TL;DR
Day Three was brutal—hot, quiet, and uncertain. Cast after cast, still no hookups. But we kept going. Kept getting better. And then, finally, on a return to The Spot, it happened: my first tarpon. Chaos. Joy. A breakthrough.
Day Four, we were different—calmer, more confident. I landed another. Then came Josh’s turn. A beast. 125+ lbs. A triumph days in the making. It wasn’t just his fish—it was ours.
And that was the deeper lesson: big wins come from shared effort. Not perfection. Just persistence, humility, and a willingness to keep casting.
The real lesson? You don’t have to go it alone. Sometimes the biggest victories come when you build something that gives everyone their moment.
You don’t need to be perfect.
Just keep casting.
Main Article
Day Three started the way Day Two had ended: hot, quiet, and uncertain.
We motored out early, still chasing the dream. Jerry pushed deeper into the flats, scanning for signs. We’d seen fish the day before. Had good casts. Close calls. But nothing to the boat.
And so we kept casting.
Hour after hour, we covered ground. The tide shifted. The wind picked up. The sun climbed higher. We drank Gatorade, stripped line, smoked cigars, ate protein bars.
I was getting a little better. I could feel it. I was no longer thinking about the cast. I could see the fish earlier, adjust my angle, correct mid-flight. My hands knew what to do. My brain was a little quieter.
But still—no hookups.
By mid-afternoon, the day had a weight to it. Not defeat. But fatigue. We were working hard. We just hadn’t been rewarded.
And then Jerry made a call.
“We’re going back to the spot where Josh hooked his fish on day one.”
The Spot
It was a wide-open bay—a soft bowl of shallow water tucked between mangrove points. Ten minutes into our first morning, Josh had hooked up here, first time on the bow. Just like that.
Now, at the end of Day Three, we poled towards it again—same water, same tide. Different men.
Jerry said, “Twelve o’clock. Towards the mangroves." I dropped the fly.
One strip. Two.
FLASH.
It happened fast. A flash of silver. The line went tight and I froze for a split-second—then everything exploded. Water, shouting, chaos. Jerry yelled again, “Strip!”
The fight was on—and needless to say, my mind completely melted. After three long days of casting, missing, doubting, and sweating, I was suddenly connected to a silver missile trying to rip my soul through the reel. We had never actually discussed what to do if I hooked up. No plan. No protocol. Just panic on my part.
Jerry was giving instructions in real time—sharp, clear, loud—and I was trying to follow, but my brain was scrambled eggs. If he said left, I went right. If he said rod tip low, I raised it. I couldn’t tell you which way was east or where my hands were. I was just holding on and trying not to screw it up.
It wasn’t elegant. But I was in it. Fully alive. And somehow, that was enough.
At one point the fish darted under the boat, and Jerry started yelling "“Front of the boat! Front of the boat!”
And I thought, "I’m standing on the front of the boat!"
But he meant the rod. Dip it in the water, off the front, and move it left to right as the fish passes beneath the boat or the rod would snap.
I did it. Just in time. (Truth be told, he grabbed my hand like a child and made me do it).
And after three full days of work—of failure, of almosts, of slow improvement—I landed my first tarpon.
Day Four: Two Wins
The final day felt different.
We were looser. Lighter. The pressure had lifted.
Early that morning, I hooked and landed another tarpon—this one cleaner, smoother. The cast, the strip, the set, the fight. Even the bow. No panic. No yelling. And still, as we got it to the boat for that glorious picture, the leader snapped, broken by a fish with Sawzall blades for teeth. But I had a quiet knowing: I belonged out here now.
What I really wanted… was for Josh to get one more.
He hadn’t landed a tarpon since day one, and he wanted a triple digit monster. And I’d seen how much it meant to him—not in some loud or performative way, but in the way he kept showing up, kept casting, kept chasing.
So I started begging God and the Everglades for some help.
Quietly, as I helped manage his fly line in some windy conditions. "Give him a fish."
And late in the afternoon, near the time we had to return to make our flight, it happened.
We were tucked in a dirty creek, the wind blowing at us. The fish rolled. He made the cast.
BAM.
Line peeled off the reel like it had somewhere to be. The tarpon launched. Josh bowed and held firm. And 47 minutes later, Josh hauled an absolute MONSTER to the side of the boat. 125+ lbs, with a mouth large enough for Josh’s head to fit inside. It was an incredible thing, watching my friend give everything he had for days to realize this moment.
There’s nothing better than watching a friend succeed. It’s just joy.
That’s how we ended the trip. Not with my fish. His fish. But it felt like ours, all three of us.
The Real Parallel
I’ve been sitting with a decision for the past year:
Should I try to execute this vision on my own?
Every business I’ve ever started, I built from zero. No outside capital. No investors. Just grit, cash flow, and the long way around.
And I’ve been proud of that.
But this vision—the one where we acquire at least ten small businesses, each employing at least ten people, and preserve good jobs in real communities while instilling a culture of dignity and determination to rebuild American’s faith in the power of small business—it's too big to shoulder alone.
So I’ve decided.
Instead of believing I’m the poor farm kid who needs to do it on my own, I’m going to invite others to join me by raising capital.
And it scares me.
Because I’m back at the beginning again. Consciously incompetent. A rookie on the bow, hoping not to blow the cast.
I’ve heard the horror stories. The bad partners. The strings attached. The control lost.
But I also learned something over those four days:
Sometimes the real win isn’t landing the biggest fish yourself.
It’s building something durable enough that everyone on the boat gets their moment.
Final Line
You don’t have to be perfect to start.
You just have to keep casting.
And trust that when the moment comes—you’ll be ready.