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,
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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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