Smart To Fish Wild

This conversation reminded me that sometimes the greatest breakthroughs begin with one small step. Sitting down with Jeffrey Hood, we talked about how fly fishing became much more than a hobby—it became a way to quiet the noise, find hope, and reconnect with what truly matters.

One thought Jeffrey shared has stayed with me: "There's always hope. The next cast could be the one." That idea extends far beyond fishing. Whether you're navigating stress, chasing a dream, rebuilding after a difficult season, or simply looking for more peace in your everyday life, hope begins when you're willing to take the next step.

In this episode, we discuss:

🎣Why slowing down can be one of the most powerful things you do for your mental health.

🎣How confidence is built by facing challenges instead of avoiding them.

🎣The importance of protecting the wild places that restore us.

🎣Why experiences—not destinations—are what shape our lives.

My hope is that this conversation encourages you to pick up that fly rod, lace up your hiking boots, dust off that guitar, or simply make time for the thing that fills your soul. Sometimes that's all it takes to begin changing your life.

Forget the stuffy boardrooms and forced icebreakers. If you want true team connection and clear-headed motivation, you need to swap the slide decks for fly rods and get out onto the water.

On this episode of Smart To Fish Wild, I sit down with James and Lisa Parker, the powerhouse married duo behind Sacred Arbor Anglers. They shared the hilarious (and highly un-PC) story of how a college sports injury first brought them together 38 years ago, and how they eventually joined forces to revolutionize the fly fishing industry.

We dive deep into how they are pioneering "Reel and Ride" e-bike fly fishing experiences, expanding world-class destination travel packages to places like Patagonia and Puerto Rico, and disrupting traditional corporate events by prioritizing genuine, inclusive human connection over everything else.

Here’s a little taste of what we talked about:

🎣On True Hospitality: "People always remember how you make them feel. Yeah, it's one thing you caught the fish, but the whole experience of how [we] made you feel... that's what's really important." – Lisa Parker

🎣On Stepping Away from the Noise: "People want, although they love to be connected, they need to be disconnected... They want to be out. They want to be in nature. They want to do breakouts around a campfire and not an individual meeting room." – Lisa Parker

🎣On Presence and Passion: "How to enjoy when you're not catching fish, how to enjoy what we have in front of us... Just being present in the moment, and I think that's where fly fishing gives us an opportunity to be present." – James Parker

Whether you are a seasoned angler or have never touched a fly rod in your life, James and Lisa are proof that the best business—and life—lessons are learned when you step outside.

If you take water away from me, it would be the equivalent of taking water away from a plant—I would just wither over time. That’s why I left behind a varied career in filmmaking, advertising, and even running a fly fishing lodge to take on the biggest, most rewarding challenge of my life as the Executive Director of the Madison River Foundation.

The Madison River is one of the most iconic rivers in the country. It’s the lifeblood of our local economy and a critical resource for seven other states downstream. But keeping a river healthy isn’t about waiting for things to break and reacting to a crisis; it’s about staying ahead of Mother Nature through water quality monitoring, side channel restoration, and building strong relationships with local private landowners and ranchers.

In this episode, we dive deep into what it really takes to manage a million-dollar nonprofit budget to protect a world-class fishery, how conservation and fly fishing can sometimes be at odds, and why staying proactive is the only way to save the spaces we love.

Key Takeaways:

🎣The Power of Proactive Work: If you don't continuously work to maintain a healthy system, it falls apart. It’s like skipping your car's oil changes for ten years—by the time you react, a minor fix becomes a catastrophic problem.

🎣Beyond Our Backyard: What happens on the Madison River doesn't happen in a vacuum. It meets the Jefferson and Gallatin to form the Missouri River, impacting thousands of people across seven states before hitting the ocean.

🎣"The Tug is the Drug": Why standing in a river waving a stick remains the ultimate fix, even when managing a river leaves less time for actual fishing.

We’ve all been there—you head out for an incredible weekend on the water with your best friends, and the only proof you have down the road is a blurry phone selfie or a classic "grip and grin" photo that gets permanently buried in your camera roll.

On this episode of Smart To Fish Wild, I’ve got my good friend Mike Weed on the show. Mike is a lifelong fly fisherman and the brilliant mind behind Fish Stories Publishing. He’s completely reinventing how we remember our days on the river by turning full-scale fishing adventures into premium, beautiful, high-end tabletop coffee books.

We talk about everything from growing up backpacking in the backcountry to the time our mutual buddy Mike took an unexpected dive into the Blue River while keeping a massive trout pinned to the line! As Mike says:

"We don't really tell much of a story beyond just sort of having a few photos... to have a coffee table book of that experience... that's really what Fish Stories Publishing is about."

It’s about capturing the hunt, the landscape, the campfires, and even the heartbreaking moments of the massive "one that got away." Plus, stick around until the end where I dive into how intentional financial planning can help passionate anglers give back even more to the conservation and non-profits they care about most.

If you take water away from me, it would be the equivalent of taking water away from a plant—I would just wither over time. That’s why I left behind a varied career in filmmaking, advertising, and even running a fly fishing lodge to take on the biggest, most rewarding challenge of my life as the Executive Director of the Madison River Foundation.

The Madison River is one of the most iconic rivers in the country. It’s the lifeblood of our local economy and a critical resource for seven other states downstream. But keeping a river healthy isn’t about waiting for things to break and reacting to a crisis; it’s about staying ahead of Mother Nature through water quality monitoring, side channel restoration, and building strong relationships with local private landowners and ranchers.

In this episode, Keith Brauneis and I dive deep into what it really takes to manage a million-dollar nonprofit budget to protect a world-class fishery, how conservation and fly fishing can sometimes be at odds, and why staying proactive is the only way to save the spaces we love.

Key Takeaways:

🎣The Power of Proactive Work: If you don't continuously work to maintain a healthy system, it falls apart. It’s like skipping your car's oil changes for ten years—by the time you react, a minor fix becomes a catastrophic problem.

🎣Beyond Our Backyard: What happens on the Madison River doesn't happen in a vacuum. It meets the Jefferson and Gallatin to form the Missouri River, impacting thousands of people across seven states before hitting the ocean.

🎣"The Tug is the Drug": Why standing in a river waving a stick remains the ultimate fix, even when managing a river leaves less time for actual fishing.

Listen to the full conversation here

When you spend enough time out on the water, you quickly realize that the river is one of the best teachers for handling the complexities of business. That truth came alive in my recent chat with Adam Lynch, a Benefits Consultant at CUI Benefits from Salt Lake City.

We dive deep into why one rigid option is rarely the best answer—whether you are dealing with a picky trout during a caddis hatch or trying to control rising employee healthcare costs. Adam breaks down how custom "captive insurance" acts just like a midday adjustment on your fly rig, giving businesses the agility to adapt on the fly. We also get real about the modern pressures of social media on our natural resources, the shift toward non-toxic fishing, and why true conservation means respecting the waters we love.

"After 40 years as a contractor in the construction industry, I was totally burned out and ready for my next chapter. I told my wife I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing what I've always loved: being a fly fishing guide for bass."

In this episode, I sit down with Alex Gutherie of Fly Fish Fork, to share his journey of pioneering fly fishing on Lake Fork Reservoir—a brutal, humbling lake full of highly educated fish. We dive deep into the artistry of the "dance" of fly fishing, the unique heavy deer-hair flies and custom leaders he ties, and why he traded conventional tournament gear for light tackle.

But it's not all just about catching fish. We also tackle some critical conservation issues affecting our man-made lakes, from the unintended damage of shoreline weed spraying to the alarming reality of bass mortality rates after major tournaments.

"We have to be a lot more thoughtful about how we're doing these things, or we're not gonna have them in the future."

I had an incredible conversation on the latest episode of Smart To Fish Wild with Spencer Kaehler, Co-Founder & COO at Ananke Asset Management, and the founder of Get Out Networking. Spencer has a fascinating background, transitioning from the intense, fast-paced world of the Chicago trading pits during the financial crisis into the cutting-edge space of tokenized digital finance. But what I love most about Spencer’s story is how his professional "adapt or die" mentality perfectly mirrors his passion for fly fishing.

We dove deep into:

🎣The Trading & Fishing Overlap: Why grinding through a tough day on the market is exactly like waiting out an open hole in a frozen canyon.

🎣Get Out Networking: How he’s bringing professionals away from the boardroom and into the wild for unforgettable, off-the-grid adventures.

🎣The Next Generation & Conservation: The unmatched magic of getting our kids away from cell phones, out on a drift boat, and why we must protect these waters for the generations to come.

Spencer is incredibly articulate, and his take on merging outdoor passions with professional life is something every outdoorsman needs to hear.

We often get caught up in the modern, gritty, social-media-perfect version of fly fishing—the massive 25-inch brown trout in a far-flung corner of Patagonia. But what happened to the quiet, native magic of catching bluegills at a local park with a cheap fiberglass rod?

In this episode, I sit down with writer, storyteller, and Orvis Endorsed Network Manager Reid Bryant to unpack how the evolution of outdoor media impacts everyday anglers, what truly differentiates world-class sporting lodges (hint: it's all about intentionality), and how authentic hospitality can make a remote cabin feel like home. We also dig into our shared passion for conservation and how immersive outdoor education is the ultimate tool for preserving the wild spaces we love.

I really appreciate how open Reid was about his own experiences, noting that he often worries modern media can actually detract from the native magic someone feels as they develop their own relationship with these activities. As he beautifully reminded me during our chat, it simply doesn't have to be grand all the time for it to be a massive win.

I had a fascinating conversation with Ned Wells, an Oxford-based marketing director and host of The Impact Files podcast, exploring how an analytical engineering mindset bridges fly fishing and sustainable business strategy.

Ned shares his lifelong passion for stalking wild brown trout on Southwest England's River Dart. He explains how the optimism required on the water directly maps to his work helping organizations balance near-term profit with long-term environmental and social purpose. We also dive deep into the pressing issue of river pollution in the UK and why finance is such a powerful lever for ecological change.

While my day job is all about efficiency and process, my favorite pursuit is intentionally anything but. I couldn't help but laugh when thinking about the realities of the sport: ""If the job in hand was to catch fish, you might not choose fly fishing... There are going to be some more efficient ways of collecting fish, but nothing more fun or rewarding.""

As Ned rightly pointed out, it's that exact sense of optimism and reward that keeps us wading back into the stream.

Smart To Fish Wild: Hosted by Mark Candler, Smart To Fish Wild explores the intersection of outdoor adventure, impactful leadership, and financial strategy. We interview founders, CEOs, and pioneers who are changing the world through their passion for the outdoors.

Connect with us:

Website: www.maiawealth.com

Instagram: @mark.candler

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-b-candler-mba-cltc/

Mark Candler / Silver Oak Wealth Planning: www.SilverOakColorado.com

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