I'm Travis Bader and this is The
Silvercore Podcast.
Join me as I discuss matters related to
hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits
with the people in businesses that comprise
of the community.
If you're a new to Silvercore, be sure to
check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca where
you can learn more about courses, services, and
products that we offer.
As well as how you can join The Silvercore Club,
which includes 10 million in North America wide
liability insurance, to ensure you are properly
covered during your outdoor adventures.
This week I speak with April Vokey of Anchored
Outdoors, Flygal and MeatEater fame.
We discuss her humble beginnings growing up in
the Lower Mainland of BC.
And how she took her passion for fishing to
become one of the most renowned authorities and
celebrities in her field.
Don't forget to like comment and subscribe so
that you don't miss any of the exciting podcasts
that we have lined up.
So today I'm joined by a home grown
Canadian fishing legend and proprietor of
AnchoredOutdoors.com, April Vokey.
Hello!
Welcome to The Silvercore Podcast.
Thank you.
Now, I'm really excited to be chatting with you.
I mean, we've known each other for a while, we
text and chat back and forth, usually about
work related things.
And I figured that why not use this as
an opportunity to get to know you a
little bit better.
Yeah.
It's, it's long overdue and it's so cool to see
you in your recording studio right now.
Cause I feel like I, I've been there.
I've been in your guys' home and I've seen
all your cool toys.
Well, you know, this whole recording studio
is a work in progress, but yeah, if it wasn't
for COVID, I would've loved to been doing
this face to face.
Yeah.
Well, it'll happen.
Again.
It'll happen.
Yeah.
For the listeners sake, I'm just going to give
a little bit of an intro here and then we'll kind
of get things rolling.
So in what would seem like a relatively short
period time you've been on the Steve Harvey show,
you've been on 60 minutes with Bill Whitaker.
You've had shows on the Outdoor Life Network on
the Discovery Channel.
You've hosted your own show, Shorelines,
you've been involved with MeatEater, you're
a brand ambassador for Yeti and Patagonia.
You've got over 125,000 people following your,
every move on Instagram.
And now you are running your
burgeoning enterprise AnchoredOutdoors.com and
it deals with fishing and hunting and foraging
and homesteading.
And I know you've done a lot of podcasts and
shows and talked about the whole fishing side
and as much as I'd love to talk about that, and
I'm sure the listeners would be interested
in that they can go to AnchoredOutdoors.com
and they can learn about that.
I mean, there's even a Pacific Northwest
Fishing course there that they can take it.
There is.
Remember?
Right?
Look it up.
I know, I think he learned all the
tips and tricks.
I guess what I'd like to really talk about
is how you took your passion for the outdoors
and for fishing and you've turned this into
a burgeoning multimedia empire and community.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's really cool.
I mean, we just live in February.
The show has been active for six years now, but
it was time to take it to the next level.
And so it's, you know, it's, to me,
it is a community.
In so many more ways than just our members, but
often, obviously also the contributors as well.
It's just been a long time coming and I'm
very proud of it.
When I'm looking at that community is a
big word that stands out to me because I
look at the people that are interacting.
I look at the people that are learning on Anchored
Outdoors, cause you've got your Masterclasses,
which are really cool.
And you're right in there with them too.
I mean, you're learning alongside of the people
in the community, how to use a bow drill
and make a fire.
And what's the one that's going on right now?
You're tanning.
Fish leather!
Yeah.
That's crazy.
All these, all these skills, you know, it
was like, okay, I could.
I just got exhausted, trying to constantly
find these classes.
There's you can go to Masterclass.com and
they've got a million amazing classes on, on
a number of different topics, but nothing that
interested me, there were no hunter gatherer
courses, outdoor classes.
I mean, I think Tony Hawk and the gardening
guy were probably the closest thing that
appealed to me there.
So I, I was, it was well to find a couple online
courses here and there, but they were all in
various websites and I thought, you know what,
I'm going to I'm going to take all these classes
and put them under one roof and really be the
outdoor masterclass.com.
And so that's what AnchoredOutdoors.com
is very quickly evolving into.
And you got some big names on there, too.
Some well talented people.
Josh Niland.
Yeah.
There's a big name.
They've got to be the best in that.
And for anglers, sorry to cut you off, it's
just so exciting.
Like even Steve Rajeff, the world casting.
Yeah.
Distance champion, like he's, he's on
board and right now.
We've got a camera man up North doing
Bob Clay, bamboo rod building masterclass.
And it's just, it's really cool because
everyone who, most of the instructors have
been on the show.
And so we've gotten to know them and I
think this is what's so special about it.
Yes, we, they're the best in the business,
of course we want to know their skillset, but
how cool is it to learn what they're teaching
after we've heard their story, where they
were born and raised?
Why are they like that?
Why are they so ambitious?
And really be able to have their voice
resonate with us?
Because we know who they are.
It just to me, it's a richer, it's a real
rich environment and it's the community that
I would want to be a part of and so that's
what we're doing.
So you built it.
You said this is a community I want.
Done.
I'll build, I'll build it myself.
Yeah.
So speaking about born and raised, you were
born and raised in my hometown of Surrey,
British Columbia.
?? Surrey, what!?
See, I was Newton has more of a Newton guy.
Well we were, we were Newton first.
We were on 129th street, yeah, that's right.
6336 129th street.
Actually, first we were Delta and then
we went Newton and then we upgraded into,
up into Fleetwood.
Right, okay.
Yeah, so you were actually, I
didn't know that.
You, you weren't too far from me.
Yeah.
I was about 132nd and number 10.
Yeah.
That's sort of where I grew up.
When people look at your CV and I, and I
only touched on a couple of things in there.
There's a lot of things that you've done.
Coming from humble beginnings, how
did you do that?
You just said, Hey, I really like fishing,
I know let's just, let's get 125,000
followers on Instagram and just start rolling.
Like, where did it start?
Oh man.
Where did it start?
Well, it started with having to
grow the passion.
You know, and, and that was instilled in me
at a really young age.
You know, a lot of people have already
heard the story about my, my parents don't
really fish, but we did a lot of, we did do
some weekend trips out to Chilliwack or, you
know, we would go into the interior and go on
those old stinky boats and troll worms around.
And up behind Panorama park actually,the
elementary school back in the day.
Just up into the right of our house.
It used to be all before it was developed, it was
all acreage in there and it was full of ponds and
so I would go on my bike.
This is back when you could let your kid do
whatever they wanted, so I would take my
mom's nylons, the good old days, take
my mom's nylons and a hanger and go and catch
frogs and salamanders, and then bring them
back into our pool.
And that was really what got me excited,
you know, catching all these slimy creatures
and then obviously going fishing, seeing the
salmon, learning that salmon can, they need
to come through a river.
That's what, like 20 feet wide.
Then surely we can intercept them, you know,
the mathematics work and so that was where
it really all started.
And then from there it was, you know, I'm gonna,
I'll skip past all the, the rigmarole that goes
in between, so, you know, school in Surrey
was, it got interesting.
And I was rolling with rough, rough crowd.
Right, right.
And so I would, choose to escape by going fishing.
And it was able to give me that sense of
wild and the rebellion that I really needed
without sniffing, you know, starting cocaine
or being promiscuous.
And so when my friends, when my friends were
going to party at night, I would party too.
But then, you know, I needed to get out of
there at a decent hour cause I needed to A
sleep or B get to the river before sun up.
So fishing was really, I will forever acredit
fishing or credit fishing, to being
my saving grace and what kept me out of
trouble growing up.
You just had a passion for that, but I know
a lot of people who've got a passion for
what they do, making it into a business.
I mean, you just jumped out and said,
I know I'm going to start guiding now.
I really like fishing, let me get, let me turn
my passion to work.
Well, it was more than passion.
You know, passion is really loving
something like really loving something.
Maybe you eat, sleep, breathe it for me, it
was, it was the only thing that kept me
grounded, but also I really attribute it
to keeping me alive.
I really, really do.
So for me, it was just a necessity.
I had to fish.
If I didn't go fishing or just be outside,
right, be out in, in the river and obviously if
you're out there, you may as well go fishing.
I was not gonna, I was going to end up like my
friends or ending up and, and a lot of them, it
was in really bad places.
So for me, it was like I need to be outside
okay, but I also need to make money.
And so I was, I guess at that point I was
still, that's right I was still busing
tables at Olive Garden.
Actually, it was started as busing tables at
Earl's and then it was, and then it was
Red Robin, I was in Guilford and then it was.
Yeah.
And then it was Olive Garden, that was when
I became really, really sick in the head.
And I guess it would have been before Olive Gar-
sorry, I do it by, I had a high school boyfriend.
And so at that point, yeah, that would have
been still, really early days, just after Earl's.
So like, you know, 16, 17, 18 years old and
going out to the river after, after work.
Okay.
And it became kind of, I was stuck between a
rock and a hard place because eventually I
would want to, you know, I'd want to work nights
and I'd also want to go fishing in the day.
And I was starting to get burnt out because I
would end up basically not getting any sleep.
You know, I pull over on the side of the road and
I had sleep or I'd sleep in my car in the middle
of a, of a fishing day.
But long story short, I just needed to
make a, I needed to cut something out.
And I knew I didn't want to be a busser or
eventually a cocktail waitress forever.
Right.
Which is, you know, what I ended up doing.
And I thought, well, okay, what do I,
what do I want to do?
I've always wanted to be a businesswoman since I
was like, two years old.
Probably like, honestly like three or four
years old, I wanted to be a business woman.
And the only thing I really loved was, was
fishing and it was all I wanted to do.
So I thought, well, I better make a business
at fishing and how am I going to do that?
Well, I need to be good.
So how do you get good?
You've got to do it all the time.
And then how do you promote?
Well, people need to know who you are and
then it was all this amazing, perfect timing
with social media.
It was when you know, I was doing it before
Facebook, but when Facebook came out,
I saw an opportunity and I grabbed it,
you know, right, wrong or otherwise.
I mean, we've all made mistakes growing up and
I've done some really stupid things and said
a lot of stupid things.
And people who are from our hometown are
listening right now and going, Oh, she was,
she has got a mouth on her, you know, I've
done, doner and said a lot of stupid things.
But at the end of the day, I use social media
to help drive my career, and the rest is history.
I got to imagine, today's day and age, in
the commercial guiding fishing world, you
see a lot of women, not so much back when
you were doing it.
Oh yeah, no.
No.
So that must've been, man that must've
been difficult.
Well, it was, and it wasn't, I did it
to myself in a lot of ways, you know.
I, yes, like the number, there weren't,
there were no women.
So, you know, Kathy Reddick was, was an OG.
So Kathy was there, Denise Maxwell.
Right.
A handful of, of other women, Adrienne Comeau,
my best friend, she was, she was getting
started at the time she was working at Michael
and Young's fly shop, but I was still cocktail
waitressing every night at the casino in Langley.
And, and for me that was a business, you
know, I made my own hours, I went in.
To me, it was like rented space, right?
You've got you work as many hours as you want,
you've got rented space.
You hustle as hard as you need to, you go
with a budget or a goal.
I need to make 400 bucks in tips tonight.
I've got to hustle, hustle, hustle.
I need to be out of here by two or three,
because I want to be first thing on the
river, blah, blah, blah.
And so I, to hustle, unfortunately, there's
a certain book that makes you more money.
I mean, I feel like I was split, I was
like split testing back at the casino, it
was like A/B testing.
Okay, so what's going to get me more money.
Does my hair, this color work?
I mean, I just, I made way more money
as a blonde, to be totally honest and.
Really?
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, and, and, and the dress code was
we had to have nice hands and I was a really
keen Sturgeon Fisher.
And actually, even at that, at some point
a guide and my hands were full of bait,
crusty, you know, procure or just even
like crusty stink bait.
Right.
And so I had to have, I had to cover them
cause you're dealing with chips right?
Like I, even though I was cocktail serving,
you're still, people are handing you chips and
you're giving chips back.
Right.
And so the code dress code was you had to
have nice, nicely manicured nails.
And so for the only way for me to have nice
hands was I had to have fake nails to cover
my disgusting hands.
And, and so then get off work at, you
know, 3:30, 4:30.
It depended on what shift I was on, but usually I
worked the 10:30 to 4:30 shift, and then I go
straight to the river.
Well, I'm not going to take my, I don't
have time to take my makeup off, I gotta
get to the river.
I'm in a bloody, bloody hurry and.
Yeah.
I still got my nylons on and my hair is all
done and my nails all did, you know, so for, I
just, I looked a certain way and, and for a lot
of, you know, especially guiding my first year
of guiding, I was so excited to guide for
Sturgeon on the Fraser.
And admittedly, I worked for a different company
at the time and they kind of just threw me a
jet boat and they were like, here, use this for
guiding your boyfriend will train you at the
time that the timing.
My boyfriend didn't train me.
Shit.
You know.
Yeah.
When we were on the boat, we were fishing.
We weren't training me.
And so I didn't know how to run a boat very well.
And my truck that I had bought for guiding
season was a lemon and I didn't know this.
So when I brought it into Craftsman Collision in
Chilliwack the owner, the owner there was like
here, your frame's bent, but I'll tell you what
you can use my Hummer for guiding, or like for
whatever you need to do.
And I needed something to.
Wow.
That could tow a boat.
Yeah.
But it's one of those new Hummers I'm still
working because I would work all night and
then guide all day.
So I'm still going straight from the casino,
now to the river for my, for my first guiding
year, really in a jet boat with a Hummer.
And of course my employee at the time
has decked out the jet boat with like pink
deckels right, or decals, with his company name.
Of course people are staring.
And then I'm this complete dipshit who
doesn't know how to like, get, you ever been to
island 22 in the morning, trying to back your
boat up at 8:00 AM with the rest of the guys?
All the clients are staring at you.
All the guides are staring at you
and you're, you're learning as you go.
Right.
So, you know, and then of course it's, you're
embarrassed and you're insecure and you young,
you're young and you say stupid things and
yeah, it was rough the first little bit.
But, yeah, so anyway, all of that to bring
back to your point about social media.
Yeah, there were not a lot of women back
then, and I'm sure that if I had looked
a different way, I would probably have
been better received.
So who knows if the, what I was receiving
was based on me being a woman, or just based on
the fact that I looked very much out of place.
Hmm.
You mentioned being insecure when you're
learning through that process there.
And that's a word that I wouldn't ascribe to you,
in the entire time I've known you insecure is
not one of those words.
Is that something you just had to learn
really quick to have a thick skin or have you
been fairly headstrong most your life?
Yeah, no, I've definitely been head strong,
strong all my life.
And I wouldn't say I am an insecure person, but
I, I can be insecure about certain skills
that I know that I have not put the time
in to be good at.
And in that case, or about certain, like I'm
insecure right now about the size of my bum, like
you're allowed to be insecure about things
and it doesn't make you an insecure person.
And so I, in my opinion, anyway, that's
how I justify it.
No I agree
. On the boat launch.
I was really in secure for sure.
And just really nervous, really, really nervous
about all the eyes on me that I didn't
necessarily want.
Like, I, I, I don't know if I, I definitely didn't
want that much attention.
That's one thing if your shit hot, you know?
Right.
Yeah, look at me now!
But when, when you're just learning, you
know, please just stop watching, please!
You know, and everybody wants to come and
offer an opinion and you're like, yeah,
but you just, you're just making it worse.
Like I just need figure it out.
Just go away, I know.
It's, I'm sure everyone's had that one.
I think family guy had a good clip of Peter
Griffin tried to back a boat into a boat launch.
He basically just ends up running it
back and forward.
Good to go.
Yeah.
I didn't have any crazy, I had one stoop
like I had, I've done.
No, I take that back.
I didn't a couple of stupid things.
I was not a great Sturgeon guide, but that,
that actually was great for me to learn because.
It wasn't so much, even that I wasn't a great
Sturgeon guide, it was that I didn't care to be
a great Sturgeon guide.
And that's, that's what it came down to for
me, that was really the first step in
being a business owner.
So I always have believed that you need to do what
you love and if it's not in business than it
is, it's in life, but you need to be happy.
That's really important to me.
And it's the foremost, it leads my whole life
and, and my business.
And for me, it was like, okay, I did want a guide.
I did.
And I'm doing it because this is what guides do in
the Fraser Valley right?
Right.
But then why do I not like it?
And then I started doing Salmon trips and I was
like, ah, I'm into this.
I'm really into this.
And then I started doing Steelhead trips and that
was me, that was it.
It was just, that was what I wanted to do.
And there was a handful of Steelhead
trips available through the company
I was working for.
And I just thought it was time to branch out
to do my own thing.
I wanted to do more Steelhead trips my way.
So that's exactly what I did, I started Flygal.
I had had Flygal cause I was a sales rep at the
time and I use Flygal as my business for
write-offs and stuff, but ended up turning it
into my guiding operation and really that life was
never the same again.
So everything you've done is basically
school of hard knocks.
You didn't have any business schooling
behind you.
No, no, definitely not.
My yes, school of hard knocks 110%, but my mom
is a, is a very, very savvy business woman.
That helps.
Yeah.
She and, and not, I wouldn't even,
more in like the administrative side.
Right?
So like to this day, my mom helps me
with, I'm all about numbers and crunching.
So to this day, I'm like, mom, I'm having
a really hard time with my spreadsheet.
Can you please help me with my projections?
And so she's kind of been, always been my
little, like my coder and it's cool because
we work together.
So I have always really been in marketing and I
remember my mom telling me when I was in high
school, you are, you need to go into marketing.
And I was just like, that's just
such a stupid name.
Like what's marketing.
It sounds like you're going shopping
on a weekend.
No, I just, I didn't want to go into marketing.
I should have, I guess I did end up going into
marketing actually.
You did go into marketting!
I did go to marketing mom.
Mothers know best.
Yes.
Yeah and she, and so I, she would come home upset
about things at work.
She was the big buyer.
She was in Langley, but now she was,
she's retired now, but she was the head
buyer for the city of Chilliwack, or she was
first head buyer at Langley then Chilliwack.
And she would come all upset from the guys at
work because she also, she was the big wig and
dealing with a lot of those guys, and gals.
There was a lot of stuff that she
had to go through.
And so she'd sit down and together I would help
her craft her emails.
To go to her, whoever it is, who's given
her a difficult time.
And so I learned a lot through business
by helping my mom through her business.
And then my mom would also help me with mine.
So to this day we still do work together
and, and I'm forever indebted to my mom.
So yes, it was hard knocks, but it was hard
knocks with the support of a wonderful family.
That is so cool.
That's so cool.
It's good that you had that, but you know, even
having all the support out there, you still
have to take it upon yourself to accept that
support and, and start pushing it forward.
When we talk about marketing, you've been
very, very successful in marketing yourself
and marketing the brand.
And you've done it, I mean, there's a few ways
that people can market themselves and you've
done it in a way that's very true to yourself.
I think anyways, from, from, from my position,
looking in, you can watch the Instagram
posts of people and there's surefire
ways to get likes.
And the entire process, from my
perspective anyways, has been very honest.
Like you're basically, you're, you're laying
it out there and it seems to have been
really well received.
Well to me I mean, integrity is
everything, right?
So if you're not true to your word, then
what have you got left?
And I've, I really, really believe in that.
And so you also need to remembe,r when I started
using social media and just Facebook, because
Instagram was, I mean, we all were like Instagram,
none of us were going to join Instagram, but
Facebook, it was really provocative to post a
grip and grim photo in a tight fitting cardigan.
It was different back then.
So even when I would go from the casino
and I had like, I had this REI, or I guess
mountain equipment co-op, thermal shirt
that was bright fuchsia.
And because I dare wore a pink scarf to stay
warm on the Thompson that was provocative,
or the fact that my hair looked combed.
That was provocative.
Right.
It was different then.
Now, it's almost like it's like watching
movies and media, right?
You have to just go more, more shock factor.
Right.
And I feel like social media now, everyone's
constantly trying to push the limit and for
me, because that's just never been in my DNA.
It's just not, like I was already made
to feel really, not guilty, but aware
of being provocative with a pink scarf.
So the thought of even thinking to take
my clothes off or do some of the ridiculous
things that we're seeing people do on Instagram
now, that just doesn't register with me.
Right.
Now, I'm not against it, in a lot of way, in
a lot of ways I am, in a lot of ways I'm not.
But you know, it's funny.
I give grief to people on my pack podcasts
all the time, quietly, maybe subtly, just about
being an influencer.
But it hit me the other day.
I was like, it really is no difference.
I use my social media, to yes share my life and
grow community for sure.
And I've made some wonderful relationships,
but I also use it to promote my business.
Now, why do I want to promote my business?
Because I genuinely believe in my product.
And I genuinely believe that it helps people and
builds better community.
It's so win, win, win, win.
Right.
But, but is that any different to the person
who's using it to sell product as an influencer
that they also believe will help people's lives?
So, you know, it's a real sticky subject
social media.
I think the big thing, and my mom said to me
the other day, she was like, how are you doing
balancing your, showing your life versus your
business on social.
Right.
And, and she was like, do you not get
any complaints that you've been promoting
your business?
And I was like, but mom the reality is
like, I want to share my life, but I'm also
not in the business of just, here look at how
awesome my life is.
Look at how great I am, look at how
much fun I have.
And, and, and just because, you know what
I mean, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in business.
It's like, of course I want you to follow me so
that I can inspire you and we can get to know
each other or we can take a course together,
but I am not in the business of being like,
look at how awesome I am.
My life is just so wonderful.
Well that just alienates people.
Right.
It might be fun to look at, but over the
longterm, I think that just alienates people.
So I think staying real, as much as I want to be
like, yes, I'm definitely authentic because I want
everybody to feel real and authentic, at the
end of the day I also believe it's just part of
business as being real.
So it's one in the same one in the same to me.
Well, one of my, and it's, I think it's a
lot of people quite liked this one post
that you put out there.
Do you want to talk about Martin?
Oh yeah.
My cigarette ball
It's got nothing to do with, with fishing.
It's got nothing to do with, but it
has a lot to do.
Community.
With you.
Yeah.
Well, it's got a lot to do with tenacity as
well and perseverance and dedication.
Can you tell, tell us about Martin?
Yeah,
So I, I was always the girl in school
when I, when I went to Ember Creek, that
was where I did my.
10 11, 12, Ember Creek.
I was a girl walking down the hallway and I I'm
very proud to this day that I knew everybody.
Like the guy, the Asian kid in the corner, Gavin,
who didn't speak to Mark in the band room, who
people didn't even think could speak English.
Every single person in that school, I knew
and, and really enjoyed watching everybody come
together to do great.
And the teachers I'm sure I was paying in the ass.
Like we didn't have a female football league,
so I rallied all the girls up and made
it really difficult for them to say no.
And I was the one trying to organize walkouts and,
you know, I was that.
Good for you.
I was that girl, but I loved community.
And one of the things that very quickly
became this communal, this communal thing was
this, this I had started making named Martin.
And so with back then it was this thing where like
you could take cigarette tinfoil and I don't
smoke, so I don't know if it's the same, but you
would, you know, today, but you would peel the
paper off of the tinfoil and it would have this
bit of adhesive on it.
And so you would use your hands to
roll it into a ball.
And I had heard that you could sell
it for 500 bucks.
So I was very excited about making, I needed
500 bucks who doesn't need 500 bucks.
I mean, my car at the time was worth 500 bucks.
So I was, I was set on getting this ball and,
I can't remember why he was named Martin.
Oh, that's right cause my dad plays guitars and he
was all about the Martin.
The Martin, yeah.
And so we had Martin and everybody who smoked
would start to bring me these tinfoil pieces.
And I went to school every day with a, like
the, you know, the street what's that
chocolate, it's like the something streets,
chocolates at Christmas.
It's like this, it looks like this.
It's this tall, big container of like.
Tobelrone?
Well, it's like quality chocolate that you get.
Okay.
Anyway, that you get at Christmas time and
so even the kids would even pass it around and
be like, here, let me take it for lunch and
they'd go and fill it up.
And I would spend a bunch of time at lunch,
out there in the field, picking up all these
tinfoil bits and the teachers got to know
Martin and the cafeteria tables had this kind of
like an orange peel top.
So I would, I would carry a spoon in my pocket and
I would constantly be rolling cause I can't
sit still I'm, I, I just have I'm one of those
people will drive you crazy cause I can't stop.
Yeah.
And so in class I could stay moving by rolling
Martin and then I would roll him on the
cafeteria table and bang him down with my spoon
and really compact him.
And everybody was fascinated.
I mean, I had teachers given me tinfoil, so,
and Ember Creek is to blame for Martin who I
didn't end up selling and gave to my dad.
And now he's the size of.
He's like half the size of my face and.
That's huge!
Totally hard.
He's like fully hard, he's like concrete.
Yeah.
And if people want to see it, just go on
the, on the Instagram account, check it out.
It's a, yeah, but to me that's a lot
of perseverance and the fact that you're
doing it to make $500, that's much better.
That's that's the entrepreneurial
spirit right there.
Yeah.
At a young age, I was told I had ADHD and a
few other things and, you know, bouncing
off the walls, always doing something.
I can appreciate that.
I don't know if I got ADHD, but it was,
maybe I do, maybe I don't, I don't know.
But it is something that I've seen in
other entrepreneurs, is this constant drive.
This constant need to keep pushing forward.
Is that something that you would attribute to
your constant need to keep pushing forward?
And do you get, do you get bored after
a while and say, I got to do something
completely different now.
Whoa.
Well, I don't know what the word board means,
but yes, if I ever start feel like I may
be getting what I assume is bored, then yes, I go
and do something else.
So there there's nothing scarier to me than
a human being board.
Totally.
I mean, we have books, this thing
called books, right?
Let's be like, you can literally be quote
unquote, board, and decide tomorrow to learn
an entirely separate, like a new language.
Right.
There's is zero excuse to be bored.
And you know, I don't, I'm not a doctor.
And I don't know anything about ADD or ADHD,
but it's interesting in reading certain
studies and people who are passionate
about primitive skills and hunter gatherer
skills, a lot of people will say that that
is a genetic thing.
You know, something from our ancestry where we
were, you needed to be constantly aware and
not be able to focus on one thing necessarily,
while out in the bush even just to stay alive.
So there's a lot of interesting theories on
the whole ADHD thing.
What about getting into something like, you
really got into fly fishing and getting
typecasted as, Hey, she's the one that fly
fishes, no gear for her.
Or do you find it difficult to, to not
get constrained by the business that
you're building?
Yeah, all the time.
I'm constantly put in a box, which is hard
because I did not start out fly fishing.
I started out, I was a spoon angler, tenfold,
you know, and, and I would be sitting there
at night, procuring my bait and cutting up
squid legs and constantly playing with different
colored cures and borax and all that stuff.
And I'm still really into that, you know, I
still like to live bait.
I live part of the year in Australia,
fish a bunch of soft plastics and live baits
and all these other thing, lures and yeah,
it's hard for me to get out of that box.
I know people really like to put me in a
box and again, a lot of it's self-inflicted,
but you know, the one thing that's nice about
anchor dot doors is it's not about April Vokey.
Right.
Yeah.
Which was a big, very cognitive decision
years ago that I knew that I had to, I didn't
want to, I had made the mistake of building a
business around myself and that was a dead end.
And I knew that I needed to take the
next step forward and, and to be an, I was
just more fulfilled.
I didn't want it to be about me.
I never wanted it to be all about me.
Just like you, I never, so Silvercore,
which is that the main business, named
after my grandfather Silver Armano, my
other grandfather, Cornelius Bader.
I just took the silver and the core,
put them together.
One was a VPD detective, the other one was
an entrepreneur, had a Bakery.
And I thought, you know, I'll, I'll put
these two things.
What do they call it?
A portmanteau, when you put them two together.
But it was very conscious at that
point, I didn't want to call it Traviscore.
I didn't want to make it about me, because
my thinking was, if I grow something and I
put all this energy into it and it's so deeply
tied to me, how do I take that next step
to do something else?
If I, if I want to stop that or sell it, or so
I never had that dilemma of having something named
after me, but building the April Vokey brand,
you look at that as a bit of a dead end did you or
something that would be just too tied to you that
you couldn't grow pack?
It is a constant decision that I make every year,
every single year, I sit down and decide,
cause look, business is all about trends
and trends change.
Sure.
And you know, 15 years ago it, it paid to be
corporate or to appear to be corporate, you know,
to be responding to us or like we're responding
as our, us, we.
You didn't want to look like you were a
single man business.
You want it to look big, we're the big guys.
Right.
Now it feels, and again, it changes every year,
but now it feels like it is advantageous to have
your face behind it, people want to know who
they're dealing with.
They want to hear your story.
And so even with Anchored Outdoors, which is
recently branded, you know, it went live in
February and I was going to leave myself off of
it entirely and had, you know, I spoke to a couple
of people I respect and they were like, you have
to include your story because people want to
know the face behind it.
And, and so it is a constant
ever-changing trend.
It's something that, but with, with my
brand anyway, or with our brand, with
Anchored Outdoors, it works to have kind of
the face behind it.
But the focus, like at least, you know, the face
behind it, but I want the focus to be on all
the people with all of those incredible skills.
And I think that that's, that, that I'm doing a
good, I, we, cause it's not just me now, but.
Right.
Myself, Tom, Jackie, the team, I feel like we
do a good job of doing that in, in bringing the
focus to other people, even though people
know it's my company.
I think that's important.
I think there's like you say, there is that
fine line between making something that's so
detached from you that you can easily replicate
it or something that's so close to you that
you'll, you'll be confined by it so that's.
Right.
You know, I don't know if I ever told you, I
got to meet Bear Grylls.
Right.
So Bear Grylls has a family life and the
business side and he calls it BG and
Bear Grylls right.
So that's, that's BG over there, that's the
whole Hollywood TV stuff.
And this is Bear Grylls over here.
That's so funny because when I do my projections,
cause every, and I've done this now for
well, since 2007.
I'm all about budgets and projections
and goal setting.
And I split my business, cause I, especially a
few years back, I own more than one company.
And I, if you look at my projections, it's
like I had, I would have one company here, one
company there, and the other company was AV.
Yeah.
And that was April Vokey, it was the brand.
Like she, okay so, and I literally, to this
day I sit down and I'm like, okay, that needs
to make that much money.
That needs to make that much money, she needs
to make that much money.
Like, I don't even look at myself like me,
it's that, that's part of the company that
needs to make a certain amount of income to
make something work.
That's funny.
What about if we just switch gears
just a little bit?
In that whole building of brand, you've made
the very conscious decision to include
your family in that.
So you've got your daughter, your husband,
that's gotta be tough.
Well, it's a mistake.
It's a mistake.
You know, no one's called me out on this yet,
but that's a mistake.
So I, very much when I gave birth, even
if you read my first post, it says you will
never see a photo of my daughter because,
because I respect her wishes and she might
not want to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You know, especially with the internet.
I don't want her to have all these document.
I'm such a bad mom.
I don't want her to have all these documented
photos when she's older and, and I just
am too proud of her.
So it's an Achilles heel.
I have to draw, pull my head in sometimes and
be like, are you sure?
Are you sure if it's like, Oh, but
she's just so cute.
Like I just.
She is cute!
But yeah, it's an error and a mistake.
And in, it's probably one of the things I
shouldn't be doing, but I can't help myself.
So we haven't talked about how
you made that jump.
There you are guiding on the river and you said, I
know I want to be on TV.
I mean, come on.
How'd that jump happen?
Well, you know, I got to keep it real and honest.
You know, admittedly yeah, I mean, I always
wanted to be on TV when I was younger.
Like who, who, who doesn't back then
grow up wanting.
Sure.
To be on TV.
It was your at, at that point, it was
your only outlet.
Right, yeah.
You know, there was, there was no internet you
had just, if you wanted to have your voice heard
you went onto television.
And, and so when I was younger, I wanted to be
on television, but as I grew up and evolved
and had more opportunity with the internet,
that slowly dissipated.
But the television series happened because
of what we were talking about earlier with
this fear of boredom.
Well, there's a number of ways that, I'll
take you down two different roads here.
So.
Okay.
The television series happened because I was
already starting to write a book and the
television network had said, we want to show,
they'd been wasting my time for years of like,
we want you to do a bikini show on a boat.
We want you to do this show in that,
like, it was all just ridiculous nonsense.
Right.
Finally, it must've got desperate again.
Television is very much, time's changed
by the seasons.
Sometimes the execs want someone who's gun
heavy, sometimes the execs want a woman host,
sometimes they want it, it changes everyday but.
Right.
They must've been desperate, they said,
we'll take whatever you've got and I
said, well, I am subsidizing, I need my
book to be subsidized.
So why don't we do a television
series by book?
And they said yes.
And so I got to writing the series QuickSmart
and wrote them this television series
teamed up with Nick Vujicic at VP Media
House in Ontario, and the show was picked up.
And from there I was still guiding and then
in my off season I was filming the show.
And in, while I was, while I was guiding,
it was able to keep my brain spinning because
I was writing my series while I was guiding.
Right.
But then the show was over and we'd done
all of our filming.
And I was really disappointed with editing
that I'd had all these rich interviews and only
two minutes of them were being used in the series.
So I'm guiding on the Dea,n doing the
usual thing, but now I'm not writing my
television series and I start to get bored.
Yeah.
And that for me was like, okay, I'm
not doing boredom.
So I got this idea about doing a podcast and
I had told everyone I would guide for 10 years.
And I meant that, I always said I would only
ever guide for 10 years.
I've said that from the beginning and put
in my 10th year and immediately went to
work on a podcast.
Just like that?
Just like that.
You just picked up a microphone and a
recorder, and you just said, let's just start
talking into this with other people, or
like, what was that?
Was there a big research?
How do I start a podcast?
No, no, no.
My first episode was with Lonnie Waller and
so I had interviewed him at my home or at my
camp in Northern BC and was really disappointed
that his interview, which is spectacular,
had been cut down.
And so I asked the TV show guys for
the, all that audio.
And then I converted that audio into
my first episode.
And then from there got off to launched that one
in December, I think, six years ago, and then
got myself the same, well, it's a different
snowball mic, but just a little USB mic and
started going around and sitting down with people.
It was tough because I only ever did, did my
podcast in person and really worked hard to
have a beat just the top of the top of the
top industry leaders.
So it was difficult getting to a lot of them,
but, but managed, yeah.
And I didn't do a bunch of research, I kind
of just went for it.
Just jumped right in.
Yep.
Well, it's definitely worked out well.
And then you did some time with,
with MeatEater.
Yeah, yeah.
So MeatEater came into my life two years ago.
When did I meet you guys?
About, about that, yeah, a couple of years ago.
Yes.
Yep, and that went great.
And then, you know, as things do contracts
expired and I could either stay on and not
own my, well own my content, but not have
control over it in a lot of, in a lot of ways.
Right.
Or go independent and take Anchored Outdoors
to what it is now.
And that's obviously the route that I chose to go.
Right.
And so you've got the podcast Anchored and
you decided let's, let's make this community,
let's make this, the Masterclasses and the,
the, the website of Anchored Outdoors.
And that's gotta be one heck of a learning
curve, cause you went infrom nothing, right?
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's funny.
I just wanted to build what I was craving.
Right.
And I felt like what was missing out there,
I'm a new hunter.
And, and I'm a sustenance hunter and I'm not,
and who enjoys killing.
I enjoy hunting, looking for animals,
I enjoy eating.
I don't enjoy the killing and I really
don't enjoy bro vibes.
Right.
I just, I get it, I respect it, I am
all about manly men.
I think that it's okay for manly men
to be bloodthirsty and talk about it,
blah, blah, blah.
Sure.
It's just not what I am interested
in listening to.
Right.
And so I wanted to create a platform of, you know,
a community of people and conversation that was
appealing, selfishly to me, and hope that other
people felt the same way.
And wouldn't, you know, there's a whole market of
people out there who feel like that's been missing.
And so that's really where the membership
started to pickup was, you know, are these
people who felt like maybe that what's the
word I'm looking for?
Tambour of voices missing.
Right, okay.
Good word.
Thanks.
So now, February, you launched Anchored
Outdoors, we are going to be coming up on a year
in a little bit here.
What do you see in the future for Anchored?
Yeah.
Great question.
More community, way more community.
I started the Facebook page pretty late
into the business.
Like the Facebook group's only been around for
a while and I'm just constantly in awe of
the people on there and the community that
builds totally, it's got nothing to do with
me, it's just everybody networking, getting
to know each other.
They trust each other, but they also trust
they, they, they speak same language.
Right.
It's just.
Right.
It's just, everyone's kind of on the same page.
Everyone's different, but they all have the same
values as I think what I'm probably looking for.
And I'd like to really take that
to the next level.
So the Masterclasses will always be probably front
and center because they are extremely interesting
and well worth the money.
And they're beautiful.
Thanks.
They're well-produced are well put together.
They're really nice.
Yeah.
You know, it was important to me that
my, that our instructors would be proud of what
they were putting out.
And I think it's safe to say that we've
done that, you know.
I'd say so.
It's not me, it's it's the whole team, right.
Is Tom is our homestead coordinator
Jackie's our hunt, our hunt coordinator.
It's the videographers, there's a bunch of
videographers involved.
It's every, everybody as a team and
everybody is proud.
Every instructor is proud of what they've put out.
And the next step is going to be interactive
courses, so being able to do the courses together.
Cool.
Yeah.
That's important.
You know, a membership is no good if
people don't use is.
Totally.
So it's important that we, you know, if it takes
a team to do it together and, and it gets everyone
inspired and excited, then why not right?
Totally.
And then, I mean, I think like anything I look
at, from my perspective, looking at that business
model, that community is the biggest thing
that, that, the most valuable thing that you
can grow there, I think.
Yeah.
And it's so much fun.
Like we just started every, once a month we
do, mon, so we do members only fly tying nights and
they're interactive and it's so cool that I'll
have a hundred people.
Cause you know, it can only have a hundred
in the, in a meeting and about a hundred
people on my screen.
And while the guest instructor is speaking,
I can go through, and teaching how to tie, I
can go through and look at everybody's video and
then be like, Tom, just real quick, you know,
tighten that hackle.
You know, Laura makes sure that, let me know
if you need help with the whip finish later,
and then they're chatting to me and you know,
it's just this real, you walk away from it
feeling so fulfilled and so happy just to spend
just time with, you know, special people.
I love it.
I've never been so happy.
That's fantastic.
That's really, that's really cool to hear.
I mean, some people get into business for
all the wrong reasons.
And my, my personal thinking on it is, and
I've said it before.
If you're looking at it to get into business,
to make money, you're always going to be
chasing the money.
You're always going to be behind it.
But as you getting into it, because you want
to be able to offer something of, that you
feel will be a value to others, that you
enjoy, money is just a natural byproduct
of the hard work and effort that you put in.
And I always like to see other people who
have similar business ideas and they do it
because it's something that they feel will
be a value to others.
No doubt in my mind that Anchored is going to
grow into a even far more successful than, than
where it is right now.
Thanks.
Yeah.
No, it's, it's looking good.
Things are looking really good.
Before we wrap everything up here, do you have any
advice to anybody else who's got a passion and
would like to build it into their business or
follow in the footsteps of the great April Vokey?
Oh, don't say that.
It's not me, I'm just the, I'm just Oz.
I'm just pulling strings while everyone else is
doing amazing things.
Just.
How about the great AV.
The AV, the AV, right.
There ya go.
My advice is, you know, It's very easy
today with internet and with ego, to paint
ourselves into a corner.
And I just think it's important that, you know,
aspiring, a lot of these people now, right now,
who might be listening, may be creating their own
personal brand online.
And that's important.
You need that, for that spreadsheet that
you can have your initials as, you know,
part of your business.
But it is, I believe in having a diverse
portfolio, like when I invest my money, I
have a very diverse port, like my money is
spread out everywhere.
I would never just put it on real estate
or just put it all in stocks it's everywhere.
And I think business should be looked
at in some way, you know, in a lot of
ways, the same way.
And so it's nice to not back yourself in
a corner because you won't always be young,
you won't always be hot, you know, for a lot
of these young people.
Sure.
And I don't just mean appealing from a, from
an attractive stance.
I mean, you, you won't always be
the hottest angler.
You won't always be there hottest guide or the
hottest man or whatever it is that you're hot at.
You won't always be the best.
So it's a good idea just to have a backup plan.
And I think there are a lot of people who
are business owners at heart and they
might not know it.
And I would urge you, anyone listening right
now, to really take a deep dive into yourself
and look at things that you did maybe
when you were younger.
Like for me, I was the kid selling lemonade on
the side of the road.
I was the kid, when we would go to the barn,
I was four years, like literally four years old,
collecting horse tails, you know, the plant,
the plant, crushing them up and trying to
bottle and like mixing it with water, trying to
bottle and sell perfume to my mom's friends.
I remember taking paper and putting it all my
friends were outside playing, I remember Tyler
and Cameron Kerr and all the kids playing in
the cul-de-sac and I was inside with my paper.
I'm taping it together and gluing pennies down
it, making it look like a skirt that I could sell.
You know, all of these little things
when I was younger, I just wanted to be a
bloody business woman.
That's what I wanted to do, but I didn't know.
I didn't, I didn't, I mean I knew,
but I didn't know.
And maybe, I mean, the sal- like, yeah, I
guess I, wasn't going to start a big sale, scale
company when I was 10.
And so, I mean, I guess it all happened in due
time, but pay attention to those things, you
know, if you're out there and, and you were the kid
wanting to sell things or have a garage sale.
I mean, who doesn't love selling at
garage sales or say.
Totally.
You love going to Mexico cause you love
to barter, I mean, maybe being a business
owner is for you.
And the other thing, Travis, I think people,
you hit the nail on the head when you were saying
you like to speak to other business owners
who are passionate about what they sell.
I don't even think that that's an option.
Like if you don't love what you sell, to me,
it's not even that you're a businessman,
you're a sales or woman, you're a salesperson,
you know, you're.
Right.
Selling and, and I, that's just not,
it's not sustainable.
How long can you stay selling something that
you don't believe in?
So I really believe that for a lot of people,
this thing, who might be unsure if they're
business owners, if they just find something that
they believe in and pay attention to the little
things that their past, they might decide,
they might figure out that they're more of
a business person than they think they are.
You know, the other thing I would say to
people who are thinking about getting into
business, this is really important times
have changed, right?
Like I was just telling my husband this morning,
I was like, you know, if I would have known
15 years ago that the world would have all
these, like things like automations and
the analytics and tracking, it's just a
different world than it was back then.
So for a lot of people in their thirties, who are
like myself, you know, late thirties things
have, have changed.
There is a lot, there are a lot of ways
to make business easier these days.
But one of the things that I really want to
be a takeaway for people is staying right now
is, you don't need to get it perfect, you just
need to get it going.
And a lot of the people I listened to in business,
this is an ongoing theme.
You know, you don't need to get it perfect.
You just need to get it going.
And like I had mentioned to you when we were off
record at another point, you know, fall forward,
fail fast, fall forward.
Figure it out.
It's, you know, one of the, one of the first
books I read on business when I was, I think
I was 20, as I read, Think and Grow Rich.
You know, he makes a real clear, there
is no failure.
Like every time that you think you fail,
you just figure it out what you need to do
differently next time.
And just because something doesn't
work one way, switch it around, don't
redo everything.
That's the first time you put something out,
whatever it is, the success of that is, is
just your, your first attempt and now you
just need to tweak it.
And you know, it can be something as simple
as a sentence here or, timing there.
And, and you know, this thing called
split testing, A/B testing, run tests,
try things, see what works and what doesn't.
So my, I guess what I'm saying is don't
give up before you've at least tried and
don't, please, this is the number one thing
I see people do, don't wait to get it perfect.
Just throw it on the wall and see what sticks,
it's never going to be the same anyway.
Everyone is like, Oh, but I don't know exactly
what my business is.
I don't know what my business is going
to be next year.
I mean, you ch, it evolves, and you
never know how it will evolve if you don't
at least put some legs on the damn thing.
Well said, well said.
I think, you know, there's a few things
you just took right out of my, my head
it felt like and better articulated it.
There's a very successful Canadian
fellow who says done is better than perfect.
That's right.
Absolutely because it's, it's never, it's never
going to be, it's always going to change and you
won't know until you get the response and you
get the community and you get the ideas and
you get the criticisms.
I mean, one of, I used to be terrified of
criticism, who wants to be criticized?
Now, that's some of my, my best building
blocks are based off of criticism.
Do you buy into the praise?
I mean, like if you give praise value,
that means you probably give criticism value.
I gave it all.
I give all feedback value.
Anybody who takes the time to communicate to
me, provided that it's done with mutual respect,
because I don't just walk up to people randomly and
slap them in the face.
I would hope that they don't do the same
thing to me either.
You know, all criticism and feedback and
praise is listened to and appreciated too.
I mean, how else do you grow right?
If you're not, if your ears aren't open.
So inspirational.
April, thank you very much for taking the time
to be on The Silvercore Podcast, always enjoy
talking with you.
Likewize.
Thank you.