S2, Ep 50: A Chat with Orvis' Tom Rosenbauer

Marvin Cash: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm fortunate to spend a little time with Tom Rosenbauer. While we chat about Orvis and the crazy times we live in, we also take a deep dive into one of Tom's lesser known talents, chocolate making. I think you're going to really enjoy this interview, but before we get to the interview, a couple of housekeeping items. Thank you to everyone who's left us a review.

We really appreciate it if you like the podcast and please leave us a review in the podcaster of your choice. Subscribe and share the podcast with a friend. It really helps us out. And a shout out to this episode's sponsor. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Bonefish and Tarpon Trust. Using a science based approach, BTT and its partners work tirelessly to conserve and restore the flat species so many of us love to chase on the fly, particularly in these trying times.

BTT's work cannot continue without financial support from concerned anglers like you. Please visit btt.org and become a member or donate Today. Memberships start at only $35 a year. Now onto our interview. Well, Tom, welcome to The Articulate Fly.

Tom Rosenbauer: Thank you, Marvin. It's great, great to speak to you. It was a pleasure meeting you down in Virginia this year and we had some fun and you were nice enough to give me a ride back and forth to the show. So appreciate that.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. I tend to be, Bo Beasley's designated driver for, personalities at his show.

Tom Rosenbauer: Well, I couldn't ask for a better driver.

Marvin Cash: Well, I appreciate that. And we have a tradition on The Articulate Fly. I always ask all of our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

Tom Rosenbauer: I think I have to answer that in two parts. I have a picture of the first fish I ever caught. It was a yellow perch caught on a worm in the Adirondacks. I think I was like three years old and I think I have a memory of that, but probably not, as those things go. You see an old picture of yourself and you think you have a memory of it, but that's probably not a real memory.

And I think the earliest memory I have is I took my dad took me on a fishing trip to the Thousand Islands in upstate New York. We lived in Rochester and we stayed in a motel, which was a big deal for my dad because he was being a child of the Depression. He didn't spend, spend money loosely. And there was a pond right in front of the motel. And we sat there and caught bluegills and perch and probably bullhead on worms. And that was, that was an exciting trip.

I didn't usually get to go with on with my dad on trip, so it was pretty cool.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, Very neat. When did you move to the dark side of fly fishing?

Tom Rosenbauer: When I was 10, 11, somewhere around there. I had really gotten the fishing bug. And I had done a lot of lure fishing and bait fishing, obviously. And, I must admit snagging carp with treble hooks and because I couldn't catch them on dough balls. And, then I just saw in field and Stream, or maybe I saw on the American Sportsman or in a herder's catalog. I saw stuff about fly fishing, and it looked like fun. And my dad had since kind of moved down to golf.

He still fished a little bit, but he never fly fished. And, I thought this fly fishing stuff looked kind of cool. So I tried to teach myself how to do it with books in the library, which wasn't very successful for the longest time.

Marvin Cash: Got it. And so, as you, grew in the sport, who are some of the folks that kind of helped you become the Tom Rosenbauer that we all know today?

Tom Rosenbauer: Oh, God, nearly everybody I've met. Probably my, my biggest and most important mentor was a gentleman named Carl Coleman, from Rochester. He had a little Orvis dealership in his garage, basically in his garage or in his side room of his house. And, he really took me under his wing and he, he taught me a lot about fishing nymph. This was before the days of Euro-nymphing and strike indicator. Just fishing nymph upstream on a floating line. He was a master at that stuff.

And he taught me a lot about fly tying. And he actually, he actually had me tie flies commercially for his shop. He liked my Catskill dry fly flies, which I took great pride in. They weren't very good until he gave me lots of pointers. But, I got good enough so that I could tie flies for a shop. And that supported my fishing tackle habit.

Marvin Cash: Got it. And not only are you a fisherman, I know you. There are other ways that you hunt and do other things in the outdoors. What is it about the outdoors that's captured your interest for all of these years, Tom?

Tom Rosenbauer: Oh, God, I couldn't answer. I don't think I could answer that, Marvin. It's just as a kid, I was always out in the woods and poking around in creeks and just trapping and just wandering through the woods. I don't know, it's just something that I have to do and, God, it's all encompassing. It's part of my DNA.

Marvin Cash: No, well said. And, obviously all fly fishermen know that you've written, I think, over 20 books. We see your articles regularly, Yearlane Magazines. Can you share with us the first piece that you ever got published?

Tom Rosenbauer: Does the Orvis News count?

Marvin Cash: Sure, absolutely. And it was probably your first paid piece too, right?

Tom Rosenbauer: Well, yeah, if I didn't do it, I wouldn't get paid. Yeah. The editor of the Orvis News at that time was an old gentleman named Baird hall, who was, was a advertising executive and a writer of romance novels from the 1930s. And, he was a brilliant, brilliant copywriter. And he asked me to write an article for the Orvis News. And I don't even remember what it was about. I should go back and look, in the archives.

But it was some technique piece, obviously, and it was, I'm sure it was horrible and embarrassing. But little did I know he was retiring. And, Perk Perkins, who had taken it on from Baird, was about to move to California, to open the first Orvis non Manchester, Vermont store in San Francisco. And so Perc was kind of had me in mind for being the editor of the Orvis News. So they were kind of testing me to see if I could handle this stuff.

Marvin Cash: Very neat. And I always ask all of my guests that write, how you like to write. Some people, get up early every morning and write for two or three hours. Some people write in spurts in the off season. Some people write when they have a problem they're trying to solve. How do you like to write, Tom?

Tom Rosenbauer: I'm more of a binge writer only because I have a, I have a day job and I have a family. And so when, when I'm writing a book or a magazine article, typically it's. It's on Sundays, Sunday afternoons. And I just, I crank out as much as I can from noon to 5 or 6 o' clock and then I'm done, unless I'm on a real strict deadline. And, I just have to get something done. I might write at night, but, I'm not a good early in the morning writer, more of an afternoon writer.

Which is funny because, your energy level is supposed to be the worst after lunch, but, I don't usually eat lunch when I'm writing. So maybe that helps. But it's, it's just because of, just because of other commitments that I have to block off that time. So it's kind of a binge writing.

Marvin Cash: Got it. Yeah. And that's a pretty good way to spend a Sunday afternoon too.

Tom Rosenbauer: My family doesn't think so, but, gotta do what you gotta do.

Marvin Cash: There you go. And obviously you've been, with Orvis your entire career. Can you share with us kind of your thoughts on some of the biggest changes you've seen at the company and in the industry?

Tom Rosenbauer: God, everything has changed. Everything has changed. The biggest change, the biggest change is what's happened, I think in the past five or 10 years. And that is that it's evolved from being a old, old white man's clubby, thing to a, ah, more broad demo, broadly demographic based, pastime that, lots of different people, can, can enjoy. A lot more women and a lot more young kids. A lot more.

You never saw young kids fly fishing or even interested in fly fishing before, before, 20, 30 years ago. They're just, they could care less about it. That was a stupid thing.

Marvin Cash: It's interesting and I know you guys have done a lot to attract people to the sport. Whether it's your 101 classes. I think you do a really good job of also manufacturing high quality, reasonably priced gear too.

Tom Rosenbauer: Mm. Yeah, yeah, we don't, it's, it's not much of a business model if you're only selling to rich old guys. You got a pretty limited market there.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And the stuff's great. I mean I. On the recommendation of, George Daniel, I bought one of your Clearwater rods to Euro-nymphing. And it's a phenomenal stick and it's less than $200.

Tom Rosenbauer: That's what I use for Euro Nymphing. I use the Clearwater. I love it.

Marvin Cash: So the industry's changed and Orvis has been around a long time. What do you think would shock most people, on the outside about what goes on at Orvis?

Tom Rosenbauer: I think maybe not shock, but would surprise people that the, the people that run the fly fishing part of it, the product developers and the marketers are mostly young. I guess I could say hotshot anglers that are, that are, that are doing all kinds of trout spay and Euro nymphing and they're younger and more enthusiastic and people have the still have the impression of Orvis as being a bunch of old stuffy guys in tweeds.

And, I think that would shock people to see, what the office looks like and what goes on, after work and before work and on lunch hours. Often people rushing out to go, to go fishing. I think that would shock people the most.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's funny you say that because I interviewed Dan d' Avala recently and he was talking about he goes out on his skateboard at lunch because he doesn't eat lunch and grinds, on the curb in the parking lot.

Tom Rosenbauer: That's funny.

Marvin Cash: Well, obviously we're recording this in the middle of April and we've got a new normal and an outgrowth of COVID 19. We've seen everybody in the industry, shifting to digital engagement because it's just literally impossible to physically connect with customers and other community members. Can you share with us a little bit about what Orvis is doing?

I mean, I see your schedule keeps getting fuller and fuller, but so people can listen to this and kind of know all the opportunities that are out there for them to interact with Orvis and their friends there.

Tom Rosenbauer: Well, we have a great social media department. There's, there's four of us that, that work together, five of us actually with our boss Tucker. And I was really impressed within, within a couple days of, of the decision that, the office was going to close and people were going to work at home. They had me, they had me on fly tying three days a week and now I'm doing Facebook lives. I'm doing seven Facebook lives this week.

So we, really just, we really just switched over to it very, very quickly. And we had the, we had the resources. Luckily. I, I'm set up here in my home where I can record podcasts. I have a little podcast recording studio. I have all my fly tying stuff set up and, and four computers, few laptops and a, desktop. And I've got all the lights for, for shooting still photography for my book. So, it wasn't a hard transition back. I don't think I'm going to go back to the office.

Marvin Cash: There you go. Any kind of surprises? I mean, it sounds like the transition was easy, but what surprised you the most with kind of going to this 100% virtual, process?

Tom Rosenbauer: Oh my God, I'm busier than I ever was. I have no time during the day, I used to be able to fiddle around at the office and browse the web or I run out and fish on my lunch hour and I don't have time to do that anymore. It's crazy. But we're the people who, we want to stay in touch with our customers and, and keep them engaged and keep them happy and we're the people that are going to do that.

And the product developers are working very hard on their new products remotely, which has got to be really difficult. It's got to be so tough to work on product development where you can't sit across from somebody and play with samples and things like that. But they're cranking away at it. So it's it's an unfortunate situation like nothing I've ever seen in my lifetime. And I've seen a lot of crazy things. But you have to adapt. You have to adapt quickly.

Marvin Cash: Absolutely. And obviously it's very early on in this but when we're on the other side of this, how do you think interaction among members of the Angling community is going to change?

Tom Rosenbauer: I think we're going to continue to do a lot more of these live things. Honestly, people seem to love it. I think, I think we're going to do a lot more of it. It's fun, it's engaging and it's, it's, it's a way for us to personally interact with our customers.

I mean I've got a bunch of people that watch my live fly time three days a week and they've become come buddies, they tease me and I know who they are and where they live and they share tips with me and it's great, it's really great way to interact with, with your, with your customers.

Marvin Cash: And it's interesting too because I've watched a couple of your lifetime events and I think the information and the generosity that you have and what you share with people is, is really great too because, because it's stuff that, hard to read and kind of absorb. But when you talk about, I think you were tying the Muddler Minnow and you're like, don't get black tied deer hair because it's just the chemical bath kills it and that's just a hard piece of information to get.

But interacting that way, it's really interesting, what you share with everybody.

Tom Rosenbauer: Yeah. And those things are hard. I mean I have to tie, I have to, I sit down and tie two or three dozen of those patterns for two days before I do one of those live events. Because when you're sitting down tying, you think of things that you wouldn't think of if you just sat down to tie it. You do it over and over again. You think, ah, ah, that, that's why that does that. And so, I want to give as much information to people as I can.

So I, I crank out a lot of flies that don't look so good before I get them right. And it's it's been eye opening. Plus my fly box is getting filled up. I'm, I'm typically not very good at tying prior to the season because the season hasn't really started here in Vermont. We, it snowed last night half an inch. So things haven't really, really gotten going. And I typically would not have my fly boxes filled, but I'm getting there.

Marvin Cash: There you go. Absolutely. Because I guess, you got the whole show season thing and then you're out of time. Time the season starts.

Tom Rosenbauer: I'm just a procrastinator. Martin Marvin. It's not, it's not that I'm just, I just procrastinate.

Marvin Cash: Fair enough. So, kind of another COVID 19 question. Obviously the priority is to, take care of yourself, your family and your fellow man. What do you think long term on some of these conservation and access issues, that, that fly anglers care about and Orvis is involved in? Do you think it's going to be harder to get people to kind of maintain focus on those in the long term?

Tom Rosenbauer: I don't, I don't know about focus, but I do, I do think that the economy is going to take a long time to rebound and I think that's going to hurt. It's going to hurt some conservation causes. I don't. People seem to be just as engaged in conservation, as they were before this crisis. And so I think it's going to stay top of mind. But I'm worried that, the money to support these causes may be difficult.

I know that Orvis is going to have to cut back on some of our conservation funding because our business has taken such a nosedive. It's not going to be pretty. So, I think it's going to be tough. I think it's going to be very tough and we need to do everything we can to keep people engaged in this.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it'll be interesting too, to see kind of how people reprioritize, reprioritize things in their life after this and see kind of, hopefully they'll see a, greater value in some of the stuff that we've been talking about.

Tom Rosenbauer: Well, yeah, I should be thinking of the positive side of it. And you just, you just made a very good point that people hopefully will, will put greater emphasis on those parts of our lives that bring us such joy and preserving them, protecting them.

Marvin Cash: I hope so. It's interesting. One of the things I learned by spending time with you in Virginia, I knew about all of your fishing accomplishments, but I didn't know that you made your own gourmet chocolate. How long have you been a chocolatier?

Tom Rosenbauer: I'm not a chocolatier.

Marvin Cash: Okay.

Tom Rosenbauer: A chocolatier is someone who makes bon bons and all that crap.

Marvin Cash: Oh, okay, fair enough.

Tom Rosenbauer: I am a child. I am a chocolate maker. So I make, I make bars and I make nibs and I don't, I don't put many inclusions or. I don't do fancy stuff. I just make, chocolate.

Marvin Cash: Got it.

Tom Rosenbauer: I think I've been doing it about seven or eight years now.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And by the way, I'll share this compliment. You met my youngest son, Jasper, and we actually had the last little bit of one of the chocolate bars you shared with us. And he's like, tom's chocolate kicks ass. So there's.

Tom Rosenbauer: Yeah, well, I think it's, I think it's, people, people have told me how it's the best chocolate I ever made. And I think that, that people just. Most people have not had good chocolate that's, that's made with care from really good beans. The commercial chocolate that you buy is made from, commodity cocoa beans. And it's mostly over roasted. And there are, there are hundreds of small commercial chocolate makers.

Because I'm not a commercial, I don't sell, I've never sold a chocolate bar in my life. I give it away to friends. There are hundreds of people that do this for a living. But I, but they cost eight, ten dollars a bar and most people aren't, are prepared to spend that unless they know, unless they know what they're missing. So, there's a lot of good stuff out there.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. Was that the problem that you were trying to solve as you just couldn't get your hands on enough, good chocolate. Is that what made you want to make, your own?

Tom Rosenbauer: No, actually, I started making it because my son, ah, has a severe peanut allergy. And it's very tough to find chocolate that's not made in a facility that has peanuts because cross contamination is a serious issue. There are a couple makers, Guitard in California, which makes a really good chocolate. And Charfenberger don't have any nuts in their facilities, but most of them do. I thought, well, maybe it'll be fun to make it.

And I hacked away, taking shortcuts, using cocoa powder and, just some. It made some really awful chocolate. And then I found this website, called Chocolate Alchemy. And it's run by a guy named John Nancy. And John is a guy who really started the small batch bean to bar craze because he figured out how to make chocolate without hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of machinery in your kitchen, probably 15 years ago. And he's the one who figured out this process to do it in small batches.

And now he sells the machines to make them. They're pretty simple kitchen machines. And he sells really high quality, cocoa beans, really, really fine, what they call fine flavor beans that are direct, ah, source from farmers, where they take a lot of care in processing the beans and raising the beans. So, it's kind of expensive initially. You have to buy about $500 worth of machines. And I wasn't going to do it. And then my wife said, oh, why don't you do it?

It's wintertime and it'll be something, like, I need another hobby. But I found that it was fascinating. It's, yeah, it's like making your own beer or wine or bread or whatever. Making things yourself from scratch is really satisfying. Of course, everybody loves chocolate. There aren't very many people that don't like chocolate. Aaron Adams of Bonefish Tarpon Trust, fishing buddy of mine, doesn't like chocolate. But there's a few weirdos like Aaron out there. I hope he's listening to this.

Most people, they really appreciate when you give them a chocolate bar that you made yourself. So it's very satisfying. And I love playing with, I love playing with the different beans. Every bean has a different flavor and so it's a lot of fun to get a new bean and find out what it tastes like.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. Are you a foodie in general or are you a chocolate lover? Right.

Tom Rosenbauer: I would say both, my wife and I would consider us foodies. She makes bread, from flour that she grinds herself, from raw organic, ancient grain flours and grinds the flour and she makes her own yogurt. And we eat mostly fresh local vegetables, and meat. So, yeah, I consider us sort of foodies.

Marvin Cash: Very neat. And so you've got about $500 worth of machinery to get started and you get to pick these awesome, awesome chocolate beans. Can you tell us a little bit about kind of the process to prepare your chocolate bars?

Tom Rosenbauer: Oh, sure, yeah. Well, first, the beans come to you from the source. They've already been fermented. It's very important part of the process and dried. So you get these raw, dried beans in a bag and you roast them. So typically today's Thursday. I roast my beans on Thursday night. Then they have to sit overnight to cool. And then on Friday night I cracked the beans and a champion juicer. You just have to. They have a hard outside hull and peeling them by hand would be tedious.

So I run them through this juicer that cracks them all, removes the husk, and the nib, which is the part you make the chocolate from the inside, the cotyledon separates, and then you're left with this big of husk and nibs. And then I, Friday night I also, run them through a, process that separates the. It's called winnowing. It separates the husk, from the nib.

So like a Rube Goldberg thing with PVC tubes and a five gallon bucket that, the husk goes into a, into the bucket and the nibs drop out of a spout. It's pretty crazy. With a shop vac attached to it. Looks like R2D2. And, and then, that same night I will, heat a little cocoa butter, just a little extra cocoa butter. And I'll put the nibs, once they're separated in a thing called a melanger, which is a wet grinder with granite wheels, in a motor. And then they'll run those.

And then I'll put the sugar in. Yeah, that's all I put in my, in my chocolate is organic cocoa beans and organic sugar. And then that'll run for a day and a half to two days, just constant running. I have them set up down in the laundry room. So it doesn't, um. I used to do it in the kitchen. It was really loud and my wife like that so much. So I've been banished to the to the basement for the grinding part.

And they just grind and just keep running and running and running and then it gets really smooth. Those granite wheels eventually crush everything till you can't taste any roughness on your tongue. And then Sunday mornings or Sunday night or sometimes Monday morning, I pour the chocolate out of the melangers and I temper the chocolate which is a kind of a tricky process that is very temperature dependent that you have to form a certain type of crystal in the chocolate.

You pour it in a mold and then you let it sit for an hour or so, put it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes to set those crystals and then I pop them out of the mold and for the rest of the week I sit down at night and wrap them.

Marvin Cash: Well, now I know why you, you have a problem tying flies, right? You're making too much chocolate.

Tom Rosenbauer: The chocolate making has cut into both my writing time and my fly time. Don't. Well, hopefully my publishers aren't listening to this. So it's a process but it's enjoyable and it's working with your hands and it's pretty mindless. So it's ah, a fun thing to do.

Marvin Cash: Very neat. How many bars do you think you make a year?

Tom Rosenbauer: Oh, I don't know. I don't have any idea. But I typically on a weekend, I don't do it every weekend. But during the winter it's almost every weekend. I'll make about, let's see, about 36 to 40 bars on a weekend.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. Sounds like you're probably making five or six hundred bars of chocolate a year then.

Tom Rosenbauer: Probably, yeah, probably. I give a lot of chocolate away.

Marvin Cash: No, you are you were like the Candyman up at the Virginia fly fishing and Wine festival.

Tom Rosenbauer: I don't eat. My wife and son and I split one bar maybe every other night after dinner. Split one bar three ways. So I don't eat a ton of chocolate, but I eat more than most people.

Marvin Cash: Fair enough. So out of that entire process, Tom. What's Tom's secret to making great chocolate bars?

Tom Rosenbauer: Oh, it's like, it's like the secret to tying good flies. Lots of experimentation, lots of mistakes, lots of practice. It's, it's not that hard.

Marvin Cash: Hey, got it. And you've obviously sampled a ton of different bean chocolate, beans. What's your favorite type of chocolate?

Tom Rosenbauer: Oh my. Well all my bars are about 72% cocoa. They're just pretty standard, formula, so that I can tell the difference between the beans, because that's kind of fun. But there's a bean called Zorzal that comes from the Dominican Republic. And I actually know the guy who's part owner of this operation. Dominican Republic. And not only are they the best, the best, they make the best chocolate. I think that I've made three quarters of this coca plantation.

Dominican Republic is set aside for a nature preserve. It's the wintering grounds of the Bicknells Thrush, which is a fairly rare thrush that summers in the mountains of Vermont and at the top of the higher, higher mountains and it winters in Dominican Republic. And they've set, they've set this ah, land aside for wintering grounds for the Bicknells Thrush. So it's a cool story and it's a great bean and really, really neat operation. I've never seen it. I've never been to a cocoa bean operation.

I hope to someday.

Marvin Cash: We'll have to talk to Dan and have him put together an Orvis travel trip where you can go fish and go see a chocolate plantation.

Tom Rosenbauer: Yeah, yeah. But if people are, if people are interested in trying that Zorzal bean, there are a number of chocolate makers who use it. And if you just Google Zorzaal, you'll probably get to their website and then you can find, they have a list of the people who use that bean. But it's, they're really great beans.

Marvin Cash: Well, cool. I'll I'll put the link to those guys in the show notes and then that'll make it a little bit easier for folks.

Tom Rosenbauer: Cool. And put a link to Chocolate Alchemy in there too if people are interested in making their own.

Marvin Cash: Absolutely. And I have one last chocolate question for you is I want you to share, who designed the artwork for your candy bar wrappers.

Tom Rosenbauer: My son when he was, he's 15 now. When he was 8 years old he designed it and I've never changed the label. It's very funky label.

Marvin Cash: It's very cool. Why don't you describe it to folks? I'm going to try to take a picture of one and get it in when I put the episode out. But it's great because it looks like a picture a really fun, loving 8 year old kid would draw.

Tom Rosenbauer: Yeah, it's a picture of a trout, grabbing a chocolate bar. Hanging on a hook. Hanging on a fish hook. And it's called Meadowy Muddler Chocolate. Muddler obviously is the Muddler Fly and Meadowy is the name of the little trout stream that I live on.

Marvin Cash: Very cool. And kind of coming back kind of as we're getting kind of to the clo. To the end of our time together, kind of coming back to fly fishing. St. Obviously we're in the middle of COVID 19, but what do you think is the biggest challenge facing our sport going forward?

Tom Rosenbauer: The resource. The resource. I wouldn't say overcrowding because people say things are crowded, but they're really not. People just want to all go to the same place. And, there aren't that many fly fishers in the world. It's protecting the resource and protecting public lands and particularly the threats to the Clean, Water act, the, protection of tributaries, which is supposed to be, kind of negated. I think that's what keeps me up at night.

Marvin Cash: No, absolutely. It's interesting you say that about crowding, because I've always found that if you're willing to walk about 200 yards, it's amazing how much water you can have to yourself.

Tom Rosenbauer: Yeah, I have no, I have no patience with people who say rivers are too crowded because they just. They don't like to walk or they don't. If you can't put a drift boat in a river, they don't fish it. And there's lots of. Lots of stuff around in this country.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, we need more pullouts, Tom. Right.

Tom Rosenbauer: Yeah. Yeah.

Marvin Cash: Well, you've made a ton of great contributions to our sport. What do you want your fly fishing legacy to be?

Tom Rosenbauer: I guess just having been a great teacher, having. Having helped people learn how to fly fish and have fun with it. I think that would be all I would ask.

Marvin Cash: Very neat. And I know, when we spoke probably, in Virginia and probably saw each other again in Edison, you were working on a lot of cool things that I suspect might have slightly gotten pushed to the back burner now, that you're becoming even more of an Internet star than you were before. You want to share some of, those projects, with our listeners?

Tom Rosenbauer: This is the first time in maybe 30 years that I haven't had a book under contract or a magazine article hanging over my head. But I have an idea. I have an idea for a couple more books, that if I ever get some time, I'm gonna kind of start up again, but they're not ready for prime time yet.

Marvin Cash: Got it. And are you working on any video projects?

Tom Rosenbauer: Well, I'm, I'm, um. Yeah, I'm still. I'm still completing, the Orvis Guide to Fly Fishing Season two, which I'm still working on putting the clips in proper places in the scripts. It's live now. It's on YouTube. The first. Well, by the time this comes out, the first three or four shows will be up there. But there's still, ah, about 10 of them to go. So I'm still working on that. And I hope to. Hope to do more. I hope to do more, video. Video stuff, because I enjoy it.

It's a great way. It's a great way to teach. It's a great way to get the point across. And I enjoy working with a film crew that I've worked with for many years, the new Fly Fisher crew up in Ottawa. So I hope to. I hope to do more of that. Yeah, yeah, to do more, presentations of clubs and things like that as. As, I get older or when I grow up there.

Marvin Cash: You. When you grow up? Yeah. And the guys at the New Fly Fisher are great. And I'll drop, links to, the second season in the show notes too, so it'll be an easy place for people to, find those episodes.

Tom Rosenbauer: Great, thank you.

Marvin Cash: Absolutely. And of course, what's the best way for folks to follow the fishing adventures of Tom Rosenbauer?

Tom Rosenbauer: Well, I have an Instagram account and of course I'm doing all these live events through Orvis, or the, the YouTube channel. The new Fly Fisher YouTube channel. That's probably. Probably the best places.

Marvin Cash: Got it. So Instagram is your social media flavor of choice?

Tom Rosenbauer: Yeah, I don't do Facebook. I do Facebook Live, but I, I don't look at my personal Facebook page. I don't like Facebook personally.

Marvin Cash: No. Fair enough. You're not alone. Yeah.

Tom Rosenbauer: Yeah.

Marvin Cash: Well, listen, Tom, I appreciate you carving some time out for me today. I know you're crazy busy. You've got this meteoric digital media career that you're working on and, I appreciate you carving some time out for me today.

Tom Rosenbauer: Well, thank you, Myron. It's always great to talk to you and. And, um. I hope to see you soon.

Marvin Cash: Absolutely. I owe you a beer.

Tom Rosenbauer: Okay, you're on. And I owe you a chocolate bar.

Marvin Cash: Fair enough. Take care, Tom.

Tom Rosenbauer: Okay, thanks.

Marvin Cash: Well folks, I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you again. If you like the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review in the podcatcher of your choice. And again, a shout out to this episode sponsor our friends at Bonefish and Tarpon trust. Please visit btt.org and become a member or donate today. Stay safe, everybody. Tight line.