better owner of a company? Right?

Andy: Because we're not really, we're not grading ourselves by what other people are doing.

Andy: We're grading ourselves by how, who we are and what kind of a person we are.

Andy: And remember, always try to dream big and chase those dreams.

Marvin: And Andy, if folks want to follow your adventures on the water and in the field,

Marvin: running after Nikki going up the mountain chasing elk, where should they look?

Andy: Look yeah so you know

Andy: our our podcast millhouse podcast you can

Andy: watch it on youtube and our instagram

Andy: site uh millhouse podcast podcast instagram you

Andy: can watch and see some tips and some uh

Andy: some words of wisdom but you can

Andy: also listen to our podcast on you know where we

Andy: find your your podcast spotify you know all i don't know anything about that

Andy: stuff i'm just i'm just the voice my son does all that i i have just a figurehead

Andy: with the talking lips here you know yeah but but we're out there and um you

Andy: know we have now i think we've done 111 podcasts,

Andy: and if you scroll through it you can find offshore captains you know great great

Andy: guys have done a lot of great things in the world of fishing yeah.

Marvin: As i always say you know you have people which is good to take care of all that

Marvin: stuff i'll drop links to all that stuff and in the show notes and And I super

Marvin: appreciate you spending the time with me. Incredibly generous of you.

Marvin: And I look forward to seeing you on the show circuit again soon.

Andy: Well, I'm honored you have asked me to be here. And again, thank you so much.

Marvin: Take care.

Andy: You too.

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