S6, Ep 65: The Evolution of an Athlete: Andy Mill's Path to Fishing Greatness

Marvin Cash: Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by Olympic skier angler and podcaster, Andy Mill. Andy generously shares life lessons and wisdom from his skiing, angling and broadcasting journey. I think you're really going to enjoy this one. But before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items. If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating review in the podcaster of your choice. It really helps us out, and we've received several listener questions asking about the best way to support the show. One way is to join our community on Patreon and make a single or recurring donation. Our community has some great benefits, like discounts on tying materials, guide trips, and more. Check out the link in the show notes for more details. And we recently released an interview only showing “the long haul with the articulate fly”. So if you prefer to listen to the articulate fly without the fishing reports, just search the long haul in your favorite podcatcher. Now onto the interview. Well, Andy, welcome to the articulate fly.

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

Marvin Cash: Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. And, you know, one of the things we like to do, we have a tradition on the articulate fly. We like to ask all of our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

Andy Mill: Oh, I just remember a photograph. I don't really remember actually catching the fish. I was probably five or six years old. The photograph was of me with a fish I was gutting. I remember with my father in Laramie, Wyoming, he was giving me a piggyback ride. We were fishing, it was getting late, and you could see the cast flies. I remember that. The actual fishing part, I don't really remember much about that aspect of it. I just remembered I always loved, you know, doing all the different things I did as a kid. Nothing really stood out. But in saltwater fly fishing, you know, those kind of memories you'll never forget because we're talking, you know, really big fish, really powerful fish. And when something like a tarpon, he opens his mouth to eat your fly, it knocks your teeth out of your head. I mean, it's like, oh, my God, how could you ever forget that? You know? But I've always loved fishing, and I grew up here in Aspen, Colorado. Once my family moved here in 1960, and I learned how to tie flies. I saw this fly line going across space, and the great Ernie Sweebert was in town giving these clinics for the country store. I was on my bike going to baseball practice, and I veered over there, and all of a sudden I had a fly rod in my hand. I think I was probably eight or maybe nine years old. And from that point forward, I was a fly fisherman. I was a fly fisherman. I loved the whole fly line part of the whole thing. And then once I tied my first fly, and I caught a fish with my first fly that I tied, it was game over.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's a great thing, too. You know, it's funny trying to explain to young people today what it was like to learn to fly fish. And, you know, there was no YouTube and you had to read books. And, you know, I tell my boys I sent away, you know, self addressed, stamped envelopes to get catalogs. And, it was really just kind of a neat time to kind of be outdoors and do those things.

Andy Mill: Yeah, for sure. You know, you asked me the first time, my first memories. I don't remember the very first time because I was so young, but the first time I saw that trout eat my renegade that I had tied, that was probably a big light switch. And the saltwater switch was the first time I saw a tarp eat my fly, you know, so both freshwater and saltwater, it's all about the take. It's all about the bite, you know. Then you know you're in the game.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's interesting, too. And, you know, you've been fortunate. You had a really long career in fishing even before you were kind of officially in fishing. And you've been able to fish and be mentored by a lot of people. So I won't ask you to list them all, but are there a couple that kind of stand out as being particularly impactful on your development as an angler?

Andy Mill: Chuck Fothergill, he had a very famous, well known name in this country. He first started learning or teaching how to put weight on your leader with nymphs. He taught me how to tie flies. And then the great Ernie Schwiebert taught me how to fly cast. In the saltwater world, it was Harry Spear. He and Steve Hough had won more saltwater fly rod tournaments than anyone in the lower keys. And so Harry was my mentor. I fished with him 40 days a year before, for seven years before I ever fished a tournament. And I didn't realize it at the time, but he was grooming me to be a tournament angler. He was very adamant about how to do things, the difference between right and wrong. I had other great people in my life, like Lefty Kreh, Flip Pallot, and Steve Huff. I had all these icons in the periphery of my world, but they're not mentors, per se. I think Lefty was a great mentor. Not necessarily a mentor, but he was very inspirational in that he taught the world of saltwater fly fishing, how celebrities should act. He was just so genuine and real and common. But bigger than life. He did everything, wrote all the books, the casting, the humor. But he was always so humble and kind. That's what I take from him. Flip Pallot brought me to the saltwater world because I was a skier here in Aspen. Well, after my athletic, competitive years. But I couldn't wait for Saturday morning to see Flip in his show walkers k chronicles. I wanted to be on his boat. Oh, my God, he was everywhere. And then when I finally met him, it was like, it was so profound. It was like me meeting Jean Claude Keely, because this was Flip, you know, my hero. And then many years later, I had written a book. It was kind of funny, you know, come to Jesus moment for me, and oh, my pinch me, oh, my God moment. I was eventually well down the road. Many years later, I was doing a Tarpon presentation at the International Game Fish Association in the big lobby, and there were about, I don't know, maybe 100 people in there. And in the audience was Stu Apte, Lefty Kreh, Flip Pallot. And I'm looking out here I am, trying to tell them my methodology. And then 2 hours later, we went across the street to Bass Pro Shops, and we're all signing autographs. I'd written a book by then, and I looked down the line. I'm looking, here's Chico Fernandez. Here's Lefty. Here's Flip. There. There's Lefty. It was just like, oh, my God, this is my world. Now. All of a sudden, that was my world. And to ever think that I was going to go from an Olympic skier to having written a book and speaking about Tarpon and winning Tarpon? I mean, it's like somebody hit me with a magic wand and placed me, you know, down the road in that realm?

Marvin Cash: Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, it's interesting, too. We were talking before we started recording that, you know, we met. I mean, it was kind of amazing. I tell people the story, and I'm just like, it's crazy. They're like, how was Edison I was like, well, I met Andy Mill. They're like, no way. And, you know, I say, I was literally walking the show. I think it was on that Friday with David Blinken. And he introduced me. And you graciously agreed to be on the podcast. But I thought the interesting thing, we started talking about being a competitive skier and how it translated, and you're like, well, I just never thought of myself as a great skier. Right? I was a good skier, but I became a great tarpon angler. And I thought that was an incredibly fascinating thing to say because, I mean, I think of you as being a great skier and a great tarpon angler. And I was wondering if you could kind of explain that a little bit for our listeners, because I think it's so interesting.

Andy Mill: Here's the deal. It's really hard to ski in the Olympics. They only take four Americans to ski in the downhill. So I was ranked the number one American downhiller for nine years. I skied in two Olympics and four world championships. Great skiers win the Olympics. If you don't win, how can you be great? In my book, for the average guy, of course I was great. I represented the country. But I didn't realize the difference between great and good until I became a Tarpon fisherman. My last year skiing, I was finally on the cusp of winning. I got fifth in the pre Olympics. I got 6th in the 76th Olympics. I was right on the edge. My last year as an athlete, I had finally got a great mentor. I got great skis. I finally, you know, got to the point that I can win. And then I hit a fence in Switzerland, and I broke my neck, my back, my leg, and my ski career was over. As I mentioned to you earlier, I basically ran out of body. I'd already been. I already had ten knee operations. Now I have a broken neck and a broken back. Once I got into tarpon fishing, it's comparing apples to oranges, because you can't compare skiing in the Olympics to winning the Gold cup. They're two completely different things. It was so much easier to win the Gold cup than it is to win the Olympics because you have all these countries, the best skiers in all these countries. It's a high end professional sport. People are being paid a lot of money to win the Olympics. But in the fly fishing world, winning the Gold cup was like winning the Olympics. So once I started to taste, you know, victory, success, with Harry Spear being my mentor, we fished my first tournament together. I got second in the spring bonefish fly tournament. We won the fall fly. I got third in the first tarpon tournament with Harry. That was the Gold cup. Then I started understanding the difference between winning and doing well. And once I tasted that, there was no let up. It was like, since I never won as a skier, as a fisherman, it was like, I am not going to allow myself to lose. And I wasn't quite there yet because I won a bonefish tournament. But I hadn't won a tarpon tournament. But once I realized I was knocking on that door, I got fourth in the first tournament. I won the very first golden fly tournament. I fished in. I won the first permit tournament. I fished only the dell brown. But once they tasted that, it was like there was no let up. And the difference in or the years, the span of years with my victories was, were 18 years. My first one to my last one. But I feel like I did not sleep for 15 years. I was so driven in the winter, I was like tying flies and tying leisure and pulling on tippets and pulling on scales. I was a maniac. But I felt like that was the difference in really becoming as great as I became as a fisherman. I was relentless. But as a skier, I was too young. I didn't have a great mentor. I didn't have the understanding of what it takes to win. I was just trying to do well. But like the European skiers and some of the other Americans, once the American team got out from behind the eight ball, then we had a chance to win. But it took a long time. It was right at the end of my career. But if you take a look at fishing in tournaments, it's almost like an oxymoron, the contrast in what we should be doing as fishermen. I just happened to become a tournament fisherman, and it was very, very important for me to win tournaments.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And was that something that, you know, kind of cracking the code and having your body run out and skiing that kind of haunted you, that gave you that drive?

Andy Mill: I didn't learn how to win until I got hurt. That last year, I finally realized what it took to win. I reapplied myself. I rededicated, you know, my life to skiing. And I realized I had just maybe a couple years left, and I went all in. But I never did that before. I was too immature. I was too young. I skied in my first olympics when I was 23. I was not mature enough. I was distracted by, you know, the lifestyle of aspen, which was on fire. You know, back in the seventies, you know, Aspen was a generation of innocence, sexual revolution was taking place. There was a total anarchy of this country post Vietnam. And I wanted to take a big bite out of that apple, and I did. But in doing so, I sacrificed that as an athlete. But in my later years, I was married to Chrissy. I had kids. I had my tv show that was producing and hosting, and now I had a chance to fish these tournaments. It gave me a complete understanding of perspective from being a skier to now a fisherman. And I knew the difference, and I was not, and I knew what it took, what it was going to take for me to win.

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

Andy Mill: I didn't think about that, really. I didn't think. I never thought I was going to be 71.

Marvin Cash: Fair enough.

Andy Mill: You just think, this road is going to last forever, you know? But I couldn't have put more effort into what I did to win tournaments than I did. And looking back, I didn't have that as a skier. But you don't get second chances. And so I was very lucky to have a second chance as a fisherman. And I count my blessings for that.

Marvin Cash: And what was it that, I know you grew up fishing for trout, but, you know, what was it that attracted you to the salt and tarpon in particular?

Andy Mill: Well, I think it really stems, you know, initially with Flip Pallot and his tv show, you know, catching these great fish on flies, you know, sailfish and marlin and bonefish and tarpon and just the adventure of running in a little 16 foot skiff out over the, cross the face, the surface of the ocean and catching these giants, right? Trout are not giants. I skied at 80 miles an hour for a living. I wanted to catch big fish that would scare the shit out of me. That's what I wanted to do. Trout don't scare me, you know.

Marvin Cash: That’s funny. You know, I know you got a bone fishing permit, but do you also, like, have an interest in catching makos and sailfish and billfish on the fly, or is that not interesting to you?

Andy Mill: You know what? I've caught a marlin on a fly. I've cut, you know, a number of sailfish on a fly. That kind of stuff doesn't really interest me a whole lot because you're waiting for the fish to hit your teaser, you tease them in and you do the bait and switch. That's cool. Marlin are huge. I get seasick. That's the biggest problem I have. But I cut gt's in the seychelles. I am more of a hunter and my son and I hunt elk in the fall with bow and arrows. We've been doing that for, close to maybe 15 years, maybe a little bit more, 20 years. When we fish in the salt, we hunt. And now I find myself hunting for trout. So when I go trout fishing, I'm looking for a fish that's feeding on the surface, or I may find a riffle and try to find a fish that's feeding in that riffle on nymphs and I'll try to catch that one fish. I don't want to catch 15 or 20 or 30 fish. I want to catch that one fish. Now I'm riveted. I see that animal right there and I want him. And that's where I get my fill as a trout fisherman.

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

Andy Mill: Being a great tarpon angler is an angler who can catch the fish that doesn't want to be caught. Not everybody's going to graduate or gravitate to tournaments. And I just want to put that aside. That was my bag, you know? And I don't want to say that you're not going to be a great tarpon fisherman unless you win the Gold cup. That is totally false. There's a lot of fit, a lot of great fishermen out there that have never, never fished a tournament. But that was my baseline for greatness. But when you put that tournament baseline to the side, a great guide is the guide who can find the fish that doesn't want to be found. And when you put that great guide with an angler that can catch the fish that doesn't want to be found, that's a home run. You were gonna empty the ocean when you put those two guys together. And so when I was fishing tournaments, I wanted to be with that guide, you can find the fish that doesn't want to be found. And those guys wanted me, and that's why we ended up doing so well.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, that's neat. It's always interesting because, I mean, I always put a lot of pressure on myself when I fish with guides because I always want to fish. It’s an extension of the guide. Right. You know, he can't catch the fish for you, right. He can help you put the boat in the right place, find the fish. But, I always think that there's a kind of you, it's almost like running a relay, and then he passes the baton to you. And so that's always kind of my goal when I'm on the water, is to kind of honor that commitment and all that time and energy and thought that the guide put into creating that situation.

Andy Mill: Let me tell you, that's hopeful thinking. And,I'll tell you why. The average saltwater fisherman does not fish that often to be able to do that for that guide. And, casting dexterity right there. Really good fishermen, really good saltwater fishermen, they don't have casting dexterity. Casting dexterity is regardless of the position of the boat and the direction of the wind, whether the fish is at, you know, 09:00, you know, 01:00 over here. 03:00 backhand cast into a 20 miles an hour wind, you know, forehand cast over your head so your heads between your rod and your fly line. Where you cut that fly line in the middle of the boat, between the guide and that angler making a forehand cast out there with the wind blowing 20 miles an hour right into your face. You can't make a forehand cast because you're going to pull the fly right into your face. You can't make a backhand cast, so you're going to hook your guide so that forehand cast, that rods got to be high. And when you come back with that backhand cast that flies coming over your left shoulder, cutting the boat, cutting the string, casting between the boat, not very many people can do that, and it takes years. A lot of guides don't even know how to teach this stuff. So when you feel, when you fall short, you know, on the bow of your boat, you have to remember, most people fish tarpon for maybe only a week, a year. It's so hard to do well with your casting without being on the water. You can't, it's hard to learn in a park. Most people, when the guide says you need to practice, need to go to the park and practice right. They don't knowChow to fix mistakes. They didn't even know what a mistake looked like. So how do you practice? It's like telling somebody to go to the golf range and practice. They've never had a lesson. So that's the issue with saltwater anglers, is that it's really hard. It's really hard, especially if you, let's just say you fish two weeks a year. They're doing the best they can with what they've got. And sometimes I feel sorry for them because they want to get better. But unless they fish really a lot for a long time, it's really hard to get really, really good.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, I always say people never fish as much as they want to. So then the question is, given how much you can fish, how good can you really get, right?

Andy Mill: But you can study on the internet how to double haul, how to make a backhand cast. You know, there's a lot of information on the internet. So most people, when they see a tailing loop, they don't even know what a tailing loop is. So how do you fix a tailing loop? So you have two problems. They don't. Can't identify it, and they don't know how to fix it, you know? So all I can say, you know, is that keep the enthusiasm up. Ask your guides. You know, and when people get hard on their anglers, it's like, dude, don't you understand that these anglers are doing the best they can? They're doing everything they can to catch that fish. So you can't get mad at them. You can't.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. So, Andy, can you share the specific moment that you realized that you had become a great Tarpon angler?

Andy Mill: I knew I was pretty good fairly quickly because I could cast well. I had really good eyes. I had a great mentor. I didn't think I was proven until I won, until, you know, I always felt like everybody can get lucky and win once. But when I started dominating, winning, I won the gold cup five out of six years, you know, but right now, my son is better than I will ever be. My son is incredible. But he's fished a few tournaments. He's gotten second and third and some of the termists, but it's not that important to him. But to see somebody see his eyes, oh, my God. Young eyes. Casting ability is crazy. You know, look, I was really great at one time, but I'm not great anymore. I'm a solid good and for how long?

Marvin Cash: So,  you know, I read the story like you went on your first tarpon fishing trip, got the bug. How long was that journey from there to winning your first tournament?

Andy Mill: Well, I fished with Harry Spear who was my mentor for seven years a lot. Forty days a year for seven years. That's a lot more than most people will ever be able to fish, because they have jobs, they have families. You know, I was very fortunate to be able to have that kind of free time. I won. I won my first golden play, I would say about eight years before I won, but it was only the second year I was fishing tournaments. But that's kind of unfair because I felt like, you know, for a long time, I had that tournament mindset. It takes a long time to get really good at anything. This is, say, matching the hatch, tying your own flies, reading trout water, being able to figure that stuff out. I'm not great. I'm not a great trout fisherman. I'm not. I can catch fish, but I'm not great. Oh, my God. I am just okay at it. My son is really good.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. So it's interesting. So, I mean, I was doing the math in my head. I mean, you spent over a year of fishing days on the water for Tarpon right before you won your first cup.

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

Marvin Cash: Yeah, I was really good.

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

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And we've talked about this a couple times, kind of just in phone calls before the interview, you know, really curious about how you learned a lot of lessons skiing, but kind of how you took that preparation regime and applied it to becoming a great tarpon angler.

Andy Mill: Here's the deal. When I was on the Olympic team, I was 23 years old. I did not understand the kind of discipline I needed. I figured out discipline after my ski career. I didn't figure out how to win as a skier until my very last year as a skier. Just before I got hurt, I got fifth in the Olympics. No, I got fifth in the pre Olympics, and I got six in the Olympics. But I still didn't have the understanding of how to be a really high end professional as a skier. We were a bunch of amateurs.The team was pretty far behind the eight ball. We didn't have great equipment. I'll give you a prime example about equipment. One year, we got to Val d'Aux Air France. It's the first World cup and Erwin stricker on the italian team, he had this rubberized downhill suit. He had this fairing on the back of his helmet. He had bent ski poles. He had a fairing on his legs behind his knees. And I looked at my roommate, Carl Anderson, I said, dude, we are toast. I'll give you an example of what that means. A rubberized downhill suit. We had downhill suits that still breathe the porosity of the fabric versus a rubberized suit. That's a two second difference just in aerodynamics. In a two minute downhill, 2 seconds when you're traveling. So we were averaging 66 mph. So if you're going 60 miles an hour, that's 88ft/second times two. That's what we were giving up just with the difference of our downhill suit. So this whole sphere of professionalism and preparedness and expertise and knowledge was so far above our heads, we had no idea. I had no idea at 23 how to be a professional athlete against these Europeans that were getting paid a lot of money, great coaches, great training regimes, you know. But as a fisherman, you know, once I got to be a fisherman, I knew what it was going to take to win because I didn't learn all that until my very last year as a skier. I was on the US ski team for what, ten years? But my last year, I finally understood it, I finally understood about dedicating my life to winning. Training every day in the summer, getting really fit, getting really strong, having the best skis that Rosnault had available for me, having a great coach that taught me how to move to the inside with my hip, you know, hip angulation versus knee. And it's a technical thing where you can put your hip, your knee and your ankle in the same plane. So at 80 miles an hour in a corner, you have much more stability than having the knee outside of that plane. Now, I am stable. I can make one smooth arc and I had great skis. Now I could compete against the Europeans. Now I had a chance to win. And that's what I learned over that ten year period as a ski team athlete. I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what it took to win. I didn't have anybody helping me. I was not smart enough to get it. So when I made that transformation from skiing to fishing and winning tournaments, as a fisherman, I knew the difference. I knew the difference what it was going to take to win. And I was fishing against a lot of guys that were not previously, you know, skiing in the Olympics and skiing at a professional level, or any athletes, they were great fishermen. They were doing the best they could. But I think I had an edge because I understood the difference between doing well and winning.

Marvin Cash: And how did that sort of break down? I think we talked before we started rolling, too, kind of thinking about, like, there's the physical aspect, there's the mental aspect. We were talking earlier about how you try to perfect everything in the chain so that there's no weak link.

Andy Mill: Right? Exactly right. So if,  let's just say there's a ginormous puzzle with a thousand million little pieces to that puzzle, and if you're a sportsman at a high level trying to win against the best in the world, you have all these small little nuances, little pieces of the puzzle that have to be perfectly polished before you're ready to win. And those pieces might be a backhand cast, you know, cast in between the boat. How do you feed a fish? Bump. Bump. Bump. How do you talk to a fish? How do you see? How do you know what that fish is going to do before he does it? That takes miles and miles and miles. And those are the things that I was really concentrating on. The smaller, the smallest pieces of the puzzle could get you that win, because if you have a piece that's not polished, that might. That might expose itself in a certain situation. And the great fishermen, the great tournament fishermen, whether it be freshwater guys, euro nymphing, you know, competing against all the other teams around the world, they have the same issues. Everything is refined.

Marvin Cash: And You know in some ways, that's sort of the physical stuff. How do you kind of work on the mental component and prepare for the things that you can't control, right? Like, so you try to take everything you possibly can and get your arms around it. But how do you, you know, become mentally tough and prepare for the unknown, to have a chance to be elite.

Andy Mill: To be mentally tough? You cannot lose your concentration for 1 minute. When it's a dark, cloudy day, you might only have one shot, but if you're not grinding, staring into the ocean, looking, looking for that little difference of color, whatever it might be, you might miss your only shot. You have to be able to make up great distances on a lousy day. You have to be able to catch fish when no one else is going to catch fish. Like, I always was hoping for windy conditions, like an open blue sky, so I can see, but windy conditions, because I knew that at least 50% of the field is going to go away when it's blowing 20 miles an hour. They can't make that cast.  And I'll tell you one of the mental things that really came up a year after I made a mistake. It was in a gold cup, and I had a fish come up, and it was the last day of the tournament I had a chance to win. We were in contention. This tarpon came up and sipped my fly like this very, very, very slow bite. And it takes so much composure to wait for that fish to shut its mouth, to wait to feel the weight of the fish in your stripping hand here before you set the hook. And I slid that fly out of its mouth, and I missed it. It bothered me immensely that whole year, because when you lose, you don't have a chance to win again for another year, because these tournaments, the Gold cup, the gold flight, there's only one, one chance a year. We only have three tarpon termists a year. So when you lose, it's like it drives you crazy. You have to wait a whole nother year. So, the following year. This is kind of an interesting story, because I'm not superstitious. It was the fifth day of the gold cup, a five day tournament, and we're on the starting grid, getting ready to take off. I may have told this story before, but on the starting grid, what happens is, you have five boats for every two minutes. You have a 25 boat team, one angler per boat, one guide per boat. So we're getting ready to the guns, about ready to go off, and Kenny Collette, an island marauder guide, was fishing with a japanese guy, and they had won the gold cup twice. They were really good. And Kenny yells over to me, goes, hey, Andy, you got to move your truck. I go, what are you talking about? I knew he was messing with me. I said, why? He said, your truck's in a bad parking spot. He said, you're normally in the top two or three going into the last day. You're dead last. And I knew it had been a bad week. We had fish falling off, bad weather. I said, are you serious? He said, yes. So I said, Timmy, take me to the dock. And my guy, Timmy Hoover, he really didn't want to do this. He's, like, complaining. I said, take me to the dock. I got to move my truck. So I go move my truck. We get in the boat. We'd started to run out of the marina there. I said, Timmy, today is the best day we've had. It's a great weather day, big sun. You find me the fish, we're going to catch them and we're going to win. So we were on the ocean and I caught three, three tarpon on the ocean. There were white fish, over 70 pounds. Then we went into this basin where the year before where there was this fish laying there and I slid the fly out of his mouth too soon. We go into this basin, we can't find a fish. We get up to where we had seen this fish the year before, laying in the same position, laid up. I slide my fly in there. Same fly, start sliding it. This fish moves up, same bite, same bite. And I'd been waiting a year to do this again, never knowing I was going to have this opportunity. This fish slid over, open its mouth, had this real, real slow bite, exactly the same way as the year before. I waited. I waited. I started sliding my fly, it gets tight. 115 pound fish. We caught him. I said, Timmy, we need to catch one more fish. We run around the backcountry, go into this other basin, we catch one more run home when we win the tournament. But these are the types of mental things that will drive you crazy. When you make a mistake, like a lot, if you're just having fun fishing, you blow it off. But when it costs you a tournament, these are the things you think about that make you better. When it drives, when you can't sleep because you've made a mistake, when you can't let it go, when you demand perfection. These are the types of things that bothered me. These are the types of things that I would never let go. This is why I feel like I didn't sleep for 15 years because I was so possessed.

Marvin Cash: And it's interesting too, because we were talking before we started recording as well, about, you know, whether you're fishing against yourself or you're fishing against others.

Andy Mill: People in a tournament, you're always fishing against the field because you want to win. But ultimately you're always fishing against yourself because as a prime example, I was playing golf with my father in law yesterday and he was saying, you know, he's like an eleven handicap. And he's saying, well, I win all these tournaments with my buddies. I said, well, are you trying to, trying to fix your mistakes and get better with what you do? You want to be like a three or scratch golfer, three handicap, five handicap. You're twelve. But you're okay with that because you're beating, you're beating your buddies. If you really want to get good at something, you can't grade yourself on the curve, because those guys all suck. You have to demand greatness, you know, for yourself.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's interesting. And, you know, we, when we spoke in Edison, or might have been on the phone call, after Edison, and you had mentioned to me, you know, you mentioned in the interview earlier that you, you know, you weren't happy necessarily being a ski broadcaster, and that this great door opened for you when the outdoor Life network called you and you were able to kind of pivot out of the ski world and have this entirely new beginning in fly fishing in a very different way that I think you found more fulfilling. I was wondering if you could share a little bit of that with our listeners.

Andy Mill: When I got hurt in 1981, with that fall in Switzerland, it ended my ski career, broke my neck, my back, my leg, and all the ligaments in my right knee. It's like, okay, what am I going to do now for the rest of my life? I don't have an education. I graduated from high school, never went to college. And I thought, how am I going to make a living? And I thought, the only way I can make a living is through exposure. So I started this tv show called Ski with Andy Mill. It was a barter syndicated show. To make a long story short, I sold advertising. It was a five minute show. I distributed it all around the country. I was the director of skiing here in Aspen. But in my five minute show, I was getting paid from all the products I was wearing: boots, binding, skis, sunglasses, clothing. I was making a lot of money with that little show. And now I'm also doing the broadcast work for CB's in the Olympics. I covered Albert Ville in 92 and little Homer in 94. I was the director of skiing here in Aspen. I was on top of the world, so to speak, right?

Marvin Cash: Mhm.

Andy Mill: But I was flatlined. My life was not moving up. I was no longer an athlete trying to win stuff. I was never pushing myself personally. It was just, I was maintained. I was making a lot of money, but it was flat. And I hated broadcasting because I was speaking about something I wanted to be doing. And now all of a sudden, I'm in this life where I'm making money. I was a professional, but there was nothing exciting to it. And then I did a couple specials for the outdoor Life network, and I was a host on a couple shows, and they wanted me to host a fishing show. I said, I have no time. None. I am tapped. But I tell you what, you match what I make as a skier. All my contracts, all of them, you give me that, that amount of money, you give me a five year contract. And if I produce this tv show, all the money I save on the production costs, I get to keep as my bonus. So now all of a sudden, I leave. I leave skiing fully. I am now producing fishing shows, and I was making about $750,000 fishing. And now I get to fish all over the world with the best guides in the world, telling these great stories. And I was making a lot of money. It was a massive home run for me because now I was excited to wake up in the morning. I was going to go fish in the Seychelles. I was fishing St. Thomas for 800 pound marlin. Guatemala, Costa Rica. I did a tv show in the arctic circle with former president Bush. And now all of a sudden, I start doing this tarpon thing, and now I get to go fish tournaments. My life is climbing the mountain again. It's the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And, you know, why do you think people sometimes get stuck kind of flat, right? I try to kind of coach my boys growing up and talk about, you know, finding those things that make you passionate. Right. That'll give you that energy. Why do you think so many people just kind of look up in the late middle age and they kind of have wasted 30 or 40 years of their life?

Andy Mill: Look, I think a lot of people get married too young, they have kids too young. They have bills they got to pay, man. They're stuck. They're stuck for a long time. There's no freedom they don't have. They're not financially free. The wife's got a job, you've got a job. The kids are driving them crazy. Get home, everybody's hungry, and sometimes you don't even have a job you like. You got to find work, right? And when I look around I see that in a lot of places. And then two. How do you take that gamble? How do you take that gamble? Like I said, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to go fishing. I want to work in a fishing store. And I'll give you an example with my father. He was in the lumber business his entire life. He never had two nickels to rub together. But he got a great job here in Aspen running the lumberyard. Pushed forward a number of years. He was working in Denver as a lumberman. I don't think he really liked his job. He was not a very happy man because he was kind of stuck. And he came here when he was like 60 some years old, 66, I think it was. I taught him how to nymph fish. I taught him how to catch fish. He went back to Denver and quit his job like four months later. And he got a job, what the hell is the name of that little fishing store in Littleton, Colorado? Anglers all. My dad was tying flies for anglers, all working the desk. And he was ecstatic because he could fish on the weekends and he was tying flies. Anyway, I used to bust him a lot of times. I said, dad, what kind of flies are you tying? He said, I'm tying, I'm tying San Juan worms and eggs. I said, dad, those are not flies, dude. You're not a fly tire. I used to always bust on them, but he was living large again because he was on the river and he was talking to fishermen, and it changed his life entirely. But he didn't have a lot of bills at the time. He was later in his years in life, close to retirement. So I think he's talking about people getting stuck. I was very fortunate. I was stuck at a high level because I was making a lot of money. And, I was doing really cool things that no one ever dreams of, being a broadcaster for the Olympics, the director of skiing in Aspen. But personally, I was flatlined.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I know when I coach my boys, I always talk. Uh, so I'm a generation x guy. So growing up in the seventies, I feel like we can kind of be a little bit more rough and tumble maybe than millennials and younger kids. And, I think some of that is a function of growing up and having grandparents that came of age in the depression and just a different sensibility. And it's kind of an interesting thing where, you know, given kind of, you know, my background in law and finance, I saw a lot of people that were really spending money just to keep from being completely miserable in what they were doing. And if you could kind of dial back, you know, what you thought you had to have, you could maybe find a little bit of a crack of light in the door and maybe find a way to kind of squeak out.

Andy Mill: Yeah, well, look, I have been the most fortunate person, you know, I could possibly ever imagine dreaming of being. I have an ex wife that was a superstar in the tennis world. We have three great kids. I have chapters. I look back at and I go, oh, my God, how did I ever get here? How did I ever be so lucky to be able to have this life? You know? I mean, some people are just luckier than others. You know, sometimes luck plays a huge role. And I had, first, my son said, dad, you get the biggest horseshoe up your ass. I say, yeah, I agree, you know, but, you know, I think, I think a lot of luck comes from, you know, being very fortunate. A lot of doors open for you, but being lucky is having the ability to not only step through that door, but being able to excel on the other side of that door. And it comes from me. I had this passionate heart. I was a really hard worker. I will work to the day I die. I don't know anything different. I want to work and I want to do well. I don't want to just make money. I want to excel at what I do. So I think I was gifted with that desire to work hard. And it was not about the money. It was about chasing dreams. I think we live fully, all of us, while we are chasing our dreams.

Marvin Cash: And you've done so much. What do you have left on your to-do list that you want to accomplish and achieve?

Andy Mill: I'm going to go to Mads bay. I want to catch a striped marlin free cast into a striped marlin without bait and switch. I want to go to, you know, Bolivia and catch a golden dorado. Other than that, I just, you know, I'm 71. I've had 24 operations. My body's killing me.  I need another knee. I have a knee. My left knee is replaced. My right knee needs to be replaced. My neck is fused. My back is fused. Everything hurts. I could barely play golf anymore. I just really wanted to try to be able to stay active, you know, and do things. I still want to elk hunt in the hike country. And I got back to Aspen. I've been in Florida all winter. I went on a not even a hard hike yesterday. I've got so much lactic acid in my body, it's like, are you serious? My God. I used to be an athlete. What happened? You know? And now I know I've got to look forward to September when I get to chase my son at 12,000ft, 11,000ft chasing elk, you know. So, my dreams are to see, my son's about ready to have a baby this week. The dream I have now is to see really great happiness with my entire family, my kids, my young grandson that's going to be born here this week. I've been very fortunate to be able to be connected to the fishing industry, and I don't take that lightly. I think that it's a big responsibility to do with what Nicky and I do with our podcast. Bring to light a lot of stories that are going to go away, you know, with age and time. I want to help maintain the history of our sport, the evolution of our sport and the people that created our sport, you know, and what they did to innovate what they’ve done. And give respect to the people that came before me. You know, I will never take for granted what I have in my life. It did not come easily. But with that said, I have a lot of work in trying to help preserve these other stories that came before me, these icons, these legends. And their stories are going to die if they don't get on your podcast, on our podcast, and let them tell their stories. So the younger generation will realize what took place to get this game to where we are today and who did it. So that it gives them a baseline, not a baseline, that just so what they know now. I think it's important to know how we got here, conservation, too. If we don't know how we got here, it's really hard to understand the direction we're going to go into the future. And so what I have left in my life is really trying to be kind and humble and let people, I want to be treated the way I want people to treat me the way I want to treat them. I always want that and never think that I'm nothing more than a mountain guy that did okay.

Marvin Cash: And, you know, as a father, it's got to be just absolutely fantastic to have the podcast and get to work with your son.

Andy Mill: Yeah, look, we were speaking about that earlier. I have three sons. I love them all dearly, equally. But Nicky has gravitated to the things that I've always loved. He's always wanted to be on my shoulders. And seeing what I saw, I'd be, you know, signing up in a tournament. He would be on my shoulders. We'd be on the boat getting bullets, playing with the mullet. Started bowhunting. He's a great bow hunter. Kills, kills all kinds of great animals. And now we work together. It's a dream to be able to have a son like Nicky who connects with the things that I love. And I think, too, for him to have a father like that. That understands the things that. That he loves goes both ways.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's very, very neat. Andy, is there anything else this evening you want to share with our listeners? Before I let you go.

Andy Mill: I would just say, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, make sure you find the time and place to listen to silence. Hear how loud silence is. And when you hear, and when you're in the presence of silence, you can hear your inner voice of what you want to do, who you are, where you want to go with your life. What does love mean? What does your family mean to you? How can I make my family better? How can I be a better dad, a better father, a better fisherman, better employee, better owner of a company? We're not grading ourselves by what other people are doing. We are grading ourselves by who we are and what kind of a person we are. And remember, always try to dream. Dream big and chase those dreams.

Marvin Cash: And, Andy, if folks want to follow your adventures on the water and in the field running, after Nicky going up the mountain chasing elk, where should they look?

Andy Mill: Yeah. So, you know our. Our podcast, Milhouse podcast, you can watch it on YouTube and our Instagram site. Millhouse Podcast. Instagram. You can watch and see some tips and some words of wisdom. But you can also listen to our podcasts on, you know, wherever you find your podcast. Spotify, you know, all that. I don't know anything about that stuff. I'm just a voice. My son does all that. I have just a figurehead with the talking lips here, you know? But we’re out there. I think we’ve done 111 podcasts. You scroll through it and you can find offshore captains. You know, great guys who’ve done a lot of great things in the world of fishing. 

Marvin Cash: As I always say, you have people to take care of all that stuff. I’ll drop links to all that stuff below the show notes. Andy, I super appreciate you spending the time with me. Incredibly generous of you and I look forward to seeing you on the show circuit again soon.

Andy Mill: I’m honored you have asked me to be here and again, thank you so much.

Marvin Cash: Take care.

Andy Mill: You too. 

Marvin Cash: Well folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Again, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend, and please subscribe and leave us a rating review in the podcast of your choice. And don’t forget to check out our community on Patreon. Tight lines everybody.