S1, Ep 91: Love to Fish Live to Teach with George Daniel

Marvin Cash (00:04): Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash of The Articulate Fly, and on this episode I interview George Daniel of Living on the Fly. The motto of his company is Love to Fish, Live to Teach. We take a deep dive into the folks that helped George develop into the angler and educator that we all know, and he also shares with us his approach for coaching and mentoring to improve the performance of his angling buddies and clients.

Before we move on, it'd be great if you could give us a review on the podcatcher of your choice. And if you haven't yet, please check out The Articulate Fly apps. All you have to do is search The Articulate Fly in the Apple App Store or in the Android Store of your choice.

I also want to give a shout out to our sponsor. This episode is sponsored by the 20th Virginia Fly Fishing and Wine Festival. The event's going to be January 11th and 12th in Doswell, Virginia. And if you visit www.vaflyfishingfestival.org, or if you check out our event page, you can get all the latest information on speakers, vendors, and classes. Now on to our interview.

Well, George, welcome to The Articulate Fly.

George Daniel (01:07): Thanks for having me, Marvin.

Marvin Cash (01:08): Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it, and I'm glad we were able to come up with a slightly different topic this evening and focus on coaching and mentoring.

George Daniel (01:17): No, that's one of my, I guess you could say one of the things I really have been enjoying within recent years. I mean, the tips and the tactics are always good, but I guess you could say one of the things I've really tried to become better at in recent years with being a parent and also with some of my work that I'm currently doing in the industry, it's really trying to focus from becoming a really good angler, which is always on the goal, but learning how to teach those skills to other people. So I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about it.

Marvin Cash (01:47): Yeah, I'm looking forward to diving into it. But before we do that, why don't you catch us up on what you've been doing in your 2019 guide and travel season?

George Daniel (01:56): It's par for the course. I mean, I've been very fortunate. I had a great guide season, full plate. And then doing most of the fly fishing shows for the Fremskis. That kept me going early in the season, along with countless speaking engagements and tours throughout the country. So I've been a lot of places this year. Just got back from a nice trip in Sacramento around Davis, California, doing some stuff on Putah Creek. And now I'm back here wrapping up the guide season.

But now also I'm teaching now at Penn State a little bit on a part-time basis. And it's been good. Got some writing projects, working on some DVDs in the future. So all in all, I'm just trying to keep the family fed and stay out of trouble.

Marvin Cash (02:44): Well, there you go. Does anything stand out more than anything else?

George Daniel (02:49): No, I think a lot of it's a balance. One of the things within the industry you try to do is you try to create some, with any aspect of your life, you try to create some balance with some things. I like guiding. I love speaking. I love writing. But if I had to do those 365 days a year, each day, every day, I think I'd go crazy, especially if I had to guide 200 days consecutively on the water.

So, no, for me, I really try to balance it out. It makes me enjoy it. It allows me to take a break from one thing, focus on another thing for a little bit, and kind of keeps me refreshed and also keeps the gears moving, thinking about new ideas moving forward.

Marvin Cash (03:29): Yeah, that's great. And you mentioned at the top of the show that you just started teaching at Penn State. For our listeners that don't know, can you tell us a little bit about the history of that position?

George Daniel (03:39): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Penn State, we have a decent football team. In years past, during the Paterno years, we were known as linebacker university. But what a lot of people don't realize is that we're also known as fly fishing U. We were the first credited fly fishing course in the United States.

Basically, a gentleman, my mentor's mentor, Joe Humphreys' mentor, who was George Harvey, started the angling class at Penn State University back in the 30s. And then it became the first credit course sometime I think in the 40s, maybe 44, 45. But since that time, it's been part of the kinesiology department and has been probably one of the most popular programs.

So if you are taking a gym credit, you need a gym credit, you can actually angle for a credit. It's been a great program and a great class. And they've expanded that out to have several classes within that program. But it's been, for me, the angling program was everything. As soon as I heard about, you could actually teach and get credits at Penn State, and learned about George Harvey, Joe Humphreys. I mean, those guys growing up, I mean, they were, and Joe is still my hero. I mean, just people who I absolutely idolized.

And to be able to take over the position, basically the nostalgia of it, to be able to go into that program and teach the same classes and courses that Harvey did in the 30s and Joe did later in the 70s and 80s and so forth, for me, it's just an incredible honor to be able to kind of keep that torch burning. It's just, so for me, it's been, it's really kind of a dream job, something I've been dreaming about since I was 14 years old.

Marvin Cash (05:31): Yeah, and that's really awesome when the stars line up like that. What's been the biggest surprise in your, I guess you've got, what, about three months under your belt? What's been the biggest surprise as you've joined the faculty at Penn State?

George Daniel (05:43): So for me, it's just the thing that for me is most of my students and people who I normally work with, they have some fishing background experience. They fly fish a little bit and they're kind of looking to up their game. What I loved about this class is 23 of the 24 kids that are in the class have zero fishing experience. I mean, not fly fishing, but zero fishing experience. So it's starting from ground zero and working your way up.

And that has forced me to completely rethink the way I teach. Because one of the things I like about the advanced folks, there's pros and cons, but with the more intermediate to advanced folks, they have usually a good solid foundation framework. So you can experiment. You can talk about different grips. You can talk about different casting planes and all that weird kind of technical stuff. But you can go in these different directions, and if one doesn't work, it's perfectly fine because they can go back to the foundation, and they can keep experimenting and eventually develop their own style.

But with these kids, there is no groundwork. I mean, there is no framework. So I have had to be really super cautious in keeping things very simple and clear cut and trying to provide them just basically being a little more strict with saying, okay, this is how we do it, this is how we do it, and just keeping things a lot simpler in the process. And eventually getting these kids to the point where they have confidence that they can, if they want to, they can explore different avenues within fly fishing and eventually develop their own style.

But for the beginning part of it, it's just keeping it incredibly simple. And for me, that has always been a challenge. But something I think I've done really well at, and I've spent hours and hours just thinking about my lesson plans going into each, every class. And so far, the kids at least know what end of the rod to hold.

Marvin Cash (07:43): Well, there you go. And I think the amazing thing is there are all these life lessons that we can take away from fishing. And to me, coaching and mentoring are important kind of, regardless of whether you live as a competitor or whether you even fish. And I was really curious, George, when did becoming an educator become such an important part of your angling life?

George Daniel (08:07): Yeah, I would say a lot of, I started really appreciating education and teaching. It wasn't even really fly fishing. It was in my later teens when I was in basketball, high school basketball. 14, 15, 16, 17, but I had very, I mean, I have some athletic ability, I can bounce the ball a little bit, but I really did not have any good understanding about how the game was played. And still, even when I graduated, I had very little, but there were, I had a great coach early in my freshman year. And I mean, in the progress I made that year was phenomenal.

And then I didn't get any real good teaching until my senior year. And it wasn't from my head coach. It was from a guy who took us to summer leagues that year and worked with us. But just having that taught me the importance of just good instruction and understanding that not everyone's going to be the same. We had a lot of kids who were naturally gifted and had just a natural inclination of how to play the game. I had zero. I needed to have like a micro focus. I needed to be explained about how to read the defense, how to do, how to move, but basically how to be taught, how to think about my approach to basketball.

And when I thought about that, I thought about my fly fishing, my fly fishing had basically been just stagnant. I mean, nothing for years. I mean, I caught some fish, but I never really felt like I got any better. And after my basketball years, I really understood that I needed to find good instructors. And my father taught me and I had some local guys that helped me out. But they were not overly patient and they were not skilled. They were skilled anglers, but very poor in communicating those concepts.

And that's when I was in my teens. That's when I actually started developing part-time, getting part-time jobs, mowing the yard and just doing anything, shoveling snow and starting to hire educators because I wanted to up my game. And once I got one or two lessons, I mean, it was just amazing. Like when you go and you get a lesson, it doesn't matter if it's fly fishing or if you're playing a musical instrument, there are some times that you just have a couple of those aha moments when things just click and where you go from, you go from point A to point C in a short period of time.

And just that quick response and being able to make those leaps and bounds in your performance were just, I mean, to me it was exhilarating. And then once I got that, that just stoked me. So it got me so excited about the idea that maybe I can maybe do this for a living, especially after spending time. Because I hired Joe a couple of times and eventually he kind of took me under his wing as a protégé.

But just watching guys like Joe and seeing the impact that they had on people's lives, not just in their fishing. But when you teach someone to become a better angler, they enjoy themselves time on the water. And as a result, they're more productive in all aspects of their life. And as soon as I got some good instruction from guys like Joe and so forth, I mean, that just kind of set the course. Like I just I knew like at age 16, like that's it. This is all I want to do in my life. And I basically have set my entire life to kind of work towards becoming an educator in this industry.

Marvin Cash (11:27): That's really neat. And to kind of follow up on that, did you find as you started down that journey that you were a born teacher? Or did you have to learn to teach?

George Daniel (11:36): Oh, no. I was awful. I was horrible. And I'm working on it. I really am, Marvin. But no, nothing for me comes easy whatsoever. I mean, like public speaking, I mean, I was terrified. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania. Like, I lived a very sheltered life. I mean, I was incredibly shy and still very, I guess I'm more of an introvert these days, even though I love the presence of people, but I'm very shy introducing myself to groups.

So, I mean, in college, my freshman year, one of our first classes I took was actually public speaking. And I remember like for three weeks, I mean, I was like dry heaving. I was getting sick at, just thinking about the idea of actually having to speak to my group of 20 students in my class. But I but again, it was just, there was the light, which, just my goal was to teach it. And I knew that's what I wanted to do.

So any person basically during my college years, anything within a four to five hour drive, if anyone was willing, and I did it for free all that time just to get the experience. And Joe helped me out. He found some groups who were interested. But up to five hours, I would drive five hours in one direction just to speak to a group for free. And I was so stoked, but I was scared at the same point.

But it was just repetition, just doing it over and over again, becoming confident. And then eventually, understanding how to structure your lesson plans, how to structure programs and so forth. But now it takes a lot of work. And even to this day right now, like with my lesson plans, I mean, with Penn State, it's a new type of teaching. But, I'm probably spending anywhere from five to ten hours a week just thinking about how I'm going to teach it in that three-hour period. So it's not easy for me, but it's something that I enjoy. And when it's something that you enjoy, those 10 hours is really not work, so to speak. It's just preparation, and I enjoy the process.

Marvin Cash (13:39): That's really neat. And I know you're a lifelong learner, and I know that you fish really deliberately. And I was really curious how that day-to-day fishing experience, because you also fish a lot, informs your teaching.

George Daniel (13:53): No, it does. So it's interesting because anymore, I fish more to, like, prepare for teaching stuff. I mean, like, I fish for fun. Don't get me wrong. Like, I mean, like today I was fishing with a good buddy of mine, like musky fishing. Musky fishing is kind of my, it's something that I, no one knows me for. I'm not very good at it, but that's kind of what I love to do.

But when I'm writing an article, I'm just wrapping up one for Fly Fisherman. I'm working on another one for Fly Fusion. And then, with my lesson plans going on each week, it's like if I'm working on an article for nymphing on like skinny water, I mean, I will spend most of that week just finding skinny water and just experimenting and tinkering with those ideas. And even if it's just beginning fly casting, working with my kids, I will go in the yard and I will spend three, four hours in the yard just playing around and just trying to think about concepts and clear ways to communicate.

So basically now, I enjoy it, but whatever type of programs or events I have coming up in the future, I kind of organize my fishing so I can kind of just get prepared for what I'm going to be talking about. And also, I think the most important thing about teaching is reevaluating your past comments or your former beliefs. A lot of things I've done in the past, I still do, but I have tweaked where I found a better way of doing it.

So one of the things I do maybe a little too much of is I just love to tweak. What you hear me talk about in a program one year might be a little bit different from the next year, but in hopes, it's called progress. And hopefully, sometimes you need to make those changes to kind of take a couple steps forward. So, as I said, it's just basically I fish based on what I'll be doing teaching-wise in the coming days or weeks or even years.

Marvin Cash (15:40): There's so much stuff that you've accomplished already, in the industry. You've been successful as a competitive angler, your life at TCO Fly Shop, and you've started your own business living on the fly. Now you're teaching at Penn State. And, you mentioned earlier in the interview, Joe was your mentor, and I know he had a huge impact on your early development. What did he teach you about fly fishing?

George Daniel (16:03): I mean, a couple things. I mean, the one thing he really taught me was, I mean, focusing on the fundamentals. I mean, the one thing like we live, I guess you could say like our culture today, we think we can time hack everything. Like, we can basically just, get this step down and quickly jump to this next step. And, one of Joe's comments or one of his quotes that he always uses was from a guy named Bill Cole, who was a national champion for Penn State. And this was way back in the day. But eventually, he was a coach at Penn State and Joe was his assistant at Penn State.

But Bill Cole would always say that, your most advanced movements done to perfection are your most advanced movements. So it's just it's it's refining the major details or those final details. And one of the things that Joe would do is when I, the few times I spent with him casting and fishing, he had me working on that. He likes that short little casting stroke. But he, make a cast 15, 20 feet. You're thinking, okay, I'm an all-star now. Now I'm going to start ripping out more flyline. But he's like, no, you did not. You're casting 15 feet, but you're working too hard. You're turning your shoulders. We can improve that.

And he would just, like, make sure. I mean, he would just break you down until you perfected the 15-foot cast. Then we do the 20-foot cast. And then maybe we can get into a double haul. But this is done over, like, weeks, not just trying to get this all done in one day, but it was a progression. Just focus on those core things. And it wouldn't be long lessons. I wasn't in the grass or in the stream with him for hours. It was just short, very focused amounts of time. And then you take your break and then we come back next week and repeat. And if I hit that repeat mark and I'm getting better, then we can proceed. But if not, we keep working on that until I'm good enough to move to the next step.

So he told me to be patient and get things down concrete before moving to more complex movements. And the other thing about Joe is, I mean, I love Joe. The thing I love about Joe is a lot of people, I guess you could say in the industry, in some places, you can write, you can talk about things, but when it comes to actually doing things on the stream in front of live audiences and groups, you can see like demonstrations, like even myself, like when I'm doing like a casting demonstration, I want to stay in a wide open area. I want to make a cast. I don't want to look like a buffoon.

But the thing I cherish about Joe is when I watch Joe do programs or demonstrations, he won't look for that easy access point to do the demonstration. He will find the most difficult place in the entire section. He's going to take his group there, and he's going to demonstrate and have a catch and cast in those situations. So he is not afraid to go into the most challenging situations, even when other eyes are on him.

So he taught me to, he basically taught me you need to have confidence when you go into that. And early on, when I wanted to go to those wide open spots, I just realized I wasn't good enough to do it. I really wasn't. I could do it on my own maybe once in a while, but eventually he just forced me to kind of get more, challenge myself more and more on the water. And then when I developed a confidence, then I would be ready to demonstrate in more harsher conditions. So those are two of the things that I have taken from, I mean, those are just two of the many wonderful things, but definitely the two that stick in my mind the most.

Marvin Cash (19:42): Yeah, absolutely, because, I mean, that's such an incredibly open-ended question because, you spent so much time with him. And so, that's your experience as a student. How did, as you had time to reflect, what did you learn about mentoring from Joe?

George Daniel (19:58): The thing I learned about mentoring from Joe was this, is that, you don't have to spend, hours and hours and days and days together. A lot of times, as I spoke about Joe in the past, we spent a lot of time. He took a lot of time out of his busy schedule because, I mean, I'm pretty busy now with, my gigs and so forth. And when I got to know him, he was still in his mid-60s, and he was kind of still at that peak where, he's still, in peak physical conditions. But when he talks about engagements, peak engagements, I mean, that was when he was, like, on the run, nonstop. Not that he isn't now, but he was in full gear.

But even at his peak, when he was the busiest in his life, he still took a lot of time out to help me out. But what he did mostly was just give me encouragement. I mean, encouragement is a powerful tool. Whenever someone that you look up to in life, and when they give you words of encouragement saying, you can do this, I mean, he was definitely harsh on me. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't all, unicorns and rainbows. I mean, Joe was an old wrestler and a boxer for Penn State, so he could be downright, he could be strict with you from time to time, to say the least.

But he gave me encouragement. And just those words like, okay, George, this sucked. This really did. I mean, he would watch some of my programs and demonstrations. That kind of sucked. That wasn't very good. But here's what we can do to improve. But he kind of kept, and that was his way of saying it, I care. I want to help you out. And just having those words of encouragement really, really set the path and really forced me to dig deeper and harder, even when things weren't always looking great, from a career standpoint.

And the other thing I learned about Joe is, Joe is, one of the things that impressed me the most about Joe is just recently with his movie that came out about his life, Live the Stream. The movie has been, they would do like these showings at like State College Theater and so forth. And the first couple were sold out. And all of a sudden they're like, well, we're going to bring the show back to State College. And I'm thinking, well, geez, does that make sense? Because, I mean, are not many people going to come back? And sure enough, like they had sold out shows four or five times.

And when you hang out at the shows and you see the people that were there, all the people that were there, most of the people, Joe had had some influence with it. Whether it was old wrestling students that wrestled for him or, athletes or people that he knew at Penn State. But Joe was always, would always help people out. When he thought that there was a need, he would help them out. And he had such an effect on so many people. And I had no idea how, like, all these stories about what Joe would do. I mean, there were wrestlers of his that were almost, basically were going to, like, leave home, like, just leave school, drop out of school, and just move away from home. He had the kids live with him. I mean, and this is when he had his teenage daughters, and he was busy. But he had these kids, and he took them under his wing for a couple months until they got situated.

But those are just like one of many stories. And it was just amazing to see during these movies and talking to these people how many lives that this guy has affected. And it's just like one of my favorite quotes that John Wooden would use from Mother Teresa. And I'm paraphrasing. I'm going to hack it. But basically, a life that's not lived to serve others is basically kind of a useless life. And what Joe was just showing me, all the people that he has touched and how that has affected their lives and how they've been able to live successful and happy lives, that's the end game.

Fly fishing is just part of it. But if I can help someone get better at fly fishing that hopefully will promote themselves in business and get better at life and so forth, that's great. And I know that's a very long-winded answer, but basically it's just helping other people to get better in their own lives, basically like a life coach. And within a couple years just working with the students I've been working with and just seeing and having kids come back to me and even just even customers come back and say that last night we did a couple years ago that has really helped out and now I'm living in Colorado or Montana I've got this job but I still go back to fly fishing fly fishing is my salvage so that for me that's that's I mean that's That's more than money. That's better than money. That's gold.

Marvin Cash (24:40): Yeah, it's amazing, right? Because it's an incredibly simple concept. It's phenomenally powerful and very hard to do, right? It's just kind of amazing. Yeah, it is. You've known Joe for a long time. How has your mentoring relationship changed over the years from when? I think you were a young high school kid when you first met Joe, right?

George Daniel (25:03): Yeah, so, I mean, it was basically, I mean, it was, and I'm still the student. I mean, there's no doubt about it. He will, like we have discussions, like we do at the fly fishing shows, and, I like the finger on top, Casts he uses the thumb on top, and we have discussions. But, it was truly like a true, like, teacher, or, like a Padawan to a master. And we still have that relationship, but it's definitely fostered more into a friendship, almost like a family relationship where, he still gives me advice. But now when I go in there, I'm not always, looking to, seek knowledge from fly fishing from him, which is always nice, but it's just we become friends and just kind of, and especially now Joe's being 90 years old, he's become a lot more reflective and just more willing to kind of give me life advice, whether it's in fishing or whatnot. So he's become from basically a fly fishing instructor to kind of almost like a father figure currently in my life.

Marvin Cash (26:03): Yeah, that's really great. And are there any other folks that have had that type of an impact on your development as an angler or in coaching in addition to Joe?

George Daniel (26:14): Yeah, I mean, definitely Joe is kind of, I could say the bulk of what I have come, but when it comes to like fishing techniques, I mean, yeah, I've had, there were some like local guys, guys like, boy, Dan Shields on the local fly shop, even guys like Dave Rothrock, kind of another local guy. And then I got into competitive fly cast early in my early 20s. So I became involved with the Federation of Fly Fishers. I think now they're IFF.

But, two of the guys in that group, they were like master cast instructors. But those guys, a guy named Floyd Frankie, who was an educator, but just taught at the John Wolf School of Fly Fishing, was probably one of the clearest, most concise communicators in fly cast that I've ever come across. He was very stuck in his ways on some things, but man, he was just, when he stood up and he talked, he just demanded attention. And I just loved the way he communicated and talked principles of fly casting. So Floyd Frankie and another gentleman who was very similar to his ability to communicate was a guy named Phil Gay, who was actually in charge, who was in the Navy. And from what I was told, he was actually in charge of an aircraft carrier during the first Persian Gulf.

So if you're an admiral or in charge of a vessel, you are clearly a good communicator and leader. And he took those skills he did in the Navy, and he transferred that over into becoming a cast instructor. And between those two guys, Phil and Floyd, those guys, when it comes to not just becoming good casters, but teaching how to cast. Those two guys taught me the most on how to communicate teaching casting.

And other than that, I mean, it's everywhere I come in contact. Like my last book I wrote, I mean, I basically, instead of doing an introduction, like a thank you, because I said if I was to write an introduction, like a thank you section, it would entail an entire chapter. I mean, everyone I've come in contact with, and one of the best quotes or comments I've ever gotten was people saying, You look like a mutt when you cast, when you fish, because it looks like you got a little bit of Humphreys, you got a little bit of Kreh there. You've got, just a bunch of peoples. And I just take in everywhere I've gone, whether it's in shows or reading and so forth. I mean, I just take bits from everyone and I just keep putting it into a system. And it's like a Heinz 57 variety, but it works incredibly well for me.

So, yeah, people like that. And then even just my clients, I've learned so much. having them make mistakes, learning from the mistakes, but also, I mean, a lot of them have good experiences and they have shown me. I mean, I was shown how to tie a better blood knot just a few days ago. And then someone showed me how to tie a dropper on my nymphing rig a lot easier than what I was doing. So yeah, and these were all clients. So everyone who I've come in contact with from a fishing standpoint has been great. And I've learned much from everyone.

Marvin Cash (29:26): yeah that's really great and obviously once you over your your early part of your fishing career you converted that into competitive success but kind of once you hung up your your competitive angling cleats you went on to coach the u.s youth team and fly fishing team usa and i was really curious what the transition was like from perfecting your personal performance to

George Daniel (29:50): helping other anglers do the same for themselves yeah that's that's a great question that's a tough question because basically when you're competing, it's a team aspect, but you're also focusing on me, me, me, how can I get better? So you're going from helping myself to then actually trying to help other people. So that was the biggest thing. I mean, we all have egos and we all are selfish in our own means. So, when I was competing, like, I was always trying to get people to help me out and be, and now I was trying to get other team or get our guys to work together, but actually to help others. So I would say that was probably the biggest challenge.

Because, I mean, I transitioned from, I mean, and these guys are a lot of guys like Lance and Devin. I mean, they were competing the same time I was. And so the other big obstacle there, or the biggest challenge I would say with the coaching was a lot of times, I mean, one day or one week I'm a former competitor, I'm a teammate, and then I go from teammate to coaching and trying to control are basically not saying being their boss, but basically kind of running the show as a leader. So that right there was, was very challenging for me to try to overcome it. I don't think I was very successful in that because I wanted to be a coach. I mean, I wanted to be a friend and a teammate and I coached for two years, but I don't think I ever went truly from being a good teammate to becoming a great coach because I was just, it's different.

When you're a leader, you do things for the better of the team and you're not always trying to make friends. Whereas a teammate and as a friend, you're trying to, impress people and you're trying to, remain friends with them. And when you, when you cloud the two together, it's not always a good formula. And for me, that was definitely the biggest challenge, jumping from teammate

Marvin Cash (31:42): to coach with the adults. Yeah, no, I can completely get that. I mean, it's like one day you're playing baseball for the Dodgers and the next thing, next day you're Tommy Lasorda and

George Daniel (31:50): you have to make it work, right? Yeah, correct. And, the thing, I guess you could say the best thing I was so proud of, in coaching the youth and the adult team is, there were, I guess you can say people in the past that, it was like, as someone explained to me, it was like a, the lower the range, it was like a ring of power. I mean, It was really cool to have that control as the youth and the coach of the adult team, which I was almost doing simultaneously for a couple of years.

But the thing I'm most proud of is that I realized I did not have the time because I was trying to compete. I was coaching. I was working at TCO. I was guiding. I was doing speaking engagements. I was writing my first book. My first child was born. I was trying to do everything. And then I basically was getting nothing done. But the thing I was most proud of is that I realized I was not doing the team any good. And then I eventually handed it over to a guy named Brett Bishop, who put, I think, two or three hard years into structuring that team. And eventually they became the first team to medal.

But for me, I was sorry not to be with that team because I spent so many years with those guys. But I was so happy for them. And I was glad because I don't think the team would have medaled if I was remaining the coach because I just did not have the time and the energy to put forth to get the guys in our team ready for the world's competition. So in all honesty, that was my biggest accomplishment. And my proudest moment was actually being able to understand that and hand it off to someone who was more capable of the job.

Marvin Cash (33:32): Yeah, it's interesting you say that because it makes me think of the Steve Jobs quote about him being proud about all the things that he said no to so that he could focus on the few things that he did do. And it sounds like that was the crossroads that you were at when you were going through that.

George Daniel (33:46): Yeah, absolutely. Again, I love quotes. I guess in my older age, I'm 40, going out 41 here pretty soon. But I begin looking at now phrases and poems and so forth. But one of my favorite quotes is from John Wooden, who coached UCLA basketball. But he always said, don't mistake activity for achievement. So a lot of times I was busy for those couple of years, but I wasn't getting the damn thing done. So it was like you're saying, you just got to pick your lanes, find one or two things that you really want to focus on. And that's what Steve Jobs did. I mean, focus. He had such a micro focus. Instead of trying to do a bunch of products, he would focus on the MacBook or the iPod. But he just had laser focus. And because he had that focus, he was able to achieve more. And I definitely found it. Once I started saying, no, you're exactly right, to all these other things, and just focusing on the family and maybe writing for that, I think I became a little more productive on those lines.

Marvin Cash (34:45): One question I want to ask you before we move away from the team coaching stuff is, what were the differences between coaching the youth team and coaching the adult team?

George Daniel (34:55): So, yeah, I mean, there's definitely trade-offs. With the kids and the youth, I mean, up front, I actually enjoy the kids more. it just, but the kids are a lot more fun to work with, but then you're dealing with the little league parents. That's, that's, little league, little league syndrome goes in all that series, not just fly fishing. But with the kids, one of the things, and I was thinking about this, the thing that I really enjoyed about the kids with a difference is maybe my short attention span, but, when you're working with kids, they have a foundation, but they are, they have not really perfected their craft.

So like when you would work with a kid on like a couple weekend clinics or whatever, because those kids, their knowledge base was less and their, their capabilities were also a little bit less. You could see like these massive leaks of improvement within like a three, four day period, which was like, it's monumental. Like what they were doing a couple of days ago. And then you just focus on a couple of key concepts or principles during the practice. And then maybe they went from cast from 15 feet to 35 feet, or maybe now they're being able to tuck cast and so forth. But there was like these huge differences.

And then you go to like working with the adult guys who, I mean, who are just phenomenal anglers. But like, getting to that 95, that 96 percentile, getting that 80 percent capability, you can do that pretty fast. But going from that 80% from being a great angler to a phenomenal angler, the time it takes to get from that, it takes so long. And the sequences just are so much shorter. It just takes so much longer to see those small improvements. So that was it. It was just seeing how quickly things, how much improvement a kid can make versus how long it would take someone who had great skill sets. But it would just take them so much longer to actually notice those subtle differences in those lines of improvement, if that makes sense.

Marvin Cash (36:58): No, that makes a lot of sense. And so, you kind of start to transition out of coaching, focus a little bit more on the family and writing. And, for folks that know your career, you spent quite a few years managing the TCO Fly Shop and State College and guiding. But I know, what was it, three or four years ago, you launched Living on the Fly. And, that business has a very education-oriented focus. I think even on your website, you call it guiding instruction, and you do a lot of workshops and clinics. And I was really curious to understand the genesis of living on the fly.

George Daniel (37:33): Yeah, it was just my approach to basically just transitioning from, the fly shop. And I enjoyed my time there, but just focusing on what I enjoy doing, and that's just guiding and educating. Guiding education, it's all semantics and it's how you look at it. But when I work with people, I'm interested in working with people who are driven to become better. So everything I do with my business, whether it's writing, now we're going to be doing a few videos coming out here with a guy named Jay Nichols, my seminars, anything. It's just basically teaching skills.

And basically my goal when I work with people is hopefully when you're done with me or a couple of lessons, hopefully I won't have to see you for a long period of time. Because you've got some skill sets and now you can go off and kind of explore and learn on your own and actually get a little bit better or take lessons from other people. But the whole idea with what I'm doing is just teaching people to understand skill sets they need to get on the water. And as a result, teach them how to think, not just tell them what to do, but teach them how to think, how to make adjustments with the casting, looking at water conditions and so forth. But becoming a thinker, teaching thinking skills and developing situational awareness, that's kind of like my impetus. That's what I really try to focus on when I teach. So that's kind of my goal with my business is just getting people to appreciate and become better thinkers in their sport.

Marvin Cash (39:13): And do you find that that gets reflected back to you so that you attract a specific type of client or find specific people coming to your seminars?

George Daniel (39:23): Yeah, definitely. I mean, you definitely get some broad range folks, but usually the people that come to me, at least, and I will, I only do, I do less than 100 days a year. I mean, this year I'm going to be doing a lot less now that my engagement or my response goes with Penn State. It looks like they're going to be getting bigger and bigger here in the next couple of years. But, if you want to catch big fish or if you just don't want someone to kind of show you around, on the area, there's a lot of people that can do that and probably people that can do a lot better than I can. And also for me, that would be just insanely boring. I just, I could not just kind of tell you, okay, cast here, cast here, basically go on a boat ride or that's not what I enjoy doing.

What I enjoy doing are finding people that want to be, want to learn, want to be taught. So definitely the people who come to me definitely have a more focus. And in many ways, they're a lot more demanding. In all honesty, I think a lot of what I'm doing is sometimes a lot more stressful because when I'm working with people, I mean, I am on. When we do eight-hour days, I am on eight hours. I'm not taking a break and looking around. I mean, people, they want critiqued. They want, to be explained what's going on. And when you are doing lessons for like four to eight hours, I mean, you have got to be focused that entire time and constantly thinking in your brain, okay, he's not doing this and just kind of troubleshooting things. But for me, that is definitely more challenging, doing lessons than it is guiding.

Marvin Cash (40:56): Now, it makes a lot of sense. And, it sounds like you're at peace with your approach, but do you find that it sometimes causes issues for you in the broader angling community?

George Daniel (41:08): Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's definitely, the thing is, like, when I teach at Penn State, I keep it very, very simple. And, I've done a couple, like, beginner nymphing classes. And when I do that, I'm going to keep it very, very simple. But just like when I write, I mean, what I'm talking about is I'm performance driven. I mean, I just love seeking performance. And when I watch people cast, I'm not critical of, if I'm seeing them turn their shoulders, I'm thinking, well, this guy sucks or this lady sucks. What I want is like I can make them so much more effective and more efficient. I can get them to make a cast 10 feet longer but use half the energy. So I look at the micro. I love just fine-tuning things and just keep combing it with a fine comb too. Just keep combing it back until they've almost perfected their craft.

And a lot of people who come in to fly fishing, sometimes to seminars or take my classes, I advertise it. This is more of an intermediate to advanced. We're going to get kind of down to the nitty-gritty. And there's always a few folks. Some of them like it, but some of them are complete beginners. And then, they just get very frustrated. Or people that buy my books. I mean, I called it dynamic nymphing for a reason. It wasn't the beginner's guide to nymphing. This was dynamic nymphing. So I want to, like, really dive into the nitty-gritty about how you think about, how you change your approaches. based on conditions and situations.

So I get a lot of kickback. I mean, a lot of kickback with sometimes nasty emails and so forth where people are just frustrated because they're beginning fly fishers and they pick up my book and they can't understand it. And they shouldn't. And they should be frustrated. But you also have to understand that when you take a class with me, I really try to do my best to explain that, hey, this is what we're going to be doing. And if you don't feel comfortable, then I would highly recommend not taking this class. And just as I've talked about, I've taught countless people out of buying my books and stuff because they say, I'm a beginner in nymph fishing. And they bring my book to sign it. And I will be up front with them most of the time and say, this is not the book to get started. If you read this book, you will be pulling your hair out at the end of this book. You need to kind of start with this, and then eventually, once you're there, then you can get, read this book later on.

But, yeah, you definitely get a lot of blowback. And, it depends on how you look at it. One of the quotes, another quote, like I heard, is, good art creates division. So, like, whether you're, dependent on music or actual art itself, you'll find that some people love a particular style of art, and the other half absolutely hate it. And it seems like with me, with my style to coach, with coaching and then also instruction, I have a lot of people who like the way I do it. And then I have a pile of people that hate the way I teach it. And they're very vocal about it. But I'm perfectly happy with it because I think in some ways I do help the people that are in that inner need to advance group. And I do my best to kind of take them to that next level. And I think when you need to get down to that next, you do sometimes need to get down to the nitty-gritty. So I'm perfectly, perfectly, content with that. I can go to sleep pretty good without any substitutes. So, yeah.

Marvin Cash (44:38): Well, but the other thing, too, is people have to remember is just because that's your approach, it doesn't mean that you aren't approachable. Right? Yeah.

George Daniel (44:46): Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think in the industry, I think I'm one of the more laid back guys in the industry. I really am. I mean, I, I remember the funny thing about the industry is I have a memory like an elephant. I can remember a lot of things. And I remember going to some of the fly fishing shows. And I'm not going to name names, but some of the people who I like, I read their books. And I was excited. I go up and I meet them. And they're just like, go piss off, kid. I don't have time for you. But, every time someone has questions for me, I really, I remember that. Because I really remember how heartbroken I was when people who I admire just kind of kicked me to the curb.

So I really, anyone that has questions, I mean, I get questions, emails, texts, Instagram, questions. I really, I think there's maybe only been one or two times where I've actually had even, I don't respond. And that's just because maybe I forgot. But I try to respond back to everything, even the super negative comments. I will just, thank people for the, suggestions or whatnot. But I appreciate people. I mean, it's how I make a living. So any time that someone is willing to spend, 15, 20 bucks to buy a book of mine or attend one of my lectures or even come up to me at one of the shows and say hello, I mean, time is a priceless commodity. And I feel honored that someone would want to come up and spend, 5, 10 minutes and talk to me. So I cherish that. And I am thankful for all that. And I try to do my best to pay those people back with my time and attention during that moment that we have together.

Marvin Cash (46:30): Absolutely. And, as we take a deeper dive into your instructional style, one question I wanted to ask you is, do you have a George Daniel system or approach and you try to teach people that system? or do you sort of have a box of Legos of different ways of teaching people and you kind of sort through the Lego box for each angler?

George Daniel (46:53): Yeah, so definitely. That's more of a Lego box for the most part because, I don't – I think one of the things I really stay away from is when I hear people say, this is the way, this is how you do it, this is the only way you do it. I think that's horrible instruction. Even though they may be giving you good information, Basically, they're telling you that once you can do this, basically, you need to stop learning. You've learned everything. So what I try to do is I try to, a lot of times people will come. They want to learn the way maybe I nymph or whatever it is. I will teach them a couple of little casting approaches the way I like to cast and just kind of my general simple approach.

But what I do then is, I mean, I basically, and this is why I only do so many days a year because it's just, it's mentally taxing on me. But I mean, it's almost like an interview. I mean, throughout the day and even before our trip, I mean, I find out where they fish. And a lot of times I know those waters that they fish. So I'm always thinking about, not just teaching them, but because when you come up, it's like when you come up and you fish with me on Spring Creek or the Fishing Creek. It's going to be a little bit different than the waters you fish on the Davidson. But I remember when you said, I fish on the Davidson, these rivers. So like when you and I did our lesson together, lessons, I would always kind of like talk about like, okay, this is how I do it here. But if you're fishing like water sections like on the Davidson River, I think maybe this approach would be a little more applicable to those waters. So I just try to teach people, some foundations and some of the things that I do. But I also really strive for them to kind of think and suit things based on where they fish more frequently, if that makes sense.

Marvin Cash (48:40): No, it does. And I guess kind of the next iteration on that question is, do you find that, you can kind of group the anglers you work with into kind of broad categories and kind of, what your teaching coaching approach looks like for each of those groups?

George Daniel (48:57): Yeah, I mean, there's a couple. I mean, there are people who, I mean, just want to get started and just want to catch some fish. Those are just, they just want to know just enough. And that kind of goes back to what we were talking about before. So just kind of just get the job done. I guess you could say those types of groups. And when I have that, I keep it very simple, clear cut, a couple of tips here and there, but I don't go too far. But then there are others who are just hardcore and they are just, they want to get down to the new ingredient. And that's where you definitely have to kind of open up your approach a little bit more and understand that, they have different catching, physical abilities. Why do they type fish? So I will be a lot more flexible with that group. So, yes.

Marvin Cash (49:47): No, it makes a lot of sense because I know, for example, I know you have a lot of comp guys that come and fish with you, right? Because when I watch your social media feed, it seems like you've got a fair number of guys that are really trying to sharpen the edge on their competitive game, which makes a lot of sense.

George Daniel (50:00): Yeah, and that's a great point. I didn't think about that. When it comes to that, a lot of times you're teaching skills, and those skills are very important. But when you work with competitive anglers, because I do have a – even though I've been out of the comp game now for maybe six or seven years from a coaching standpoint, I still think I have a pretty good handle on what works, the core principles of what works and what doesn't work. But a lot of what I'm doing with coaching or working with comp anglers is two things. One is I'm teaching efficiency, like pure efficiency. So like where sometimes where people might take a couple of false casts to get lined up and develop timing, that's perfectly fine. But when you're competing, you can have great anglers, but the great anglers who have to fly in the water 10% of the time with the same presentation are going to catch more fish. So a lot of that is also just teaching efficiency.

And then the other thing is it's a mindset. Like compared to fly fishing, there are so many phenomenal anglers out in the country, but a lot of them would be horrible, horrible comp anglers because they don't have the mindset you need. Because with comp anglers, you might fish for three hours, but you're fishing a short beat of water, and you have to really micromanage when things go wrong and so forth. So a lot of it is just working, putting these guys through stressful situations for three or four hours, throwing oddball scenarios, but worst-case scenarios at them, and teaching them how to make adjustments and basically get out of their mind and focus on the techniques rather than having obstacles and some of these short foils affecting their performance.

I'll go back to Lance and Devin, but the thing I appreciate about Lance is, Lance Egan is just, when it comes to a mindset, he is one of the toughest minds I've ever come across. There were maybe only a few times in the seven or eight years when I fished with him and then also coached with him on the team where I would maybe see that he was rattled or make a mistake. But he didn't get frustrated. He didn't panic. He didn't move too fast. It was pretty much just like a monotone. It was boring as hell to watch for some people sometimes because he wasn't jumping up and down the tracks like some of these guys. You'd think they were making activity, But again, I'm just taking a clue for a team, but they were jumping up and down the rocks, swimming across the water. It was looking impressive as hell for the spectators. But Lance was down there basically hardly moving, not panicking, just making adjustments based on the waters. And he was touching a lot more fish, but it just wasn't looking as sexy. So just trying to teach that, trying to teach the mentality and the efficiency is kind of the big difference between traditional comp anglers and a lot of the average day recreational areas that I, now have found myself into.

Marvin Cash (53:12): Yeah, that's really interesting. And, what is it that you think the coach brings to that player-coach relationship that really helps drive performance?

George Daniel (53:22): Well, when it comes to, like, the coach and stuff, I mean, with the adults, it was different. I mean, those guys were, they were just as good, if not better English than I was. In many ways, like with Lance, I mean, he was definitely an all-around better angler than I was. I was pretty good on rivers, but I knew my lakes. But for long story short, those guys were great anglers. So a lot of the problems that they had in the past was basically logistics or if there were problems with the bus or just getting to the venues. Basically, I was the buffer. If there were any issues or any problems whatsoever, like typical things that would get in the way of the competitor's mindset, My job was to go in there and basically just calm the situation and just let the guys focus on their task. Because before with our team, there was a lot of drama with a lot of situations. And one of my things, I think the one thing I think I did really well during my short tenure as coach for the two seasons was actually just trying to eliminate the noise and the distractions and just letting the guys do what they wanted to do.

And then the other thing was just preparation. I mean, just getting the guys familiar and comfortable with the waters. Because a lot of times when we were competing, a lot of the insight, a lot of the information that we got was quite awful. We would expect one thing and then, try to do some research and make some contacts and then find out when we get there that it's nothing like what we were expecting. So just trying to actually get some good information a little bit, plan and prepare the guys to understand what they're going to be dealing with. And then once I got there, having that comfort, knowing that, okay, this is what we talked about, this is what we prepared for, and this is what we're dealing with, it just kind of eased them, relaxed them a little bit, and again, just allowed them to do their job.

So teaching skills, not a whole lot. We would do some things like I think one of the things I did, one of the first guys to do on the team was I did do the guys. One of the first couple of practices, we would do like a roundtable discussion. I would like film the guys for 10 minutes, fishing different sections of water in different environments. And then we would just watch collectively as a group and try to be up front without being obnoxious about it, but just saying, okay, well, like, Lauren, we saw you do that. Or like Anthony, we saw you, why are you doing this and not that? It wasn't like we were questioning what they were doing, but we just wanted to understand. Sometimes we were able to help them improve what they were doing because they were doing things that they didn't realize. And then sometimes they were explaining things that we didn't realize, and they were teaching the rest of the group. So it opened up communication. And I think collectively, for years, we were just a bunch of individual guys. And what I tried to do, and I know what Brett has done a remarkable job of now with on the team, is actually getting the guys to actually work together and helping each other improve as anglers, rather than picking on each other as competitors, but now collectively working together. And it's, of all the parts. And as a result, the U.S. team, the adult team, and the youth team has done remarkably well in the recent years. And I think it's just changing the way that those guys fish and the leadership that they've been under.

Marvin Cash (56:45): Yeah, and interesting enough, right, because if we move to the non-competitive anglers, I don't think any of us get to fish as much as we want to. And I know you and I have had this conversation before. if you have a limited number of days to fish, obviously, there's no substitute for putting in time on the water. But what can you do to kind of continually improve as an angler?

George Daniel (57:11): So, yeah, I mean, that's a great question. It's limited time. But, again, another little quote. I mean, one of the other like podcasts I listen to, it's the Tim Ferriss podcast. not a fly fishing pod, I'm not going to put any advertiser, good pet or a fly fishing podcast out there, but Tim Ferriss, he's got a great pod. He just, he, like, he interviews like world-class performers. And, and one of the quotes I heard and one of the things he talked about is people underestimate what they can do. Basically they overestimate what they can do in a day, but underestimate what they can do an entire year. And what, what that means is it's like that stable of the, I'm not sure if it was a goat or whatever, but basically there's a goat up, in a farm, and then basically it's got water on one side and food on the other, and it gets so stressed out. It looks at the food, looks at the water, looks at the food, and it doesn't know which one to choose, and as a result, it dies of both starvation and hunger and dehydration.

And the point of that is that when you're fly fishing, if you want to improve, don't think you can do it all. You can do it all, but it's going to take time. So, like what I do is like, I think sometimes like my writing is more of like a curious scratch. I'm trying to scratch my own curiosity. So when I wanted to work on like my first nymphing book, I basically dedicated like three and a half years of my life to understanding nymph fishing. And every time I went out, I would work on like one or two specific things and kind of build up. And then once I felt like I was comfortable with that, like in a couple of years, I wrote a book on swimmer fishing. I've done some streamer fishing before that, but when I was writing that book for those two and a half, three years, my entire life, basically, probably 80% of it was working with streamers.

What I'm saying is this, is that if you have time to swim in the water, if you're trying to actually improve, try not to jump from one technique to the other unless you feel comfortable. Instead, just focus on one aspect. And fly fishing is not an overly complicated process. It really isn't. But I think the problem I see people doing is that, they want to fish nymphs one, for a couple hours. And, okay, well, we think, I can throw a bobber and mend kind of, okay, so now we want to drive flies. And when they do everything, they don't really achieve anything when it comes to the instructional and learning. So pick a lane, focus on one thing, and just every time you go on the water, if you're trying to improve, have a specific goal. Have a purpose and just focus on that during your time. And you will find yourself, you may not get a lot of things done in that one day, but it's amazing collectively when you develop those good foundations and structure in your fly fishing game. It's amazing how that cumulatively adds up over the course of several years. And I think you get a lot more productive when you pick a lane, work with it, and then jump to the next one later on.

Marvin Cash (01:00:08): No, it makes a lot of sense. And, as we've been talking, one thing I'm kind of curious about, I mean, you've been teaching for quite a few years. How do you feel like your approach to teaching has changed?

George Daniel (01:00:22): Well, you can definitely tell I'm long-winded about this, but in short, when I'm teaching now, I really try to focus on one or two key points. And, there was a lot of blowback. I mean, I don't Google myself anymore these days because there's all kinds of, you don't want to read too much about yourself. But, I remember earlier on, I had some friends that were watching a seminar of mine, and there were a couple of hecklers. There's always a heckler in a queue, but one of the hecklers was saying, this guy's a speed talker. He's going way too fast. At first, I was a little upset and so forth, but when I thought about it, he was exactly right because early on in my life, I wanted to give people the biggest bang for their buck, like when it came to a seminar or a show. So I would try to pack. It was like the Micro Machine guy, the commercial, just like boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. And I would just try to just pile this information and give these people so much information that they felt like, yeah, I got something from this program.

But when you do that, it's just information overload. The bandwidth between our ears is only so much that we can only remember so many things. And so instead of really trying to pound a pile of information in the program, I would say probably within the last three to four years, I have really with every one of my programs, whether it's an empty dry flyer streamer, I try to focus on maybe three to five core ideas and then just try to comb some of those things out. And also add some humor and entertainment and some fun pictures, but really try to reduce the overload, try to focus on a couple of key points and just hope that maybe one or two of those points of the five or six is going to stick with them after they leave.

Marvin Cash (01:02:08): Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I think when I think about teachers that I've, learned the most from, they're very reductive like that, right? Where they don't give you war and peace. They basically give you two or three things that are, the game changers, right? They're the 20% that make you 80% better.

George Daniel (01:02:25): Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

Marvin Cash (01:02:27): Yeah. And before I let you go tonight, anybody that follows you on social media knows that everybody in the Daniel family fishes. And in this day and age, there's so much competition for family attention and technology. And I'm sure there are a lot of people out there would really like to know your secret for raising kids that love the outdoors and love to fish.

George Daniel (01:02:52): Yeah. I mean, this year, this was like the first year, our daughter, she still enjoys the fish, but she doesn't want to fish as much. Maybe we did a little bit too much for a little burnout, but she loves the outdoors. And she's just going through some, she's 10 now and she's got friends that are in other activities. But for the most part, she still likes to fish. But in general, my wife and I, it's work. I mean, it's an investment. The way we look at it, it's an investment. Because the one thing with fishing, one is you've got to make it enjoyable. And that's what my wife does remarkably well. When I was starting to teach my kids really early on, I was kind of more of a taskmaster, like, let's get this, this, and this done. And, we would fish hard. It's like, half hour, 45 minutes. But what my wife kind of taught me was, the kids need to have fun. So very short increments, maybe 5, 10 minutes, catch and fish. But the other thing is don't take them in environments. I mean, I know I'm a pretty well-season angler around here. I know when there are times where it's going to be incredibly challenging versus it's going relatively easy and being someone started into fishing you don't want to take them out into challenging situations and develop frustration so i would selectively just even if it was like the loss of a couple days of guiding i would just pick times in times of the year where i felt the kids had the best opportunity to catch fish and i would just work with them on those days and the other thing about my wife is i mean we would bring squirt guns and we would do You know, instead of just fishing, it was an outdoor experience. So I was kind of more of the fly fishing instructor, and she was more of the fun, bringing snacks. My old man was pretty, like, militaristic on me. I mean, he was just like, no, we're fishing all day and every day. Somehow I still love to do it, but one of the things I found with my kids is that they love being out there with us, but it's also the whole experience. We get to catch fish. We learn a little bit, but having the square guns, having snacks, taking some pictures, is throwing rocks in the water. I mean, it's just, it's that whole package. And I think that was the number one thing I've really gotten better at. And like I said, my daughter loves to fish, but she loves to be outside. I mean, so now she'll catch the fish and she's perfectly happy with it, but she loves bringing a notepad now. And what she wants, she wants to do sketches. She loves sketching like outdoors and she wants to get into photography. But, our kids prefer to be outside, but I think it is just, putting them into an environment where we try to make it as much fun as possible. And then when things, when things, when they get older and when things change, sometimes some of the things that we did, maybe we did too much hiking, but we're always adjusting now, especially as they did in their teenage years. But so far they love to be outside.

And the other point I want to make, and I've talked about it before with other folks, is just if you're going to teach your kids or grandkids to fish, you're going to be teaching them. You're not, I think the worst mistake most people will make is that they want to teach and fish simultaneously. You can't, that's impossible because when you're teaching someone, you need to have a hundred percent focus. And, and I see the problem is because, a lot of my clients, a lot of people I work with, I mean, they have stressful jobs. They're working nonstop and they only have a couple of days or maybe a couple of days a month, maybe in a couple of days, a year to fish. And then, they tell me, well, I'm going out, I'm going to try to take my son out. I was like, that's the worst thing because they want to fish at the same time. So either hiring a guide or if you wanted to, honestly, I mean, for like the first six months of each of my kids, I didn't fish at all. I mean, I just wanted to get them comfortable and develop their skill sets. And then now, I mean, they're 9 and 10, going on 11, but they can fish basically 100% on their own basically all the time. So it was an investment. It definitely, with a time suck early on, I didn't get to do as much fishing early in my life when the kids were around. But that investment now has paid off, and they enjoy the outdoors in their self-sustaining anglers.

Marvin Cash (01:07:11): Yeah, I got to tell you, that's really great advice because I learned that one the hard way and used to take my boys fishing. And, you would kind of like you had fun, but you never were quite fulfilled because you didn't get to fish as much as you wanted to. Exactly. And so, I literally took my youngest son fishing on Veterans Day, and I made that mental note that, I may not wet a line today. And I literally strung my rod up and didn't put a fly in the water the entire day, but we had a great time. So that's really great advice for folks. And one thing, too, George, is, I'm really interested because, I was fascinated when I was fishing with my son on Veterans Day just to see the world through his eyes. And I was curious about how your kids have impacted your approach to angling and teaching.

George Daniel (01:08:00): Well, with angling is just, it's made me like re-love fly fishing. Because it's, no matter how fly fishing, I mean, I still love the fish. I really do. But, I've caught a few fish over the years. I've seen a few fish being caught in front of me from a guiding standpoint. And no matter how cool of an experience it is, if it's something you've seen thousands and thousands of times, it's an amazing process. It's an amazing experience. But sometimes it can get diluted a little bit when you've seen it happen thousands and thousands of times. But for me, what I love about fishing, I'm a trout bomb by nature. What I got so excited about is we would go to some of the farm ponds, and our kids were catching crappie. Or even my little guy, Logan, would go on some of our local waters in the spring when the suckers were spawning. And he was catching 17, 18-inch suckers on sucker spot. And that kid, I've got pictures of him. He is far more excited about that 18-inch sucker than he was about that 12-inch beautiful wild brown trout. And it's just that love affair. And it's basically like all fish lives matter. It just basically taught me that, yeah, trout are great, but it's just catching fish in this day and age with the environmental things that we're having to deal with and so forth. Anyone that can go out and catch a fish is just something to be cherished. So I have really developed a deep appreciation, not for trout, but now also for countless other fish, even like panfish and sunfish, which we have a farm pod now with a new house that we kind of rebuilt and refinished. I would say panfish is probably one of my favorite things to do. It's one of the most therapeutic things you can do, catching bluegills on a popper. It's something I would have never done like five, six years ago. I probably would have just stuck my nose up, but now it's probably one of my favorite things to do, especially with my kids. So definitely appreciating other species is one of the things that they've taught me over the last couple of years.

Marvin Cash (01:10:18): Very neat. And, as we wind down this evening, you've achieved so much already in the sport. I'm curious, what you hope to accomplish over the remainder of your angling career.

George Daniel (01:10:31): You know, I think the one good thing, one of my good qualities is probably my lack of confidence. lack of confidence in my abilities. So I really don't think I've done much so far. I don't think I really know much. Cause the thing I love about traveling, it basically you surround yourself with so many people and it really makes you understand and realize how little, you know. So for me, I mean, I mean, honestly, like I wrote two nymphing books within like a seven, eight year span. I mean, I constantly in journaling and I'm always tinkering. I'm thinking about I could, today, I could write a smaller nymphing book, but I could basically talk about what has happened within the last two years of my nymphing, even from the last nymphing book. So I'm always looking at getting better. So I'm always fine-tuning my approach. But in short, I'm working on another, I'm working on a book. It's a dry fly book. So probably the next year and a half, as of this year, I spent a lot of my time just working on dry flies. going places, fishing with different people, but also just experimenting. I've got some DVDs. I have a DVD coming out with Jay Nichols. I've got a little tiny DVD with some instructions on how to fish nymph-wise. Simple little video. And then probably next year we're going to start filming for some more kind of a higher level nymphing class, both with suspension tools and then also traditional European nymphing slash tight-line tactics. So I got that working for me. The other thing too is, I mean, this musky game, I mean, I don't, I don't ever plan guiding or writing for it, but for me, it's just, it's just learning about a new species and targeting. I mean, like right now, like if you asked me like what a perfect day a fishing would be, it would be out, in the state of Pennsylvania and some of these musky waters are anywhere and just basically targeting and catching a couple of musky on the fly. I mean, that's pretty much what I love to do. So I'm hoping to get a little bit better with the musky game and then also with the warm water game, like the smallmouth fish and so forth. So there's a lot of things on the plate. I have a big bucket list. There's a lot of things I want to, I'd like to do two-hand casting. But again, you pick your lane. So I definitely have a five- and ten-year plan when it comes to things I want to learn and then also things I want to work on. But just trying to keep that structure and then just trying to work on those things systematically. when I feel like I've done well with one, then it'll be time to kind of move over into the next thing. But there's definitely a 10-year plan I have for the next few years.

Marvin Cash (01:13:07): Yeah. And that's even before we get to show season, which will be here before you know it.

George Daniel (01:13:11): Oh, yes, exactly.

Marvin Cash (01:13:13): Where are you going to be in the early part of 2020 so people can catch up with you and get a book signed and meet you?

George Daniel (01:13:22): No, that's great. I need to update my website. I don't really, for a couple of reasons, I always tell people where I'm going to be, but in short, I'm going to do all the fly fishing shows on the East coast. So I'll be at Massachusetts. I'll be in Jersey. I'll be in, I'll be in Atlanta and I'll be in Lancaster as well. And then there are, again, I need to update my, my calendar, but I will be all over the United States, anything from January until, basically December of next year doing clinics, seminars and talks. So, probably in the next couple of weeks, I will actually, on my website. I don't have a calendar and a list of things I'll be doing, but I have a full play already lined up for next year in Omidy, a good number of things on the books for 2021.

Marvin Cash (01:14:07): Very neat. And I'll put a link to your calendar in the show notes. So whenever folks listen to this, they'll be able to just reach out and kind of see the current lay of the land. And before I let you go, why don't you let folks know, one, where there's a best place for them to find your books, and then secondly, where they can find out more about living on the fly and the best way to reach out to you.

George Daniel (01:14:28): Yeah, so books, you go on the Amazon, or if you want to, you can go, excuse me, through the TCO Fly Shop, my local fly shop, the people who I've worked with for years, so either Amazon or TCO Fly Shop. If you want to find books, you can definitely go through TCO Fly Shop. And then my website is just L-I-V-I-N, on the fly, just living on the fly. And that kind of gives you a little bit about what I do and some of the programs and a little bit more about my teaching and coaching philosophy as it relates to fly fishing. And that's about it.

Marvin Cash (01:15:02): Great. And in terms of booking you, are you a phone guy or are you an email guy?

George Daniel (01:15:07): Everything. I do. I mean, I do, yeah, I do my Instagram account, even through YouTube. I've got people email me through or messaging me through YouTube. So any means possible, any of the networks that I use as channels, as delivery devices for information, people will reach out to me, and I will be usually pretty fast to respond.

Marvin Cash (01:15:29): Perfect. Well, George, I really appreciate you spending some time with me this evening. It's been a lot of fun.

George Daniel (01:15:35): No, thank you, Marvin. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Marvin Cash (01:15:38): It'll be great, and I'll see you in Atlanta for sure. Looking forward to it. Tight lines, everybody. Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Again, a shout out to this episode's sponsor, the Virginia Fly Fishing and Wine Festival. It's January 11th and 12th in Doswell, Virginia. Go check out www.vaflyfishingfestival.org. And thanks, folks, for being a listener. If you like this episode, please leave us a review in the podcatcher of your choice. Or even better, check out The Articulate Fly apps. Have a happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Tight lines.