Meko Glinton - Bahamian Superstar Bonefishing Guide

TOM ROWLAND PODCAST

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Podcast Synopsis

Meko Glinton has a deep family heritage of guiding in the Bahamas. He has established a reputation as one of the best fishing guides down there at this time. Through his career, he has become the bonefish guide to the stars. Lefty Kreh, Liam Neeson, Michael Keaton, Tom Brokaw, and many more of the worlds most famous people have been clients and soon become friends of Meko. In this episode, I talk to Meko about his style of fishing and what factors in to his success. Meko tells many stories including one about the day that he got so lost on a charter that he ended up at a different Bahamian island. We talk about the state of the Bahamas after Dorian and guiding during the pandemic. When you fish with Meko you get the Meko Experience. Today anglers all over the world can have the Meko Experience through this podcast. 

Find Meko on social media 

Instagram: @okemo1234

Facebook: Omeko Glinton

Email: okemo7@hotmail.com

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Transcript

my wife sometimes believe i think like a fish right she used to tell me that years ago and then i had to accept the fact you know honey i do think like a fish um i do think you get to that point where you saw that you do think like if you begin to think like the fish for real like you do sort of how to feel like you i'll look out a slot and you i'll be like okay something has to be working along the edge there and you didn't see anything you didn't even see any feedback he just had that instinct that that the fish is there and a lot of times they are and then a lot of times like you know they are not my name is omiko clinton and this is the tom rulin podcast what's up everybody we have a fantastic guest for you today mikko glinton is a bahamian bonefish guide a legendary bonefish guide in the bahamas he comes from the pinder clinton family david pender senior one of the pioneers of bone fishing really in the world certainly in the bahamas and uh there are so many more david junior and on and on down the line mikko is a legit superstar in the bahamas he is a fantastic bonefish guide and beloved by his clients and uh he's a he's a really good guy i enjoyed catching up with him we talk about all kinds of things including what he's doing now that he is not currently guiding in the bahamas because of hurricane dorian and because of covid19 so it was a great time to catch up with mikko and if you do know mikko you're gonna be very happy to see his smiling face and if you don't know mikko get ready because this is a guy that you're going to want to know he has a tremendous amount of bonefish knowledge and he's just an all-around great guy with a really good heart so here we go with mikko glinton this episode is brought to you by fishing points there are a lot of great features of the fishing points app you can go to your app store and you can get it and you can check it out one of the best things that i like about that app is that it has really high quality nautical charts we fish off the grid often and sometimes you don't have any reception so a lot of your stuff on your phone doesn't work but you can download these maps right to your phone so you can study them when you're off the grid or you can actually use them and still get depth data uh while you are not connected to the internet that's really cool there's tons of things about phishing apps or fishing points that i think that you're really gonna like you can go right now to tomrowlandpodcast.com forward slash points and you can get 30 off a yearly subscription and you can also start your free trial right away so go check that out i think you're really going to like it barracuda tackle is a place where we get our cast nets they make awesome cast nets they have tons you can choose from there go to barracudatackle.com and they have tons of other stuff besides cast nets as well it's a great resource go to boathammockstands.com and get a stand that goes right in your rod holder it allows you to hang a hammock from your boat or in your boat i should say you'll have the most comfortable boat on the sandbar or if you go on overnight trips it's fantastic for that as well and we have empire boat covers empire boat covers is a very good place to get an affordable boat cover go to empire empirecovers.com forward slash trp and you can keep all those leaves from falling in your boat it's fall it's about to happen you need to cover up all your stuff a boat cover is a fantastic way to take care of your boats but they have all kinds of covers boat covers for your car for your rv for your grill they have covers for everything that you can imagine and if you go to empire covers dot com forward slash trp you can get 15 off your order and free shipping so don't forget to use that code trp to take advantage of that and now we're getting back to the show miko how are you doing buddy i'm great my man i'm great talk i'm excited to be on this podcast with you i'm excited to have you man you got a lot of uh got a lot of knowledge i'm hoping that we can share with share with my audience and um so i know that my audience is familiar with you some of them i'm sure have fished with you some of them have fished uh grand bahama and know that or know your name or reputation from from fishing in the bahamas but we also had uh chris dombrowski on to talk about body of water and so many others are familiar with that and um body of water was chris dombrowski's book that basically was a history of your family right yes yes definitely especially my grandfather david senior who was going to be so excited to know that i've been on the broadcast with you he's going to be excited about this when i tell him he's going to be here that's great well walk us through the history just a little bit of uh of your family and how you know what a fishing family that is um great great yeah well you know um i came from a background of uh anglers and fishermen even even before my family got into the sport fishing which is bone fishing and and top and they were always fishermen they grew up they grew up fishing that's that's how that's on my family my grandparents and great-grandparents that's how we made a living you know by commercial fishing and then from there he got in david senior got into the sport fishing he got into sport fishing um and that's when he started that was deep water key obviously you know was established in 1958 but david senora he he was one of the guys that was helping build deepwater key while he guided um so he was involved with deepwater he long before deported he even opened in 1958 but um i'm the grandson i'm the oldest grandson of david uh senior and even my granddad died he was a fisherman also but he wasn't in the sport fishing arena like like david senior my dad and myself um and i'm sort of the third fourth third generation of bone fishing guide in my family and then you might know because of the amount of stuff i put up with my little 12 year old son who is crazy about fishing also he would be the he would be the fourth generation of bonefish and guide i'm so i'm i you know the pendants are all my uncles so when you think about all the pandas david um junior jeffrey all of those guys are my uncles stand the man with stanley yeah he's the founder you know he's uh he's the founding guy of northbrook club he's retired now he don't like to say if he know i'm saying he retired he hate that word but um you know he was the founding guy that not by the point club so my father you know he he's a legend guy my grandfather my uncles you know so tom i i don't know even though i didn't study i didn't study boone fishing in high school and i say that for a reason because you and i know that this industry is is it's broad and it's spreading and i always had a desire to see the younger generation or the next generation picked us up and i said on that because when i was in high school there was nothing such as fishing or bone fishing no no type of knowledge of that in school and i said that because i studied electrical installation in school yeah and i was i was good at that and in my mind that was my career part you know um the company that i dropped job trained for they liked me a lot and it was like as soon as you graduate come and you have a job that's the wire up some hotel and uh so i thought that was it but not knowing um uh fishing was in my dna you know that that was in my dna and um as soon as i had the opportunity in 1996 as soon as i had the opportunity to train a deep water key under the leadership of paul adams um as soon as i did the first couple of training days with marvin swear even wherever you know wherever yeah as soon as i uh trained with mervyn uh mervyn convinced me even when i had the boats circling around trying to kind of pose he just knew like he knew something he was like man you're gonna be a hell of a guy and i'm thinking i feel stink right now cause i can't get this boat to go straight and he saw something in me so um that was the beginning of the tour as soon as i got out on that boat i put that pole in my hand and i began to push that boat along the flat um i think that's when it happened yeah so all all of the years of electrical installation and learning how to hook up so switch and three-way and all that type of stuff that went i'll do it yeah well you you had such a such a great place i mean deepwater k was like that was like a a serious bonefish destination you had an influx of of high profile anglers coming down there you've got great guides uh with with great reputations and so you just found yourself in a position to where you could you could really thrive and take off plus you've got uncles and granddads and and everyone in your family is is uh you know from that kind of guide background now i'm interested when you get started are is everyone in your family helpful or is there competition like i'm sure everybody kind of wants to get you started but then when you start out fishing them a little bit then it's i would imagine that there might be a different story yeah and what i like what i like with your shoe from what i'm seeing is i know you keep it real in your podcast i saw some of your guests so it's good i'm glad you mentioned that because yes it was one particular guy and i'm gonna call this name because i was afraid inwardly i was afraid of him and i think inwardly he was afraid of me coming up okay and that's none other than david junior you and i when i got in this when i got into it david junior was sort of like then when you hear his name you tremble okay that's that's where he was in the industry so i think he was the uncle that um he was determined that i'm not gonna let this little young punk but he would call me i'm not gonna let this little young punk come and take you know and take over the scene and um i remember to him i fished a tournament my first tournament uh the grand bahama tournament against david senior was was one of the guys that i was up against and i remember tom on the first flat that's how nervous i was because dave david junior was in this tournament on the first flight i helped him about and i and i stripped the line off i made three big strip and the line must have hooked around the reel and i made a strip and broke the whole fly line that's how my tournament start and i know it in myself i was just nervous and afraid and i was pulling anyway so that's that's how nervous i was about david senor i mean david junior but i believe david junior was that was that guy and your family that say hey this is my competition so it was it was great until i got started but i would say it was a friendly competition i believe with me and my uncles and i was at deepwater key and they had already moved to freeport so it's always it's always hey deepwater key against north riding point all right point against and it was for this all all goods all friendly competition but you're right it was some competition in the family for sure yeah i mean you know that's like that's bragging rights for sure and uh not only that but you know that that reputation spreads like wildfire around the world you know with with all these anglers that are coming to the bahamas and and oh you go out fish david junior oh no no way no that didn't happen you know and and i'm sure all those anglers are talking and and uh it develops some some good competition but you know competition raises all ships like a high tide raises all ships so as as there's more competition and you're trying to do a little bit better then your anglers are benefiting from it i wonder when it is competitive like that how do you balance like the making sure that your customers are having a good time and not everybody's ready for a for a bonefish tournament with david junior but right you know how do you balance that where you're trying to bring in some big numbers but you're also trying to balance like this person needs a lot of work on their casting and we're just going to go have a good day and catch a couple of fish right tom that's a that's a very very good question it took me a it took me some years to figure that out too um it took me some years i've i've been guiding now tom um but i hadn't died in a while obviously but i've been guiding for maybe 22 going on 23 years um and it took me a long time to figure that out and what it is what it is is i believe um once you put the angler first if you put the angler first i think a lot of that goes out of the window because now you're not you're not guide centered your english center okay because um every guy have that level of i want to do this i need to catch 10 fish and you know and if you sometimes if you just stick to that and you forget that hey i have an anger who can't who can't cast further that he can spit you know if you if you don't keep that in mind it's all about what my goal is i want to catch 10 fish but i realize this angler needs you know he needs practice he needs training he needs a couple of tips tips ahoy um then it gets then it gets crazy i thought so i really do believe that once you put the angler first and then you say okay this is about this angle that is on my boat this is about me making sure that this angler uh gets better you know he learns as much as he or she could um i think that makes it easier but when it's just the about the guy then and then it turns into frustration because right i want to i want to leave the flat with 10 fish but we only have one and it's 3 30. really about four yeah you know so now um instead of me being happy because he's casting 40 feet instead of 20 feet i'm still i'm still uh a little pissed because i'm only at one fish which he's a better caster and i'm all about i'm making sure the angler that is on my boat leave a better angler than they were when they get on my boat that's sort of the that's all of the big one of the big things about my boat obviously catching fish but making sure my angler is a lot better and so that's a very good question uh tom for a lot of guys because we if we're not careful i i for years i wasn't thinking like that but yes it was about i want to i need to beat david senior if he comes in with five fish i need seven i mean david david junior so and a lot of times you take that out on your angle right yeah it can certainly happen because you know a good guide or a guide that is very talented has oftentimes the guide wants to catch the fish way more than the angler does and yeah you know and it's more important it's really more important to the to the guide to catch that fish than the angler angler just wants to have a good time and that's i believe that's a big part of the the the mature the maturation process of a guide like you you've been guying for 22 years probably in the first four or five you know like you're saying you're just trying to match the other guides maybe not even competing with david junior yet and then it's like okay now i'm competing and i'm gonna show everybody who's the best and then you forget about your angler and they're not having a good time and then eventually you mature to the place where your angler's having a great time and you're the top dog right like right right but but some of that some of that top dog comes from from years of training those customers and getting them better and better and better so each year they show up better and then you know a few years later they're having those big days right right that's so true that's so true tom i i was messing around with something in the last couple years i was calling it i call it the me team right obviously me is is the brand that i guess i've been working on the brand for 22 years and finally i finally a few years ago decided to put the brand out there and to me it's obviously miko experience and uh tom it's amazing how that that name came about uh most of my anglers when they leave my boat most of them will come and say mikko you know there's like i i wasn't on a fishing trip they said i had an experience with you and i heard it so much that i said you know what that's pretty cool that these these are anglers are saying that they had more than a trip they had an experience and that's when i decided to say oh no what me miko experience it sounds good and i decided to brand it and that's what i have it on today but um that's i started something called the medium and um and it it's the same it's from the same thing i'm i'm looking for people that that um that love the sport that are passionate about the sport and um once once i get them on the flat and they i can see that hey you know what these people are having an experience or these people want i always say you're part of the me team like we had an awesome time on the flats when we first yeah okay i would i would gladly accept you to be a part of me too you say you want to but anyway tom i'm enjoying these i'm enjoying the pressures of the conversation i haven't done a sit down like this in a while and that's awesome so so tell me the difference in your opinion of an experience versus a a day of guided trip ah a amigo experience well i i believe it starts even before you get enough before you get on the water it starts because you know we at the lord you come and you come you come down from from breakfast you meet the guy that they're holding their truck and from there i believe it starts from there starts really early for me it starts on my way to work because i got to drive 15 minutes so you know we got well we had beautiful pine trees green pine trees and you know and i would just take i would take advantage of that 15 minutes tom driving to work either i just listened to nothing at all and just meditate and you know think of be thankful about the day and so i try to start my day from on the way on the way to work so by the time i get to work one of the guys have something crazy or to say which someone without something i'm already mentally i'm already set and so when my anglers come you know i greet them you know we begin to you know talk about fishing and the day and everything so it starts it starts from there and really and truly um once we get on the water it's like a change i always tell people it's like it's one miko before i get to work and then when i get to work it's another miku all together but i think the experience have a lot to do with the holes from the time i wake up in the morning on my way to work every time i greet my anglers i'm the truck ride you know we try i try to make a truck ride uh a little interesting because you know we have some roads that we have to get you to get to some good fishing by the way so the roads might be tough but the fishing is really good and i try to make use of that time you know we're gonna talk about fishing flies what's going on so we make use of that time also but um really the passion i have to see people better leave as a better angler i think that's what gives them that experience because most of them they say they fish all around the world but they have they had um they don't have a whole lot of people that are that concerned about them becoming a lot better angler and i think that's what really i think that's the x factor in my opinion is the harder i have to see people better than they were before they came yeah and it's not about it's not about hey are you getting paid because i've had this before hey you know you're not getting paid extra to do all of that and i'm thinking in the long run i am you know um so tom i it's yeah it's it's the whole it's the whole deal i think it's from the beginning of the morning all the way to the end of the day um i would normally be the last one to leave to go home and some some folks feel like oh he's doing extra it's not really doing extras making sure that i give a full day and making sure i give everything for that day and so it's not it's from from beginning to end so that's what makes that would make the whole me experience in my opinion and in my opinion that's why you have such a good reputation uh is because you're putting in those those type of hours and you're paying attention to those kind of details one thing i'd like to talk to you about you're you're i would think i would i would call you an instinctive guide like you you just seem to and i hear this from other people that have fished with you that you just kind of seem to know where to go like you and it may be some place that you've never been before or never stopped on before and then all of a sudden it's like you just stop and we we're gonna fish here and you see something i don't know i mean a lot of gods are like that right like you have you have some guides that are very like they are on the clock we have to be at this particular flat on this particular tide and that's where we're going and we're not stopping to look at anything and and those guys can be very very successful but what i noticed about you is that you're more fluid you're looking and you're not afraid to stop there so let's talk about your philosophy about like how you plan the day what you're looking for um and and how that might change with the conditions yeah well i'm by you know i i like to explore i'm i like to explore so the things that most guys wouldn't do or the places that they wouldn't go i would i would intentionally go to explore it and and to see you know to see how the grounds is and to see how the fish is moving and working along there so that's one of the reasons i would stop anywhere and check check it out and then um for some reason pulling a boat for me is is fun i know it could it could be it could be wrenching and it could be tiring something but holding the boat for me is this technique and it's fun too so uh when i'm pulling along the flat that's some guy try avoid pulling a lot because it's you know it's a lot of work so they would try to they would move and run a lot but sometime i would pull and when i'm pulling through them i'm not just looking for the fish i'm looking at it i'm looking at the ground i'm trying to see if there was you know the type of feed marks and all this type of stuff so i'm looking at a lot of little things a lot of little detailed stuff uh when i'm pulling the flats but you know there are areas that i know fish would be with the high tide you know i know they like to hang around this mine over at high tide and most of the spots like that where those fish just sort of hang in a spot you always know you're not the only guy who knew that there yeah because everyone saw them figures that out but it's those areas where you go and explore and you find these fish that no one else really explore those are the fish that would normally be there and other guys don't know you see but all of the you know there's some places if you fish ground behind me enough there's some places where even the anglers know they'll be like the minute they the minute they hit the island they'll be like let's go brush keep it at high tide because they know there's 200 fish there right but everyone else sought to know that also and you can go there if you go there early enough and you go to first you know you you can you can you know you can rip some lips but um uh but other than that those places that i explore and and you know do my research and find these other spots and sometimes uh some when when the guys are having a hard time in those other popular spots that is already a little beat up or the fishes already the fish already know the the fish some of those fish know your middle name that's how yeah that's so much guys fishing them and um but it's those other areas that i find by exploring um those are the ones that keep me on top of my game because when guys are coming in with two fish i'm coming up with five or six or a couple big fish it's those same areas that the other guys sort of they refuse to explore and check out that i'm saying hey you know what i'm going to take a half an hour and just pull this lot and check this flat out yeah and that's really something that is there's a balance there and it takes it i don't know a guide has to be confident you have to be confident enough to know that you can take that half hour out of the day when you've caught nothing and it's like okay we've caught nothing right now it's 11 o'clock i'm gonna take 30 minutes and look at this place that i've never looked before that takes a tremendous amount of confidence because now it's going to be 12 and you still hadn't caught anything or you might catch something but how did you how do you balance that of of like making sure that you're you're catching fish and stuff like that but when do you explore and how much do you explore and sometimes i would think like uh when i was guiding is like look it's tough right now the fishing is tough so it's probably going to be tough everywhere so when is there a better time to explore like it's probably going to be tough everywhere so if i find a couple of fish in this place that i've never been before that probably means on a good day there's going to be a lot of fish there right yeah and yeah i don't know that's kind of how i did it i was just kind of wondering how you did it yeah no no you right on you right on if you if you catch fish there on a tough date on a good day they would you know it should be it should be a lot more fish there and uh again tom those that's that's where the instinct comes in you know um and i really believe uh the mature guys and the really good guys it is an instinct it's almost it's almost hard hard to explain so my wife sometimes believe i think like a fish right she used to tell me that years ago and then i had to accept the fact you know honey i do think like a fish um i do think you get to that point where you saw that you do think like if you begin to think like the fish for real like you do sort of how i feel like you i'll look out of flat and you y'all be like okay something has to be working along the edge yeah and you didn't see anything you didn't even see any feed map you just had that instinct that that the fish is there and a lot of times they are and then a lot of times you're like you know they are not but like you say you have to sort of you have to be able to um depends on my angular 2 for my let me say this depends on the angler you have uh it determines a lot of how i make a move to be honest with you so you know i know you can handle yourself so if i have you on my boat i'm gonna take more rest i'm gonna take my rest i'm gonna i'm gonna hit like spots what up here no one fished that in five years i throw them on my boat i go and check that out because i'm sure that's a good thing i'll take this guy over there but uh but you know you got other you got some other angles who you know they they they knew about it they really they're not they knew about it they really need to get a lot better and you wouldn't you wouldn't take much of that kind of risk with them you would you would actually take them to the you would try to get to brushkey first and some of these other places yeah because you know they got they have a better chance of hooking up and getting into it so i think that's a big part of it tom the angler the angler that is on your boat really have a ah it plays a big role on how you make moves and what you decide to do i really believe what about what's your thought on communicating with the angler and letting them know like obviously you're going to get some guys and they love to explore like me and mikko found a new spot like that would they would take that home there's like a badge of of of honor or trophy but how do you feel about communicating with them about what it is that you're doing like this a brand new spot never been here like is that something that you would do or do you kind of hold that to your close to the close to the vest yeah i think i think that goes but uh it goes with the same thing we said a little bit it depends on who the angler is yeah i think depends on who it is i would say it like um tom i share this story because i'm on your podcast right is it your audience with is this sort of how uh this helps with what i put up what i want to say too so i haven't had this angler i've been fishing with him for years and he doesn't mind me saying his name stew reese he he he was a key really good guy um actually me and stewie's fish the red bone tournament in ala morata and 2008 and and i won that red bones i remember that yeah remember i know we were fishing those things too yeah so he he was that guy that i was with that build a really good friendship he said mikko young your job is to teach me help me to become the best angler i could and i'll just pay for us to fish wherever and i was like deal sounds good and so and so uh that's he thought it was time for me an emphasis a tournament and that's how i end up in that tournament in ala morada which was great because i wanted that tournament um but but i say that me and him we were fishing in moore's island farm okay and i was coming back to grand bahama from morris island i know where i normally leave from when i'm this we wasn't using any devices then it was like just strictly hey sun is up here this is west that's east you know that's old school right so i normally know where i leave from when i'm brought back to grandma he wanted to go check another spot on the back side of moaz island where i'm not familiar with but i was like hey i'm with stories we like to explore let's go and so we went on the back side of mars island and now it was time to come home i was not leaving from the exact spot where i normally leave from i thought we were at that point but noise island had a it was another spot that looked like the same right so it was a nice smooth day and i was coming back to grand mohammed not knowing we left on a slightly off angle yeah and i was riding for about i was we were in the boat for about 30 minutes and i didn't see any land i know from my experience if you ride for 30 minutes and you don't pick up no line something is wrong so at that point i knew i was like oh boy something is actually wrong i said let me go for another 10 minutes but i went 10 minutes more no live so i slowed down in the middle of nowhere and he was like what's going on i was like uh i was like you know reese i gotta tell you this i think we lost so like he was one of those guests where i didn't mind saying that because that's that's sort of how it was with me and him but i would not have done that with a lot of other angles i wouldn't have done that you know um i would have tried to figure it out before i did that so i said all that to say uh depends on the angler because i wouldn't have done that and said that with any other angler well let me finish it so the audience would realize what happened so i kept going i know we missed grandma because we didn't see it so i know we were away from ground bahama so i kept going kept going and then we did pick up the land way way in the horizon and i said okay we're going to go there and when we went there tom it was at the abaco it was actually abaco and so anyway um we got to abaco and i hop up on my platform and grab my cell phone and i picked up like one bar i was like i'm guarantee you we that we're in abaco because if you miss grand mohammed abaco you go into europe you're going to go to uh maybe hit bermuda you might hit bermuda but other than that you go into europe so i said this has to be avocado um anyway once we got to abaco we were all the way in mashable so we was in like crownhaven where you hop over with grandmama long story short um we just kept going all the way along i have a coach sure until i get to like crown haven those areas that i was familiar with and then all of my confidence build back up i was like okay anyway we are and i did stop i did stop and fishing we didn't get home until eight o'clock that night but i stopped at a spot and i fished and we had we had an amazing amazing hour of fishing it like it wiped away all of that uh you know all of baby loss and all of that it wiped that away for a while until i got in and i don't know who stu reese decided to tell but the next morning the next morning when i got into work all the guys were giving me crap about me being lost so anyway i i so i said that story time to say to the audience that's how it is uh depends on the angler so i would have dealt with that completely different if it was a new angler someone that i didn't know that well and who i didn't have that kind of relationship but i never would have just said hey we lost yeah i would i would i would have worded it differently but um that's one of the things that you don't want to hear like the pilot saying uh oh you're or you know something like that you don't really want to hear your guide say um we're lost yeah yeah no you don't want to hear that it's not good so speaking of a lot of the anglers that you've fished with you know graham bahama deepwater k and north riding point both places that you've worked for a long time have attracted a lot of famous anglers i know that you've fished with lefty haven't you fished with lefty so yeah well what was that like i mean lefty cray was such a such an incredible person he was a great angler um but he was a funny guy uh what do you remember about fishing with him oh my god uh yeah yeah so men left he had a good relationship um and i think what would i test me up a little bit talking about lefty is he he became so him and my son became so close i have a photo i have a photo a few years ago this was the last time i saw a lefty um i have a photo of it in my uh my phone at the icast here in orlando um and that's when lefty wasn't moving around that much as you know he was he was he was in his he was at his boot but he wasn't moving around he wasn't doing no casting and um a few guys who knew our relationship was like hey i'm going to take you to lefty boot and i'll say okay he's going to freak out because my son is with me and he didn't know that and man when we got around we snuck around the boot man and i don't know who the folks was he was talking to i know they were important but man he he made us feel he made us he just forgot that he was talking to some folks when he saw me and my son and my son ran over to him and i have this photo with uh my son is sitting on lefty lap and lefty i mean the biggest smile lefty has my son and i'm kneeling down on the side of my son and all i mean every teeth i have was just uh out because i was so excited and i was so happy to see that and um that was my last moment and my son last moment with lefty because afterwards a few months afterwards we found out that he had passed away so that was my last memory with lefty but i've had a lot of memories on the boat fishing with lefty on the boat one of the things we have in common he is a teacher man he's a teacher by heart like me and the guy that is fishing with me and lefty they catch they catch a lot of hell when i say catch like if they want to fish fish fish they're in trouble because once left to get up he's talking of a caster and i'm giving him crappy but his cast and he definitely gives me crap about my cast and we're always trying to help each other get better you're always talking about techniques and what could be doing and that's one of the things i really love at lefty i think besides besides um a hell of a angler and all the knowledge he had and when it comes to fly fishing and everything that he give and when it comes to fly fishing i think he was he was a real teacher he was a he really wanted to see people get better and i think that's one of the things that um i would always hold on to but uh he is a funny guy like i he has jokes for days like i mean you never pick a joke fight with lefty i i learned that the hard way like do not pick a joke fight with him i i messed around a couple times because i like to you know uh say little things here and there and you say one joker left and he's got left he's gonna hit you with ten like you say one he's gonna hit you ten times and um i know one of the things he said would it wasn't really a joke is it i i'm using it in real life now he said miko he's like i'm going to teach you something about marriage i said oh i need that right now he's like i'm going to teach you something about marriage he's like you know what and um and i guess it was popular over here but it wasn't probably in the bahamas i hadn't heard it much he's like if you want a successful marriage you just got to learn two words mikko two words i was like what's that he's like yes ma'am he's like he's like mikko those two words gonna save you yes ma'am and you know what i've been married 17 years now and i think he had he knew something because the more i learned to say yes ma'am the better it is hey he's just he's a wise man he's a wise man he's a wise man but yeah lefty man um i can't say enough about him um the time i cherish the times even more now that he's not here that i had the opportunity to spend with lefty on the boat but um he's just he's an all-around guy you know he's a really really good guy he's a hell of a angler he loved to teach um i mean he taught me a lot i mean even though i grew up in the bahamas and i fished all the time he taught me a lot of stuff and um um i'll end with this you know lefty obviously was a lot older than i was and so when it comes to casting i always do tricks to to knock him off i always do tricks was like okay i know i'm gonna get this old guy i'm gonna i'm gonna keep i'm gonna wrap myself in the lying cast and spin out of it and he hate when i do that he's like oh sit down you will show off yeah you know um and and i i remember many times man you know me and him just going at it and everyone is doing well i said okay i'm gonna take it up a notch and i said lefty um you gotta check this out and i wrap myself in my drop myself in the line and uh once i get that rod loaded and i and i load it to the top i do this michael jackson spin and before the landline i mean before the line blind i'm i'm out of it in the lineup you know what the hell are you like yeah let me try it out believe me he went home and tried it he didn't try it on the boat but he tried it at home he's like man i wonder if i could i wonder if i could work that into my my casting demonstration but he had some great ones man he had some great little demonstrations yeah yeah what about some other people that you that you fished with um um liam liam liam was a cool guy liam neeson you know from the movie taken yeah um uh i i yeah i just showed someone yesterday uh photo with me and liam and the buccaneer bloomfish the bonefishing buccaneer show um someone had posted and i screenshot it and i have it in my phone that's like hey i gotta keep this it's like me and liam and i just showed it to someone yesterday because the person was like what do you do man you're always like hey i'm i'm actually a fishing guy i was like and i was like let me show you one of my clients he he freaked out he thought he thought i photoshopped and so um liam neeson was cool because you know i i never dreamed tom like growing up as a kid never never even left the career i've never dreamed that i would have met the people that i've met in the relationship that i have now i never dreamed that so um it's almost like i when i go to the movies like to watch his movie like folks think i'm crazy because he he'll do something in the movie yes and then he'll be like calm down and they don't know that hey i personally know this dude and if i ever say that they're gonna think i'm on drugs you know so so if i ever say that they're gonna think hey he's cuckoo he's you know he's making it up but um uh liam neeson when i fished him i don't know if you knew this tom he he was he had just went through something crazy the first time i fished him he literally had lost he had lost his wife oh no yeah yeah he had lost his wife for a couple years prior to that um on a skiing trip and so i met him i met him at a critical time and the type of person i am and some of the other things i do talk you know where i you know administer the people and you know i'd be there for people so we had a we got a a certain attachment because i i understood what he was going through and i was sensitive to that also and so i was trying to give him this miko experience and all this stuff knowing that he's going through a lot and um so i would always remember that because he was going through a really tough time but we had an awesome time i i think i put liam on his first bonefish on that show and um whoever that whoever the person was that fix his rig i don't know who did it or where uh liam was having a tough time tom he was having a tough time and i was like hey i'm not going to tell him nothing he's doing wrong because this is amazing i'm not like you know but he was having a tough time and i was working with him all day all day until the end of and i was like i don't like to take my anglers raw unless i have to right right that's one of the things that's like i'm not gonna take that rod in my hand unless i have to and um i decided i said you know what i have to see what's going on and i took his rod tom and i catch i cast it and i couldn't cast this thing for help and i'm thinking what was something and i stripped it in and looked at it so whoever rigged this rod put the put the fly line on backwards oh no so he was trying to cast with the running line and the weight forward line was way down in the back next to the box so i was like i was like leo i was like sorry i was like sorry but you you were trying to cast with the running line i was like you actually did good with jason with the running line anyway so i switched rod and he or right away he his character got better because he was using the proper part of the line and he got his first one or two going fish with me and that's my experience with liam but i shared that uh about what he was going through because to me that's one of the other things that i've experienced over a lot of years there are people that comes on your boat sometimes you don't really know what they leave from or what they're going through but i've had opportunities to really be there for a few people that was re one one guest he was waiting for his brother to come on the trip while we were fishing he got a cause his brother passed away oh man now he's waiting for his brother to come to deepwater key and he must have been a tough guy because he didn't break his hair he didn't he didn't he didn't show much emotion i'm thinking i i lost a brother to him like i lost a younger brother on a boating trip okay who hadn't hadn't seen him in what 18 17 years last time i seen him him and his friends went out on the trip and that was it so i know what it was to lost a brother and um this guy got a call on my boat say his brother's pass and he didn't react and i'm all day i'm thinking um this gotta be tough for this guy so tom on my way in no lie on my way in i decided to pull back my throttle and i slowed the boat down and he looked back like hey we're gonna stop at another spot i was like no i was like i overheard the conversation i know you lost your brother and i was like i know it's tough i was like could you give me this opportunity to just pull you and your wife on and just just say a prayer with you guys and he started crying as soon as i said that like he didn't cry when i let me pray he cried when i said it and so i knew right then that was the right thing and um he felt it as soon as i said it because i think he was holding all of that in all day yeah and as soon as i said that he broke down so um that's just a few experience tom that i personally um had um doing my years of guidance i wouldn't i wouldn't give that up for i wouldn't give that up for anything those are the those are the things i've been in graded in my memory that i always remember yeah um unfortunately he he have passed on now too um so um and that's that's all i can hold on is the memory that i sort of created with these people even like with less people the only thing i have now is those great memories that i've built with with them you got a good heart man you got a good heart you can see it you can you can just see it and feel it and and uh you know a fishing guide a lot of times you know like people that don't understand the sport and don't kind of understand the uh the bond that the angler has with the guide and the guide has with the angler some people don't realize and other people realize very very well like the people you're talking about that a fishing guide can be far more than somebody that just points out some fish to you a fishing guide can turn out to be i mean you've seen it you yeah and and every when i went down to deep i mean uh to north riding point and visited you guys down there you could see it with cole and and all the guys that we were with and and there's this friendship and this bond and this and this you know it's it's it's almost indescribable like you see this person one time a year but you're like super close with them and you're not afraid and some of these people are coming down and they're not afraid to bear their soul and tell tell their fishing guide something that they wouldn't tell their best friend at home like it's just too close you know but here you are you're in the bahamas or you're in the florida keys or whatever you spent four or five days on the boat and then all of a sudden here it just it just comes out and they just start telling you stuff and uh yeah you know some guys are are better at it than than others and you with your with your ministry and everything that you do on the side uh it lends itself very well to that but but you're also you got a good heart man you're a good friend to people and and i'm sure that a lot of these anglers uh a lot of these anglers uh understand that you know instinctual instinctively that that you're a good person they wanna they're not afraid to tell you those kind of things right right i really do appreciate that tom yeah and for me tom i think that's where ministry it helped me to realize ministry is like rather than a lot broader than what it's been portrayed as and so i take advantage of my my office or my if i would say pulpit my profit is the flat you know some people probably there's a big big billion with all that other stuff i feel like my that's my arena so i do i do take advantage of those opportunities where i can reach people in my sort of in my zone and so yes i do take advantage of that yeah well that's cool um so one of the things that uh we obviously need to talk about is is what's going on with you right now i mean you're you're we were just talking about you know how you're how you uh kind of minister from your pulpit being the flats and um because of recent events uh the hurricane and covid you're you're not there right now so tell tell us about where where you are what you're doing and and uh kind of what you what what's going on in the bahamas right so yeah so since um since hurricane dorian it's been it's been it's been crazy since dorian and it's been crazy for me and a lot of other people um uh i think this is the longest stretch that i've been out of work you know where i've hadn't been on the flat or i've been in my pocket to see um it's been yeah since but it's been since hurricane dorian and then we actually went back to work i think like from january a little bit in january february and then march march came to covet and so we shut down again in march and from march on um it's just been no work and you know no flats no flat fishing anything so it's been extremely tough and ground bahamas it's it's hello uh it's tough for most of the people in grand bahama obviously article um some of the bahama islands they're okay but they're still having a hard time with the covet because most of the i know most of the united states and other countries are shut off from the bahamas now as you guys may know and because tourism is such a big part of our economy and industry um i think we're learning some crucial lessons now um when it comes to you know how much we depend on on a particular thing because now that uh everything is shut down it's really difficult so you got eighty percent of the people um and this is not this is besides ground bahama in abaco which was dealing with just getting bruised and smashed down by arkandarian um i'm talking about the rest of the bahamas just the fact that there's no tourists coming in and they're not coming in the way that they used to it's tough because there are many people that are without jobs don't have any work don't know what they're gonna do um so it makes it makes life pretty pretty tough um i was fortunate enough um through some of my relationships um over here in the states to be able to bounce back and forth a little bit between grand bahama and the united states and most of that after the storm was just folks that i have a relationship with who love me my family and say hey you know what you guys we got to get you out of that we got to just get you off that island for a couple months and as you know um that happened with us and after september we were able to come in the states for a few months um just to catch ourselves for him just really to get away from everything and just to breathe a little bit and that was great and obviously all of those all those hub expire in time as you know and so um we went back home thinking okay you're going to go back work is going to start we're going to get back on our feet and then again cook over 19 hit and it went back to like oh my god we're back to be back to square one again so um in my in my mind tom is a lot of things that have been going on in my head pertaining to the industry and what i could do and what i like to do um i i'm taking a note from what i'm doing with you today which i think is so cool um to be able to connect like this um you know to do online stuff to create a website and that way i can still stay in contact with with my clients and my friends and even build new clients and you know new friends that when the borders do open and when things do get back um i would even have other people new people that i can who probably i met online like this to say hey you know what i'm going to go down and have this miko experience and so i'm thinking about a few things tom that i can do do in the meantime because it is a little tough when you have a heart to guide and you want to be out there on the water and you want to continue to to do what you've been doing but you just can't like it's beyond it's beyond me you know what i mean it's like yeah there's a lot of things i used to be able to control but this is beyond all of our control what we're dealing with i mean you are the whole world is deep um the limit of pandemic so it teaches you when you get in that position like okay what's what else you got in you miko what else what else you got in you it needs to come out now because this this is what this is the time when you just need you need that to come out and you know we we don't uh we try to do as much charitable stuff as we could when we when we could uh do it and so that's another thing that's always on my heart always trying to figure how could i not just help me and my family but what could i do and how could i help some of the other people that is around me that i know need help so all of these things is what i've been thinking about tom for months months and months thinking about okay mikko what could you do how could and so you know just to be able to connect like this talk about it to me it's it's it's feel like it's one step closer than what i mean well for sure and and you kind of get an idea of what's what's out there what's available i mean i i can't tell you there's probably been six or seven guests that we have had on this podcast that decide oh this is a great medium i'm going to start my own podcast which you could do you're great at it you're a great talker you've got tremendous stories you've got tremendous passion um it's hard to make any money at it as i've found out so far but you know i mean you can you know it all it takes is creative thinking man you got a lot of talent you're you're uh you're a real talent on the back of the boat you're a real talent with a fly rod in your hand and you know you could look at things like the first thing i thought about when we talked the other day was looking at the golf industry and in the golf industry somebody might have their favorite golfer right and and this guy right now they're not playing golf because they they you know coveted same thing they can't have golf tournaments for a long time and so this guy's like well you know what i'm just gonna accept um where i am i'm gonna do what i can and i'm going to offer for people to send me videos of their swing and i'm going to help them with it and you know it costs whatever it costs and and they're doing it completely online and they're talking to the person a little coaching session and they're communicating with their fans they're getting they're getting a much deeper uh level of communication and and therefore that fan is a fan for life like this guy helped me you know he put 20 yards on my drive like this is incredible but i think that for you like you could do the same thing with fly casting you could you could offer for people to send you videos of fly casting and then you could be a like a coach and i know all of your customers would would would pay for that i mean i think they would but i mean that's just the first uh thought that i had and i'm probably thinking way too small honestly like you could you could do whatever you want in this day and age with the internet and and the technology that we have i just i i think it's completely limitless and i think that you know it's just a matter of you know doing exactly what you're doing you reach out to chris dombrowski you're talking to him like hey what do you think can you reach out to me what do you think and you just keep talking to people and and it's going to become clear for you and and what will become real clear is is um you know when there's when the travel opens back up and the bahamas are back going and and everybody's doing the things that they want to do but i think you're dead on that that you can use this time to not only communicate with the people that already know who you are but but cultivate a whole new a whole new tribe of people that that you know want the me experience and they want they want to uh learn how to do the michael jackson turn and and catch a bunch you know what that usually results in though is people just they they do the turn but they they've got two wraps of line around their their feet and they end up either going in the water or breaking off the fish that they just hook so yeah not everybody can do it like mikko you're right i i had my trial and error time until i got it down [ __ ] up yeah yeah that's something that you do out there by yourself in the boat while you're exploring you know you don't want anybody to see the mishaps so about the casting like tell me about um i mean you're obviously a phenomenal fly caster that's uh that goes along hand in hand with your reputation and then when you see you hold a rod and and use it it's it's very impressive you're very good uh so how did that happen like when did you get a rod in your hand uh as a kid did you just steal one of your your granddad's rods and and take it down or what or was that like a a rite of passage like here's here's the rod go go learn it was more it was it was right in between it was more like i steal the rod and so it was my fa it was my father's rod uh i think i was i was probably 12 years old when i um when i when i grabbed his fly rod so my dad my dad still loved to wait like he he weighed 70 of the time like anyone who loves to just get out of the boat and walk and weigh the fish that's my dad like he love it i mean his car if you see the cops on this on his feet like they like this so so it's something between stealing your your dad's rod and and a rite of passage huh yeah so my dad loves to win and he he would take me on the flats with him right and this one day he waited for a long he goes he goes forever and this i was like i'm not i'm not going i'm going to stay in the boat and you can go and he he always have an extra ride when he goes out now tom back then rod was difficult to get my dad used to get rods when he have a client who had the rod that he didn't use and wanted to give my dad a rot so my dog was very particular with his rocks you you don't mess with his fly rods okay you just don't mess with the fly rod and you know back in the bahamas things change now but back in the days you know we they don't shy away from from putting the belt on you like that we just grew up like that that's just the way it ain't like that now as much but back in the days you know that's what that's how we grew up so anyway he went fishing he went waiting from he went out of sight you know i'm sitting on the boat and tomorrow i've never paid much attention to the bonefish and the way they feed and about 10 bonefish came about 30 feet from the boat where i was and they were tailing i'm talking but digging and i mean feeding and i looked all the way down the flat i barely could have seen my dad i looked in the boat i saw his bra all right and i couldn't resist i i literally i took his rod out and i stripped off a little bit of lines i said i'm gonna do what i see him do i stripped off the line and i whip that rod back and forth a little bit tom and that fly dropped out then before you can say what's that bonefish was on and he was screaming i mean the rear was just screaming and i'm excited i'm afraid at the same time i'm excited excuse me i'm excited to have a boom just but i'm afraid because i'm using my dad rod that i didn't ask him to use and he's far enough away tom when i ordered that fish when i land that fish and i got that fish off i was so excited i ran i ran down the flat i got out the boat and i ran all the way down the flat like that to tell him to let him know that i caught a bone fish on his fly rod and when i told him that i didn't feel the belt or anything across my back or my behind and that was the beginning of it he was excited he was excited for me tom he was more excited for me at that moment than i was for myself and i really believe that was the defining moment for me when it came to hey when it came to this is this is this is it i'm gonna use this rod here for a long time and um that was i didn't get whip for using this rod i think if i had told him i used it didn't get that fit i guarantee you i probably was gonna get there but um he didn't whip me because of that torment that's how that's always start for me i was 12 years old i'll never forget that um run into him just to let him know i got a fish and he was happy instead of upset and that was for me i think that was the beginning of uh me and fly casting and from then i always wanted to get better and better and better at it and so till i end up quite well spinning out of the line and trying to catch with no rod and all that type of stuff and just do that to keep me you got to do things to keep you sharp keep you going i hadn't class in the wild but it's like riding the bike it's like riding the bike something tells you something tells me you're gonna be okay uh something tells me you're gonna be okay so uh you have a young son now and have have you noticed a defining moment like that with your son to that he is all into fishing all of a sudden or has it always been that way so um it's he he um it's always been that way i when he was like 17 months i had you know a little uh buy carry thing you put your kids in yeah well yeah i would put him in that and i would go down along the beach with my fly rod and so he used to be sort of hanging out and i'm casting him you know what i mean and so he he at that age he was sort of around it and the only thing i would do is when i get the phone fish i would sort of hold it up in front of him and a couple of times he tried to put it to his mouth like to eat it and i was like hey you can't eat that um so he was around it for a while but i'll say this tom um for me watching my son about like i don't know if you could recall the last time they had the icast here in orlando yeah but um my son was there as i told you he cast at the cast and pawn okay now for him he didn't have a clue what was going on for me i'm freaking out like whoa i didn't at age 12 i was sneaking trying to get a fish with my dog or not at age 12. he's casting out the icao with like a hundreds of people watching him and for me watching him as a son um i probably took that moment from him but inwardly because i was so proud and i'm thinking oh my god he don't know what's happening like i'm looking at this pool with t and thomas and thomas all these all these brand you know their names on this pool and i'm thinking he don't have a clue what's going on with him but i watched my son um at that show i watched him shot like 55 feet of line um doing a double haul and they have this stuff on youtube by the way so i'm gonna go on youtube and actually see somebody's video but anyway for me i thought i thought that was a defining moment for me now my son just loved the outdoor storm he loved to fish he loves the boat i mean he don't want when i get him out on the boat he don't want to leave like he don't want to go oh one more spot one more fish i was like hey we got to go no there's one more that's the type of kid he is he he loves it um and i think i think just like me it's in his dna um he's gonna do heart he's gonna try he's gonna try other things obviously he's gonna go to school and do what he have to do but i can almost guarantee you um it's it's there he if i tell him leave school now to just stay on the boat he would say okay daddy i'm not going back but obviously i wouldn't do that but yeah tom he he um when he was four he started fly casting he tied flies he tied his first fly when he was four i liked it so much he submitted it he submitted his fly to all this like you know always sells my flies yeah he submitted his fly to orbis also always loved they loved the fact that it was a four-year-old who tied it um uh they love to fly but it's like man we have the same type of fly here so we cannot no we we can't copy this fly but it was like just let him keep tying because he's going to come up with something that they will so he already at age four he submitted a fly to office he started flying casting and so he started a lot earlier i started at 12 he started started uh days three and four but he is um he's a little beast we call it he's a little beast when it comes to the flock and when it comes to fishing so he loves it he he's he's crazy about it yeah well one more in the in the uh pinder glinton uh guide guide uh what do you call it a a a dynasty yeah it's a guide dynasty and and uh there's one more are there any other young males in that uh in in the dynasty making their way up it could be anybody like i don't know why i said young males girls can guide too you know what i there's a couple of ladies on ground bahama that i think has the potential to be great guys um i think tom this brings us to to where i think where i think we need to be the industry needs to be when it comes to our concern about the next generation i i truly believe that um i believe in that i believe we this we we still have a lot of good guys when it comes to this generation when it comes to the next generation tom i think um it's gonna be in the bahamas it's gonna be a little lack of great guides um because there's not a whole lot of young young guys like my son like he's just he's he's aware obviously it's rare because he's crazy about it he's in his blood um but there's not a lot of other kids that um it's is intuitive and i think that's what brings me to one of the passions that i have is to really take the wealth and knowledge that i have in this industry and to make sure that i figure out a way to transfer it to the next generation that's one of the things if you see the plans that i have it's one of the things that i want to do before before i hang it up is to make sure that i help transfer or you know just welter of knowledge over to the next generation that's gonna be so crucial well when we first started this conversation you said you know i didn't study bone fishing in school i didn't do that and and it kind of i almost asked the question right at the beginning like dupe is that something you can study in school in the bahamas now like is there something there or could you create that for for someone to you know for for like even if it's just one class to let kids know like this is an opportunity and there's an opportunity to make a lot of money here and this is how you would get started and just kind of put them on that road um i'm sure that that would be a possibility right yeah tom um you write about it tom i it's it's not in the schools yet um i've i i've tried a little bit i've tried a little bit with um with the ministry of tourism and they were dealing with the ministry of education um but they were sort of channeling it through me and i did i did like they had like a fishing conference uh that they had me to sort of be one of the keynote speakers and i was talking about the vision of really having this in the schools um that that was good for the moment and then you know that's a whole different world that i'm not in when it comes to the politics but it was good for the moment tom and then it sort of it had a big height and then it just sort of dwindled away but i wasn't the person sort of in charge i was just the person that they were using to sort of get this message out there and so what i'm thinking tom what i believe is i think the government he has a lot to deal with there's a lot going on and when it's like that i realize certain things they're not thinking about but um i think from some of the things that i'm trying to do and establish i think um i could easily create a avenue for for that to happen you know whether it's through some of the other stuff that i want to do um i think it's an avenue where i can create either like a fly fishing school a fly fishing class something where kids can come to the meeko whatever or whatever it's called and i you know between me and some of the other professional guys i know david junior my dad even senior who is still alive um you know i have a lot of people around me who have a lot of knowledge and and then i'm i'm involved with bone fishing top and trust you know going fishing top and trust made my son their youth ambassador oh yeah for well yeah yeah he and last year october they made him the youth ambassador for the btt um so i'm i have a relationship with all of those guys and you know tom to to create something uh to cover the whole skill of fishing or fly fishing you do need all those different components you need btt you need to you know they need to know about the environment they need to know about everything and i believe that i have those people around me who would be willing to say hey if you're going to do this we willing to come in and help and i'm glad we're talking about this because for me this is really really important for the government i think it is but i think they just have a lot of stuff that they focus on and this is probably way down the way down the line for them it seems like uh i'm a little confused of why they're the the young kids might not be uh or there might not be a lot of young kids that would be interested in fishing because it just seems like you know guides in the bahamas are kind of really really important people and and um you make a lot of money you know and it seems like that would be you would almost need to be kind of born into it like your son rather than just open to anyone that could could uh you know work their way into being a guide like where would you get a fly rod where would you get all this other stuff uh but why is it that you think that not a lot of kids are are involved right now yeah i don't think they um i don't think they have the knowledge of it enough i think i think they they do they do look at someone like myself and they say hey you know he's doing great you know uh he's you know he's being able to take care of his family and you know and you know have a good enough life i think they're seeing that most of the kids in the outer settlement like mcleanstown and those small little towns where we grew up fishing those are the ones that sort of get into it once you start to get into like the city almost like in the city part of it they sort of a little clueless when it comes to it yeah um so i think it's just a lack of of knowledge in that area i think if they really um if if they were sending me say say prince and they were saying mikko once a month i want you to go to each school once a month and we're gonna have a classroom full of kids and just go and talk to them share about how you know liam neeson and michael keaton and you know just by them knowing that um it sort of caused them to hey let me listen to this young man let me see what's going on i think even as simple as that is tom they hadn't done that yet yeah and i'm wondering if hey uh do i keep waiting for them to do it or do i create a uh you know avenue just probably just like we're doing now yeah and just just talk about it you know yeah well you know you've got so many you got so many great talents and so many uh uh good ideas and uh i have no doubt that that's all gonna become clear for you and you're gonna you're gonna know exactly what to do and i'll tell you what when you do we'll do as many more podcasts to to explain it to people as as we we can because you're you're an awesome guest and and i'd love to be able to help you out in any way i can um but mikko as far as right now goes um how could people follow you how could they learn more about you how could they support anything that you're doing yeah so um most most of my interaction is on facebook so it's miko meko glinton and me ko glinton on facebook so you can find me on facebook um i i am on instagram also and i would do i would do certain things on instagram a lot of photos and i'll try to update people on our instagram and i think you have it i think it's okemo1234 yeah on instagram and um if they want to email me tom if they want to email me they can email me at okm hotmail.com and um once once i get my website completed um i will definitely put that information out there the website would be great because i would be able to put a lot of everything that i'm doing on the website um people will be able to go to the website and get all the information that they need um so so that's where they can find me for now until until i continue to build okay all right well it sounds good miko thank you so much for your time today and uh you've got some great stories and it's just good to reconnect with you and uh if i can do anything for you let me know and uh you have a lot of people on this podcast that would love to support you so um let us know what you're doing all right thank you so much tom i want to say thanks to you again it's good catching up like this and yeah i'm open anytime obviously you can tell i'm a like i'm comfortable that you're a good host so i'm i'm good i appreciate it mikko all right we'll see you later next week we'll have a great guest just like mikko glinton right here see you yes all right see you later