Robert Cardenas shares insight into angling media adventure

Robert Cardenas shares some insight on his journey from Pro angler to media expert. He shares some stories and tips to help you in your angling career. 

What is Reel Talk Fishing | With No Limits?

I'm Brian Bashore, Professional walleye angler and owner of The Walleye Guys Guide service. I am here to reel you in with captivating stories, expert tips, and interviews with some of the biggest names in the fishing community. So, sit back, relax, and let the drag scream!

Brian Bashore (00:01.742)
Hey folks, thanks for tuning into this episode of Real Talk. Fishing with no limits. We're going to go over to Minnesota again and talk to our good friend Robert Cardenas. Robert is the media guru, does national walleye tours, social media page and all the, all the stuff you see out there with the interviews during the tournaments does an awesome job. Also has been doing some of the, uh, videography for the next MyTV show. So Robert's going to tell us a little bit of kind of what he sees going on in the industry. Tell us his story from pro angler to pro media guru.

and some other good stories you're going to want to hear. So stay tuned as we go into it here with Robert Cardenas.

Brian Bashore
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in this episode of Real Talk, Fishing with No Limits. I'm your host Brian Bechore and today we have the media mogul himself, Robert Cardenas. You know, Robert runs the NWT social platforms and.

much other so we'll just put a line with Robert and dive right in how's it going over there and the windy warm not so warm Minnesota today.

Robert Cardenas (01:53.22)
Yeah, it's getting cold this weekend, but it's been really warm and it's really crazy windy. I feel like I'm in North Dakota or South Dakota right now. You can hear the wind going through my window.

Brian Bashore (02:05.29)
Yeah. We're no strangers to win. Yeah. It's been a beautiful week this weekend sucks. It's, I mean, I think there's an Northwest sports show. We've got two fall sports shows. So good time to get out for those that worked out good for them because of weather sucks. That's a good time to, and it's not blizzard conditions. So driving's good. So everybody can get out and check out the boat shows and, uh, talk to your fishing buddies and check out the newest, latest, greatest things in these very expensive boats that are all sitting on the showroom floors, but, uh,

Robert Cardenas (02:30.323)
Yeah, I'm looking forward to the Northwest show. Tomorrow. Tomorrow's my day.

Brian Bashore (02:34.33)
tomorrow. That's there. That start yet? Is it the start yesterday? Okay. I think Sioux Falls are Thursday night, but I have no reason to, to attend. So you kind of sport showed out after a while. If you've done these for years, I mean, when, when it's you got obligations for the boat companies, wherever you go there, they're a good time, you know, busy with your buddies. And obviously you can influence the purchase and help, you know, people with their decision-making.

Robert Cardenas (02:39.007)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (02:47.414)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (02:59.71)
And what have you. And it's a, it's a good, good benefit. And that's fun talking to other anglers, but you start to do these just every weekend for months. And it, there's a long days, man. You're on your feet, standing there, eating crappy sports show, expensive crappy sports show food. I mean, yeah, it's, you know, you don't definitely need shoes.

Robert Cardenas (03:12.312)
You got it.

Robert Cardenas (03:15.726)
Yeah, you got to figure out the right shoes. Definitely have the right shoes. Dry mouth, dry mouth. Everybody always gets sick after.

Brian Bashore (03:26.046)
Yup. Yeah. He's shaking, you know, hands and all that and it's yeah, no good. Well, let's let everybody know what is Robert up to? Where's Robert's background? So, I mean, I'll start that just a little bit for those that don't know. Robert's been running the NWD social platforms. Um, but he transitioned from professional angler for many years on the tour to now, which really works out good because Robert knows everybody.

Robert Cardenas (03:28.452)
million people hands you know.

Brian Bashore (03:55.502)
So it's just, it's just a really good fit. Having an angler handle the media side of things who gets the full picture versus just a media person coming in who's maybe really good with technology and cameras and whatever, but doesn't know anybody doesn't know what they're talking about or anything Robert does how to ask the right questions. But what's Robert doing? He's not doing that. And how did you get into that?

Robert Cardenas (04:03.742)
Thank you.

Robert Cardenas (04:17.27)
Yeah, so my background is I love to fish. I grew up fishing with my grandpa and my uncle. My uncle took me fishing all the time and then a lot of fishing trips I went with my grandpa and my dad. But I used to watch these guys on TV fishing and I always wanted to do that, which was the PWT at the time.

which I watched on TV. So it was always something I wanted to do and try to figure out how I could do it as I was growing up. Literally fish every day. I grew up on Square Lake in Minnesota. I started fishing, you know, small tournaments with my friends and then kind of grew from there in high school, kind of college. I went to UMD.

Um, started traveling to other States and doing tournaments in South Dakota was one of the first places I went to fish the Missouri river was called wolves on the water, um, run by a college out there. And it's the first tournament I started fishing that, um, I met Chad Schilling and, you know, a few other guys that, you know, had fished the other tournaments. Chad's just started fishing the other tournament. So I kind of got me excited. So then I went to college and I had to figure out.

It's the stuff super expensive to do. I had to figure out how am I going to be able to do this? Um, and I originally was going to go into physical therapy and that wasn't going to work because you'd literally have to work every day, um, with your schedule. And so I, I chose, cause I had a lot of the health credits. Um, I chose to go into nursing and because your schedules could be, you could work seven days on seven days off or.

Brian Bashore (05:47.102)
Right.

Robert Cardenas (06:14.73)
You know, have a bunch of days off where I could go to a tournament, still make decent money, go to a tournament and fish. And so I did that and find a wife. Cause I figured if I was in a hospital, I have really good odds of finding a wife. I figured that was going to be tough. That's kind of a tough thing to do when you're on the road, constantly just fishing, cause that's all I did. Um, yeah. So there was, yeah.

Brian Bashore (06:27.822)
Yeah, good odds.

Brian Bashore (06:39.366)
a pretty good game plan though. They do have, there was motive in this all, I'm going to go, I'm going to go nurse, you know, and it's, yeah, I get it. Smart man.

Robert Cardenas (06:46.182)
Yeah, there was a lot of thought there. Yeah. So I was always thinking ahead. Um, so I started doing the tournaments. I jumped in as a coangler, um, in the FLW was my first, uh, experience. And I, and I, I fished with Okada and.

Keith Kavias and I can't remember. But anyways, it was a really good experience. And at the time, AIM was just starting as well. So I was fishing, I fished the FLW as a coangler. I figured, well, I'm gonna jump into the AIM also as a coangler, just to see the two different series. Cause they were both Pro-Am series at that time. So I fished both of them. I loved both of them. Obviously two different.

weigh-in schemes, just the way you keep your fish and stuff. So when I started as a pro, I jumped into the aim because it was lower numbers. I thought it'd be smaller, it's more tight knit. People are really, I mean, they honestly, the fishermen were very close. Everybody helped everybody out. And so, but then I also

I wanted to jump into the FLW as well. So I kind of cherry picked a couple times on tournaments. So I fished the aim tournament because it was on green Bay. And then I, I'd fish the FLW, which I will never do again because. Basically I was gone like 21 days. And, and at that time I had found my wife. So, um, it was, uh,

Brian Bashore (08:28.036)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (08:32.826)
Heh, yeah, but...

Robert Cardenas (08:35.698)
And it got, it actually got kind of boring because I was just, I was basically doing the same thing over and over just following these fish around. Um, but so that that's kind of my story getting into the fishing part. And I fished for almost 13 years, 12 years, um, basically almost all NWT, um, and a couple of years and, uh, aim and then, uh, Chrissy.

Brian Bashore (08:41.934)
Alright.

Robert Cardenas (09:03.39)
who had ran the NWT had asked me if I wanted to do media stuff for the NWT. And I couldn't, I don't know how I could, I was basically saying, I don't know how I can fish and do that same time, because nobody's going to talk to me for one thing. Give me information. And I had, you know, I had done a TV show myself. I've always been into cameras.

Brian Bashore (09:21.7)
Right, right.

Robert Cardenas (09:30.642)
and filming, I've done YouTube for a long time. That's kind of how I got my feet wet in the industry was doing YouTube and media stuff because me coming in, I had no, nobody knew who Robert Cardenas was at all and all these other guys that I had watched on TV, have their brand, the companies know them. And that's kind of when the.

the industry was transitioning to more social media at the time, which was harder for these other guys, um, that were doing the fishing tournaments. Cause they had never really had to do that. Um, and I had done it. Um, so I figured, you know, I'll just, I'll film and do things while I'm doing the, the tournaments and. And, uh,

Brian Bashore (10:22.69)
Cause you were kind of breaking edge with what you and Schneider had your, what did you call that? It was real something, right? What was it? Keep it real efficient. So basically it was the, uh, kind of behind the scenes of the whole, the whole week, right practice and tournament days. So.

Robert Cardenas (10:29.783)
Keep it real fishing. Keep it real fishing, yep.

Robert Cardenas (10:37.194)
Yep. Yeah, we started doing that. We did one for each tournament. We filmed it all on GoPros and then we had another guy edit it. So we'd come out, you know, we tried to get it out as quick as we possibly could. But yeah, that was my goal was just to brand myself. You know, unfortunately, my first year fishing as a pro, I had a boat stolen in a tournament and, you know, it was like the worst thing.

Brian Bashore (11:02.873)
Yeah.

Sure, that's.

Robert Cardenas (11:07.178)
worst thing that could ever happen to me. Um, but it actually, it kind of branded me a little bit because then everybody kind of knew who I was at that tournament because I, after a day when I'm in a borrowed boat and I come back in, in first place in a big tournament and I'm not there for interviews because I'm trying to figure out what was in my boat. That's that was that I'm missing and trying to do my insurance stuff. But, you know, it was a terrible thing that happened because they found it.

Brian Bashore (11:27.68)
Right?

Robert Cardenas (11:36.958)
you know, in a sod farm field on fire, 621 Ranger, completely burned, melted, whatever you want to call it. Um, but it kind of, yeah, with everything in it. Well, they, they got it, the whole boat. I mean, there wasn't a thing on it. They took covers, they took the motor, they took everything off of it. Um, but it kind of branded me a little bit there with, um, doing that whole thing and did things for Bob Luellen and doing the video stuff. Um.

Brian Bashore (11:44.855)
with everything in it.

Robert Cardenas (12:07.294)
And, you know, I started getting, I wouldn't say people, like sponsors weren't reaching out, but I did get a offshore tackle after I made the championship that year in the, in the NWT offshore tackle is really, really my only sponsor, I think that actually reached out to me other than warrior boats. And, you know, that's, that's the industry though. I mean, you got to work for.

everything you get in the industry.

Brian Bashore (12:40.322)
Well, those, we know that the shadow family is good at keeping an eye on us and they recognize what's out there. And, and, uh, yeah, they're just, they're good, good partners to have and great company and you said Bob Luellen or so how did, so someone stole your fricking boat at a tournament. Is it before day one, right? Or was it after day one?

Robert Cardenas (12:44.47)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (12:49.554)
Oh yeah, it was great.

Robert Cardenas (13:00.618)
Yeah, it was in practice. I had a code come out two days before the tournament. I had a code come out on my motor. It was the, it's electronic throttle. So it was a wire. They knew exactly what it was. It took me, you know, cause it goes into limbo and you're on Green Bay. It took me forever to get to shore.

Brian Bashore (13:02.219)
and practice.

Brian Bashore (13:22.24)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (13:23.574)
So, you know, and I get it in, I get it to the dealer and they're like, yep, we can fix that, you know, in the morning, we'll have it to you so you can pick it up. And well, I get a call in the morning from the dealership and I get a call from the dealership in the morning saying, hey, did you, did you by chance pick up your bolt last night? And I'm like, no, I dropped it off last night. And then they're like, well, we can't find it. And I'm just like, no, this is crazy.

Brian Bashore (13:36.09)
froze up. Oh, there we are.

Brian Bashore (13:48.87)
No.

Robert Cardenas (13:53.87)
And you gotta know guys on tour, play pranks on you like all the time. You know, stuff's happening all the time. And so I'm thinking, this is a complete prank, you know, cause people know my boat went in there. I hope, yeah. And the guy's like, no, no. And I, this probably went on for 10 minutes cause I didn't believe the guy. And I'm on the phone and, and yeah, I started swearing and I'm like, what do you mean I need to come down there? And so then,

Brian Bashore (13:54.542)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (13:58.934)
Yeah, yeah. Right.

Brian Bashore (14:05.581)
I hope. Right.

Brian Bashore (14:14.91)
This is your worst nightmare, I don't want to believe him.

Robert Cardenas (14:22.098)
So I actually came down there and they're like, yeah, we're missing a ton of motors and we're missing your boat. So I get down there and it's a major dealership in Green Bay, a big one. And they got tons of fishing boats and pleasure boats. They have everything there. And I'm doing a walk around with the owner and you know, cause I came up on my boat and here are all the motors that you can unscrew from boats.

They figured they piled into my boat and they took it. Well, we're walking around with the police and an investigator and the owner. And the, the cop goes, well, we're going to need your footage or investigator and we're going to need your footage. Cause I mean, they got like eight cameras in the back of this building. It's huge. None of them worked that night. So they knew, I think they knew my, you know, the guys like, you know, I think I have a bad employee, you know, in my.

Brian Bashore (15:07.77)
All right. But not, none of them work, do they? Yep.

Robert Cardenas (15:19.286)
place, but you know, I don't know why or what. So yeah, my boat kind of came in, they knew it was going to go out. And then it went out with a bunch of motors. And so then, uh, I, I borrow a boat, uh, Mickech borrowed me a boat to fish the tournament. And Tommy Scarless at the time, uh, borrowed me some rods, um, or whatever. I mean, all the guys were, you know, really good about trying to help.

Brian Bashore (15:48.685)
Right?

Robert Cardenas (15:49.802)
And yeah, I just I knew what I was doing. I just went I didn't really. That's the thing about fishing. I wasn't even thinking about fishing at the time, which is probably why I did so well. I just I was just I was literally just putting in my time to get off the water to go figure out what I'm missing. And came back in first place. But, you know, I weighed in and I left. I wasn't even thinking. I think I had 48 pounds or something ridiculous.

Brian Bashore (15:58.843)
Right. Yeah, he was.

Brian Bashore (16:07.991)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (16:18.158)
or forty, forty two pounds or something. It was... Yeah. And...

Brian Bashore (16:19.65)
It's a good day on Green Bay. And so you're with World Wide Marine, I tell you, right? You said Bob Llewellyn at that time. Yep. And that all went good.

Robert Cardenas (16:26.102)
Worldwide, worldwide Marine. Yep. And the best thing about that, yeah, I switched before that tournament. It was like three weeks before that tournament. I switched with Bob. He got me all set up. Um, and the, and the nice thing about that was, I mean, obviously it was awesome because he doesn't agree value with your boat and your products and stuff. Um, which is huge for fishermen and tournament guys. Uh, but he was at the tournament as well, fishing as a coangler. So that.

Brian Bashore (16:54.264)
Yeah, yeah, he for.

Robert Cardenas (16:55.402)
That really helped me a lot because he just immediately I called him and he came down, met me and went over all this stuff. This, you know, what's going to happen, how we're going to do it. And, you know, not too many insurance guys are going to be at a tournament.

Brian Bashore (17:08.15)
No, it put, put your mind at ease. So yeah, worldwide Marine Bob Llewellyn's a partner of the national professional angler association, which I believe Robert's still on the board of directors over there. Bob's just a hell of a guy. And for years he traveled on tour as a coangler. And if you're looking to get your boat insured, check out by with worldwide Marine where, where they can still write insurance, insurance boat stuff has changed in some of the States where I had to move mine to a

Robert Cardenas (17:18.828)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (17:35.114)
larger commercial guide policy just because we're guide full time. Um, but when I had it with, with Bob, just streamline, you know, now you call your agent and they're gonna be like, yeah, go to the website and fill out this info. Bob, you just call Bob. That's that's taken care of. You just call Bob.

Robert Cardenas (17:48.62)
Yeah, you call Bob. Yeah, you know, and yeah, you have any questions about anything you're doing or yeah, like you said, guiding, even ride alongs or people abusing your boat or whatever trailer and boats you just call Bob and ask him, what do I do in the industry, you know, and that stuff you should know what when you're in the industry, you get asked to do a lot with your boat. So

Brian Bashore (18:05.63)
Yep, yep, he's... Yeah.

Brian Bashore (18:13.57)
Yes you do right? Go hey!

Robert Cardenas (18:14.314)
You want to make sure you're insured with, you know, doing the stuff you're doing because people will just ask you to do everything and anything with that. Um, and now my boat's a camera boat. Yeah. So I, yeah, exactly. I kind of transitioned to that. Um, I absolutely love it. I thought, you know, I was going to give myself, um, more time. My daughter's getting older. Um, I'll step away from the tour. Cause I did, you know, when you fish this, you miss a lot. Um, you're, you're gone.

Brian Bashore (18:21.294)
All right. And now your boat's a camera boat. So, all right.

Brian Bashore (18:42.112)
Oh yeah.

Robert Cardenas (18:44.074)
a lot. And it's not just the tournaments, you're doing events and sport shows and you know, it just on and on and on.

Brian Bashore (18:45.473)
Yep, an art cup.

Brian Bashore (18:51.018)
Yep. And our daughters are the same age, I believe, and involved with a lot of the same stuff where they were. Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (18:55.918)
Sports, everything, going places. Um, so I, you know, I, it was going to give me more time to do that. Um, so I transitioned to do the media for the NWT, um, and it's pictures and keeping all their media updated and interviews and stuff. Cause it was easy for me. Cause I knew all the guys, like you said. Um, and I know what the, I knew what the guys needed to.

You know, being in the industry, I knew, I knew I wanted to try to help the anglers, you know, as well as the NWT, but I knew what the anglers needed. They, you know, what kind of content they need to help with their sponsors as well. Um, and so I, I enjoyed that, you know, um,

Brian Bashore (19:40.342)
And you kind of know, okay, who's good on camera, who's not, or who needs a little assistance or who, who's up and coming, who needs a little bit of FaceTime. And you're good at giving them some direction to get them going.

Robert Cardenas (19:44.75)
100%.

Robert Cardenas (19:54.326)
Yeah. Like, I mean, there's, I can pick out one guy, Mike Zell from South Dakota. Absolutely. No, I'm not doing an interview. I'm not doing it. No, I just, yeah, I'm humble too. I'd walk towards them and they would just run and, and then I just keep, I'm like, all right, next tournament, we're going to do it, you know, and then Zell was like, just give me one more tournament, you know? So then.

Brian Bashore (20:02.8)
Yeah, Randy Hummel.

Yep. Ha ha.

Brian Bashore (20:17.951)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (20:21.074)
But now these guys, they can just talk. So it's like, you know, if you just keep doing it, they get used to it, they get comfortable. And if they're comfortable around you, it's just like you're talking to somebody else. It's like doing a podcast and talking to a camera, but you know, that's all it is. You gotta get comfortable talking to a camera. And so then I, you know, I did, I've been doing the NWT and then I got asked by the Parsons if I would help.

Brian Bashore (20:32.446)
Right?

Robert Cardenas (20:49.322)
do their medias and film for their show, The Next Bite. And which I, you know, I felt honored to film, you know, I'd never filmed something major like that. Yes, I have all the cameras and stuff to do that, but never just kind of jumped in and did something like that. So, you know, I was in my uncomfortable spot again, which is good. I mean, that's how you grow, right?

Brian Bashore (21:13.402)
Alright.

That's how you grow, yep.

Robert Cardenas (21:18.35)
and you learn and just jumping into the industry, fishing industry is an uncomfortable situation, especially when you don't know anybody. So then I started filming for them. Jake Flaw is great, he's one of their camera guys, does all their editing, spent tremendous amount of time with me on the other side of the camera, teaching me how they do it.

coming out with me for you know episodes and showing me how they do it because they do it a certain way and you know there for the Discovery Channel itself and So I learned that you know it and it's and it's awesome. I absolutely love doing it It's like going on a fishing trip, and you know I'm just I'm just not on the other side anymore You know I'm on this side, and I actually enjoy that I enjoy it

Brian Bashore (22:05.146)
Right. But you're getting all this... yeah, you're catching all the all the bloopers, all the stories, all the fun stuff. You're getting... you're learning from it, you know, and you're getting to see new bodies of water.

Robert Cardenas (22:12.354)
Oh my gosh. It's absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we're traveling everywhere. This year we went to Florida. Um, I went off the Columbia river with Shakira. I mean, we just go everywhere. So, um, and every one of those guys is really good, um, to travel with and work with. And, and yeah, so I do that and, uh, you know, it keeps me. Right.

Brian Bashore (22:35.638)
The best part is you don't have to do the editing, the post-production side of it, right? Because that...

Robert Cardenas (22:39.286)
100% yeah, I just go and do all yeah Jake plot does all that he's amazing at that and Yeah, and why need something

Brian Bashore (22:49.214)
That's a highly edited show with the cartoon graphics type stuff in it. I mean, that's expensive and not easy.

Robert Cardenas (22:52.556)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (22:58.494)
Yeah, everything. Yeah, animation, tons of animation and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, there's a ton of behind the scenes in that show that nobody really knows. It's a ton of work. There's a lot of people involved.

Brian Bashore (23:09.738)
Yeah. I talked to Gary about it once and he was, he was like, it's the animation is the most expensive part of the whole show. It's the it's cool. And it's what sets them, you know, makes them different than, than other ones out there. I mean, that's just one aspect of it. A lot of it's a great show. Obviously it's been around for 19 seasons or something now. So 20, there's 20. Oh yeah. That's, that's pretty awesome.

Robert Cardenas (23:21.74)
Yo.

Robert Cardenas (23:26.492)
20 years, this is their 20th season.

Robert Cardenas (23:32.562)
Yeah. So yeah, the NWT that, and then obviously, um, the FinGear, I started a business with Drake Herd, um, in FinGear too, so, and I do a lot of the pictures and stuff for that. And, and, you know, just a lot of stuff.

Brian Bashore (23:51.606)
Yeah, well, that's super good for a company to have a marketing, marketing media expert on the team, especially as a part owner is now you don't have to hire that out. And obviously it's, you know, Fingears it's working. You're moving a lot of Fingear product as Drake was on the last part.

Robert Cardenas (24:00.05)
Yeah. But it, you know, it's, it's funny because it's, it's extremely busy, like everything I do. And then, yeah, just extremely busy. That's a lot of busy work and stuff. Cause I, you know, I'm running out of medias for NWT. I do all the medias for the, the next bite as well. So, you know, everything that's being posted and stuff, that's me. Um, and you know, some of them too, but mostly me doing all that.

And then the fin gear stuff. So it's like, you know, it's, it gets a little crazy at times.

Brian Bashore (24:35.478)
But that's, that's the media world. I mean, people don't it's when social media came out a long time ago, it just was, I mean, it's been 20 years now, right? With his Facebook launch, at least real simple. I know all that world is, is late to the game. Um, I mean, the first, I don't even know seven, eight seasons. And David T was very, very little of it. And then until you took over, then obviously the demand for everything has grown, the exposure has grown. The following has grown. Uh, you're doing the good.

Robert Cardenas (24:39.083)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (24:46.272)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (25:03.982)
You know, great coverage. You did the anger profiles for the championship, which everybody loved ton. Um, I mean, he just, it really took it from here to here. And your name has come up in so many of these other podcasts where it's we're talking to WT and everybody's like, well, Cardenas took us to the new, you know, got us, got it out there. Now we got 400 co signing up for every tournament. Everybody wants to be part of it. Well, I gave it was the best kept secret for a while. Now Robert's got to let the cat out, which is perfect. That's how it needs to, you know, to go and to help grow. Yep.

Robert Cardenas (25:09.627)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (25:19.71)
I don't know. No!

Robert Cardenas (25:31.342)
Drawing, yeah.

Brian Bashore (25:32.802)
to grow the sport. So that's awesome. But I don't do it right. I don't most people probably don't realize how much goes into it. I mean, just a simple hour long conversation here of you and I chat and turns into probably four hours on the back end for me, you know, and your social media posts for an X bike or bite or whoever. You may have an hour, you know, you can you can throw them out in five or 10 minutes. But when you're doing, you know, video type, they let a tournament interview and then you got to.

Robert Cardenas (25:49.067)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (25:55.228)
Nope.

Brian Bashore (26:02.178)
piece parts, stuff together, get it. Sometimes it can go pretty quick if it's got smooth cuts, but it's not uncommon. It's been all day to do two or three posts or something like that. And, and the frame size and the image size for what platform it's on. And you know, the quality images is the most important thing. And then. And WT you're doing all these promotional things. You've got all the partners to keep track of all the sponsors to make sure that you're getting to work their word out. And then you have the, you know,

Robert Cardenas (26:12.331)
It's not.

Robert Cardenas (26:28.492)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (26:30.154)
Registration opens and then there's infographics and it just it's a job right and that's what you've made of it. So

Robert Cardenas (26:34.686)
Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. There's so much behind the scenes. And you can ask my wife cause she's like, what are you doing? You know, you can, you know, just writing something up for each post is, you know, it's like, and you're doing it every day. I mean, there's a lot of creativity and thought. And I mean, just tons of stuff that goes into just making a post every day. Um, and that's just for one company. You know,

Brian Bashore (26:48.442)
You're right.

Brian Bashore (26:58.862)
Yep. Yeah, I know. I mean, I've, I own minnow marketing, uh, digital media company as well. It's, it's the same deal. There's, you know, software you can use to help with certain schedules, things out. Now Facebook's basically got it all on there and their meta business suite makes it a lot, a lot easier. So you don't have to pay for the third party stuff, but I mean, that's why you got YouTube and X, you know, X slash Twitter, Instagram.

Robert Cardenas (27:23.031)
Yeah.

Every everything. Yeah. And everything. Yeah. Like you said, it's platform different. So that takes time resizing photos and video and, you know, stories, you know, you got vertical, you got horizontal, everything goes into that. You just have to do. And, and that's something I want to do for the NWT this year. That's kind of my little thing is, you know, I've, I've done pictures, I've done interviews, but I want to get more video involved this year.

I'm a one man show out there right now, you know, for the media side. Obviously I have some people that can help do some stuff, but, um, to get pictures and media, obviously that that's like two different, two different worlds. Um, you know, going, trying to do them at the same time. Yeah. So I'm going to try to do that this year. It'll be something different and we'll just see how it goes. And especially at the first tournament, we'll, we'll see what.

Brian Bashore (27:56.92)
Right.

Brian Bashore (28:11.334)
Right, it is! Yeah, completely different camera setup and you're...yeah!

Robert Cardenas (28:23.946)
what we can get done, but I literally, you know, once you get to a tournament, it's like, go, go. And you know, you need two days to recover like after it. And that's the way it was for me when I was fishing tournaments, it was the same thing. So, you know, you're still up super early, you know, you gotta meet the guys at the ramps cause they're, that's where they are. And then they're gone for the rest of the day. So, but, yeah. That's my.

Brian Bashore (28:43.074)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (28:50.346)
Yeah, it doesn't end. Once you just weigh fish in, it's not over for the day. There's four more hours of stuff that goes into this after weighing. You know, ready for the next day!

Robert Cardenas (28:54.773)
Oh no.

Robert Cardenas (28:58.302)
Yeah, all the download, all the download stuff, getting it all organized, getting things posted. Cause it's real time and you know, if you don't get it posted, it's, it's old immediately in a tournament. Um, so everything's got to be.

Brian Bashore (29:11.266)
Yeah, and then you're getting bitch-tapped. Yeah, everybody on Facebook's yelling at Robert. Where's the results? Where's this? You're like, I got no wifi connection, man. It's not happening, but you know.

Robert Cardenas (29:17.066)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (29:21.426)
Yeah. So I'm trying to, I, you know, and I, I think I got that figured out to you last year at the end of the year at the championship. I got a portable wifi, um, internet that, you know, I can actually plug into my boat and have five G. So, um, I think I, you know, I could actually make posts out of my boat now. So I'm trying to streamline stuff for myself just because I'm. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (29:45.922)
Is that T-Mobile one that you showed me? Yeah. So I went to get one because so Robert's got this. So if you don't want to take 50 bucks a month and it's T-Mobile's internet and that's it's 50 bucks a month, plug it in and boom, there's your router and rock and roll. So it's perfect for like a camper. And you used it, you brought it to my camper at pigstown and to work. So I went over to the T-Mobile down the street and like, I want one of these cause I'm burning up hotspot and spending half that money and I don't get near, you know, it doesn't last very long. And my camper.

Robert Cardenas (30:00.095)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, I did. That's right.

Robert Cardenas (30:14.188)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (30:14.586)
Cause I got all day and then I'm trying to do the same media stuff all night and stream, you know, TV and the camper. And like three days, you're 15 gig hotspots. It's done. It's wiped out and it sucks. Right. If I'm on my computer and streaming TV, it doesn't work very good. A movie is going to play for like two minutes and stop, you know, and I got to sit there for two minutes and come. All right. Then it plays again, but whatever. I'm just on my laptop working all night. And so I go to there and get it. And I look in their server and they're like,

Robert Cardenas (30:24.898)
Gone. Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (30:33.27)
Nope. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (30:42.254)
So I've been yanked in majority of the time. They're like, oh, we don't cover that area. I'm like, well, you don't cover pigstown neither. And it worked there. So, so I didn't get it, but I'm going to go in here probably next week or two and just get one and be like that. It works whether it's in their area or not. It's, it's going to work better. I'm like, if anything works in pigstown, it'll work anywhere.

Robert Cardenas (30:48.896)
Thank you.

Robert Cardenas (30:55.875)
Yeah. Yeah, it's just if they, if they haven't released it or whatever in that area, it's probably what it, what, they just haven't done a release there probably. Yeah, it works.

Brian Bashore (31:05.73)
Yeah. I mean, it's the, yeah, the whole Southeast corner state. I'm like, well, you're selling it here and everybody has these. And I'm like, whatever, I'll just get it. And if it doesn't work, you just send, you can, it's like a month a month contract. So.

Robert Cardenas (31:15.799)
Yeah, pick stone.

Robert Cardenas (31:19.79)
I think we actually use it to do the live stream on the NWT as well in Fixedown because Fixedown is like, yeah, there's nothing there. So yeah, that's another nice thing. You know, I'm at the boat accesses in the morning. I have Wi-Fi no matter what. I don't have to worry about it so I can get things uploaded and I just plug it into my truck and go.

Brian Bashore (31:24.559)
Oh, for PIX now? Yeah.

Brian Bashore (31:44.126)
So Drake and I were talking about this here today. So for those that don't NWT, you can actually live stream from your boat the second day of the tournament, not the first day. So people are all watching it and seeing where you were and doing whatever. Um, so I allow you to live stream only to a Facebook, not a Facebook and YouTube. I can't remember. Um, the social media platform basically, right? Not your own website, obviously. And I.

Robert Cardenas (32:04.626)
I think it's Facebook or YouTube.

Yeah, yeah. No.

Brian Bashore (32:11.498)
Understand the reason behind that because you can charge and have your own advertising But once you lose your signal, that's it. You're done. You don't get to take time to reconnect it and what have you I know if you guys have tried that their cameras unfortunately glan Steiner's fell out of his boat within the first couple minutes and Yeah, right into the drink of Spring Valley. He's like that didn't work out. So I don't drink said he got some stuff I mean you can do it with a GoPro and I have

Robert Cardenas (32:30.33)
With the water.

Robert Cardenas (32:35.71)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (32:41.046)
I'm looking at another one going, you know, it's just. Yeah. And go pro on a yellow tech is good, but the problem is keeping that signal, that stream live.

Robert Cardenas (32:43.146)
Yeah, you could stream those GoPros and stuff, but once.

Robert Cardenas (32:50.738)
Right. Yeah. Everything. Yeah. Once something happens to it, you can't touch it. So it's like gone. I think even some of the bass guys have tried to start doing it on the MLF, because they're not filming, you know, they're not filming in the beginning on their tournaments as well. So I think, I think this stuff's going to come along. I think that it's the next thing at some point, you know, we're going to be able to stream out of our boats all the time. But, you know, it's

Brian Bashore (32:56.771)
Right, be good.

Brian Bashore (33:16.93)
Whether people, whether people will watch it or not. I don't know. It's, you know, I probably, if I have, so I put it on a GoPro, my Yolo tech, that's in the, yeah, it's in the back of the boat. Super wide angle. You're going to get it all, but audio, you know, you're going to have to have a, a different audio device to mic to hear from it and then keeping that connected. That probably with me is keeping that connected to it. I guess I can just tape it to it because a little. Noggle type things aren't, aren't going to hold up on a boat ride, but the Yolo tech stick will and the GoPro can ride.

Robert Cardenas (33:20.633)
Satellite. Yeah, exactly.

family.

Robert Cardenas (33:33.206)
Mike. Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (33:41.759)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (33:46.41)
60 mile an hour through whatever and it's, it's going to be just fine. Plus you can keep it, keep it charged. So I don't know how many may divvy that dip into that. I had it set up on what my website a few years ago and Anthony, uh, when they were running, it was like, yeah, go ahead and do whatever. But we started off at Chamberlain. I'm like, there's no service up here. This isn't going to work, you know, and it was streaming it right through, right to my website and you could watch it. And if I got one or two, you could charge people a buck or five bucks to watch, you know, all day long.

Robert Cardenas (33:48.727)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (34:04.67)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (34:14.169)
Yep, yep, yep. I think with the satellite, with the satellite, Wi-Fi coming, I think it's going to be a game changer someday, you know, or soon, very soon. Oh, yeah.

Brian Bashore (34:16.194)
type dealers.

Brian Bashore (34:26.454)
Very soon, hopefully sooner or later. I think people would like to see it. I think some of us will probably forget. Obviously if you have it and you're fishing, you want to turn it on and forget about it. But don't completely forget about it that you're on live stream all day too, guys. But I mean, Hey, that would have solved, you know, they can definitely, I, I run my cameras all day and try to record as much, you know, just for YouTube later. Um, but then there's always that evidence of somebody who says you did this day. He's like,

Robert Cardenas (34:37.046)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (34:40.434)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (34:45.799)
It's real.

Robert Cardenas (34:51.479)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (34:54.73)
Now actually I have this all on video, buddy. And I, yeah. And you know, you were 200 yards away from me. I'm not in, I'm not on your spot or you came up and whatever the case was, or someone says you did this, that you're like, actually, no, here's, here's exactly what happened. So it takes a lot of that out of there. And there's, I mean, certainly situations that have arisen over the past where we wish that would have been in play probably. And, but, you know, we have two, three camera boats, usually for a tournament going on.

Robert Cardenas (34:57.546)
Yeah, I got proof here, yeah.

Robert Cardenas (35:04.887)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (35:18.806)
Right?

Robert Cardenas (35:25.374)
Yeah, usually, usually to there's always a third one for me and, and Kevin to go out in usually typically Kevin, Kevin will Kevin's the guy that films, you know, on land a lot, the stage and stuff, but he'll go out sometimes and get footage as well.

Brian Bashore (35:41.922)
So for people, let's try to clear this up for people who don't understand this National Walleye Tour stuff and ownership and how this works. So you Robert Cardis works for Bass Pro Cabela's. Right. And so you're talking Kevin, Kevin is part owner of Careco TV. Careco TV produces the National Walleye Tours television show you see on a few, two or three channels or are correct. And Kevin up.

Robert Cardenas (35:53.142)
I'm contracted with Bass Pro, yep.

Robert Cardenas (36:08.158)
Yeah, I don't know if he's maybe his owner of Caracol. I don't know. I don't know the ownership of that

Brian Bashore (36:12.995)
Yeah, him and Wade Middleton on CarecoTV. At least that's what I understood it from Wade. And now Careco is a part owner of the National Walleye Tour, like 20%. And then Johnny Morris's team, Bass Pro owns the other 80%. So Robert works for Bass Pro, since they're majority owner of the National Walleye Tour doing what needs to be done. So where people get confused is now we have a new administrative group.

Robert Cardenas (36:17.967)
Okay.

Robert Cardenas (36:26.282)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (36:41.334)
Which is the walleye Federation, which is Robert Cartledge and his team. Now those guys own the master's walleye circuit. Robert had Cartledge, not Robert Cardenas, Robert Cartledge had bought that year. Right. Had bought that years ago. Um, people still think it's a Cabela's master and it's that's their title sponsor. And it is, but the walleye Federation owns the master's walleye circuit. So we had a different management, basically tournament director and administrative team that ran national walleye tour for.

Robert Cardenas (36:48.734)
Yep. Yeah, a lot of roberts.

Brian Bashore (37:10.986)
ever until last season. And they switched it over to the walleye federation who has the insurance, the tape, the, they have everything needed to run a tournament. They've been doing tournaments for years. They do all sorts of tournaments, mass tournaments, walleye tournaments. Um, but they're not, they don't own it. So they're not making the rules and certain decision makers of, of much of it. They're the tournament directors taking your money, writing the page, you know, writing out the checks and then.

Robert Cardenas (37:38.629)
They're running it.

Brian Bashore (37:39.678)
Right, they're running it on site. So that's how that works. The Federation is the management company of the National Wildlife Tour. Well, that missing thing, do we sum that up? Do we clear that up for everybody who doesn't get it, I think?

Robert Cardenas (37:47.21)
Yep, yep. Nope, no, a hundred. Yeah. A hundred percent. Like, yeah. So my contract is with Bass Pro Shops. That's literally who I work for. Um, so yeah.

Brian Bashore (37:55.294)
You know, there's...

Brian Bashore (38:00.106)
Yeah. People get very confused and they get upset or they think that's not right. They want to push blame here and there. Well, that, that here's the, here's the entities who do what now do they all communicate and talk and figure out together like they're supposed to. That's, you know, that's up to them. Um, I think, you know, anytime there's a new management company, there's obviously a learning curve and, and transitions. And, uh, hopefully we get, got through a lot of that last year and this year will be.

Robert Cardenas (38:10.338)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (38:17.602)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (38:26.43)
Even better. So you're growing it. I mean, obviously the demand's huge. So

Robert Cardenas (38:30.994)
Yeah, and that's my job. Like I just tell people, you know, dude, I'm the camera guy. You know, I know everybody I hear, you know, lots of stuff. Um, but I just focus on the camera stuff and try to grow. I just, the, you know, stay out of the politic part of it. Cause obviously, you know, I was an angler for a long time too. I it's always like that every, every year there's always something. Um, and it always has been something, but we go on, you know, and

it's gotten, you know, I think it's gotten better. There's different things that obviously there's different people have different ideas. So, um, things, you know, it'll be, it'll be another interesting year. There's change this year too. And when there's change, if you have a hard time with change, but everybody adapts and, um, it's the same for everybody. So, uh, I'm just going to focus on the camera and try to keep growing that part of it and add some video.

Brian Bashore (39:30.602)
That's it. I'm the camera man. That's all I know. I'm the camera guy. I don't know anything else.

Robert Cardenas (39:31.271)
Let's go from there. I'm the camera guy. Because once I'm not, then people aren't going to talk to me, you know, over here, over here, you know, everywhere. So I'm the camera guy.

Brian Bashore (39:43.311)
Yep. Nope. It's a, it's a good guy to be, just be the camera guy, which it sets you're a fly on the wall. But you know, we have, you still have your in the industry, you have sponsors, there's contracts, there's things and there's just, I'm the camera guy.

Robert Cardenas (39:50.603)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (39:56.674)
That's a great thing about my position. Not fishing on the Pro Tour, I haven't lost one of my sponsors. Which is, I've worked very closely with all my sponsors. That's what people need to do. Content is king when it comes to sponsors. If you're producing content and giving them good content and the stuff they need.

You know, you'll stick around. It's when you start getting lazy and not doing it, you know, there's other, there's other people that can fill that position real quick. There's a lot of people out there that want in.

Brian Bashore (40:38.794)
Yeah. I mean, obviously sponsors went, that's great. But the reality is a guide is a great person, a, you know, sponsor, right? When you have 400 people in your boat, all you're using their products or products are in their hands. It's like, that's kind of a no brainer. Whether that person's posting stuff on social or whatever it is or not. There's, there's a huge value to that. I mean, as a guide, right. And I mean, I got people, Oh, what kind of rod is this? You know, and, oh, it's a take cry icon, whatever.

Robert Cardenas (40:46.25)
Huge. Nope.

Robert Cardenas (40:54.062)
They're huge.

Robert Cardenas (41:00.638)
You have that other avenue, yep.

Brian Bashore (41:08.078)
Oh, these are awesome. How much are these? Oh, I'm like, they don't, they run out and buy two or three of them. Now, granted you get people that only fish once a year and they're not going to buy or do anything, but they remember, Hey, I use this guy's stuff and their friend or another guy they went out with, yeah, he goes out and gets it and, and hopefully get them hooked on fishing and boats, boats are huge. Right. I was such a 20 as hell out, but we were in this guy's Nitro, you know, ZV 2021 and it was such a smooth ride. We were like, Hey, this is, it's not bad out at all. You know.

Robert Cardenas (41:17.987)
I'm gonna tackle.

Robert Cardenas (41:23.337)
out

Brian Bashore (41:35.746)
But then there's, you know, there's more, there's so many different levels of the pro angler in a sense, and MPA helps identify and helps you grow. But even just like you said, just, I can transition from and Kevin Van Dam, there's a perfect example. I'm retired and now I'm going to transfer into the other side of it, where I'm going to be a TV show. All right. So now I need to learn, you know, but he's obviously learned how to do all this, but in his position, obviously there's people that are going to produce and make, and you know, and he's the personality of it, but you're

Robert Cardenas (41:42.209)
No.

Robert Cardenas (41:50.014)
Yep, same thing.

Robert Cardenas (41:55.83)
The media side, yep.

Robert Cardenas (42:03.572)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (42:05.45)
few sponsors that you have out there still with I believe like striking right and lose.

Robert Cardenas (42:10.254)
Striking, lose, yep, nitro, Suzuki, yep.

Brian Bashore (42:14.05)
They all said, Hey, this spring is content. This is worth. Golden, you know, versus we have to go hire a photographer for a day, which is going to cost us, you know, that's usually a two or three day type gigs going to cost a lot of money, which you just did, I believe over the weekend. Right. For Caymus with Drake. So, or Drake did it. So yeah, there's people forget about that. I think it don't, and maybe new guys getting into it or guys that are maybe.

Robert Cardenas (42:20.203)
It is.

Robert Cardenas (42:30.154)
Yep. Oh, Drake. Yeah. Drake went out there and did that. Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (42:40.065)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (42:42.43)
looking to get out or guys that just can't figure out where it is, but they're really good at this. I mean, the FPA has told them and taught us that for years on industry doesn't mean rod in hand.

Robert Cardenas (42:53.778)
Yeah, no, there's so many different ways. It's you got to treat it like a job. I mean, your sponsors are a job. Um, you, you're working for them. I mean, they're, they're giving you something. They need something in return. Right. Um, and so, and, and then building that relationship just like you would at a regular job. Um, yeah, so that's a big part. Um, if you're going to be in the industry.

Brian Bashore (43:21.93)
Yeah, you better show value. Yeah, because there's.

Robert Cardenas (43:22.754)
If you're going to try to make it. Yeah. Cause I treated, I've always treated fishing as a business. And if I, you know, if I'm not making money, there's no point in actually doing it. Right. Um, so, and it's hard to make money in the industry. Um, but yeah, you have to, it has to be a viable business to be able to do it. Otherwise, you know, just do some. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (43:32.983)
All right.

Brian Bashore (43:45.758)
It's very hard to make money in the industry. So people don't, they think you're getting these $50,000, $100,000 sponsorship checks and stuff. And it couldn't be, couldn't be further from the truth. I think Brett King explained some of that with the free boat type stuff. It's like, no, that's not how I hope to get enough sponsorship, you know, on a, on a monetary level that covers the entry fees, you know, at least for the year or something to offset some of this expense, cause like you said, traveling, you know, tour program, we only have four.

Robert Cardenas (43:53.917)
No. Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (44:00.747)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (44:08.59)
Nope.

Brian Bashore (44:14.266)
And then a championship, which if you qualify your entry is paid, but you still have fuel, which is a huge expense, you know, lodging and food and bait and tackle, I mean, it's, it's just, it's not cheap period. There's this, there's this way around it. You take all that out and you're there to work, but there's still expenses with it. It's like, yeah, none of this stuff is five miles from home.

Robert Cardenas (44:22.558)
lodging no

Robert Cardenas (44:38.206)
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy.

Brian Bashore (44:41.802)
What do you see in the media side? It's kind of the trending, you know, stuff in the outdoor industry. Where's what's everybody kind of kind of talk about the live stuff? Where do you see things kind of going in the future with it? As far as media side.

Robert Cardenas (44:56.806)
You mean, oh, with live, like live stuff like that. I think a podcast or I think podcasts are going to be huge. Obviously, like for social media wise, right now, the reels, if you're if you're making reels, I mean, they're obviously they're getting out way further stories. I had a reel just recently go viral when I was a few months ago.

Brian Bashore (44:59.114)
live, real, social.

Robert Cardenas (45:25.15)
And it was just like an eight second video, but it had 34 million hits, which I've never had. I mean, I've had, you know, three million, four million, but 34 millions. Like it's like, it's, it's hard to, it's hard to even believe that. But, uh, you know, like if you're trying to make money and stuff, like Instagram's totally out of the picture right now. There's, there's no money involved with Instagram other than it's a great platform for pictures and.

Brian Bashore (45:37.082)
That's a lot.

Robert Cardenas (45:53.751)
You can still put your reels there. But I honestly think.

Brian Bashore (45:56.69)
Influencer, unless you're being paid to influence or something, you're not.

Robert Cardenas (46:00.67)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But, you know, at the NPA conference, I, you know, when Gerald Swindle started talking about Facebook, you know, he makes most of his money on Facebook, not even YouTube. I had never monetized my Facebook and I don't know why. I had just always done YouTube. And so after that, I had monetized, it still took me a while before I did it. And I finally did it.

like you might as well, right? Cause you make some money doing, posting the same stuff anyways. If I can post a video to Facebook or I post a video to YouTube, what's the difference? Other than just resizing it. So I monetized it and yeah, I mean, for me anyways, I make more money off of YouTube than I do, or off of Facebook than I do YouTube for sure. And that's because

Brian Bashore (46:56.602)
So Monnet, is that with the stars are all on with Facebook?

Robert Cardenas (46:58.718)
monetizing just meaning that you're getting paid.

Robert Cardenas (47:03.766)
So star, yeah, so there's levels of Facebook. So I think you start out with stars and then that's actually people giving you stars and I think it's like a quarter of star or something. But Facebook will actually pay you. Once you get to so many views of minutes or seconds watched, then you get up to another level and then they can start putting ads on your videos. And for me, like,

Brian Bashore (47:22.414)
Right?

Robert Cardenas (47:32.726)
You know reels, you know, you can do an eight second reel and it doesn't take as much time as doing a 15 minute video or 12 minute video. You know, attention span for people nowadays is not very long at all. Yeah, people, I mean, start watching the video and if you lose any action, it's gone. You know, you're off to the next, you know.

Brian Bashore (47:47.518)
is pretty short. Nope, it is it.

Brian Bashore (47:55.402)
Yep. So YouTube used to be a minimum of a thousand subscribers and then they kind of changed that. It's still somewhat is, but it's really a minimum of so many minutes, you know, per month, I think, to qualify for monocytation. Yeah. I mean, it's watched. So, and I just started, started doing that. And it, but people also don't realize that it does it. It's not a lot of money. It's, it's something, you know, now the guys that got 120,000 followers. Yeah. Or we get, get a viral. I mean, my wife's

Robert Cardenas (48:05.406)
Yeah. Minutes watch. Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (48:16.614)
Right, right. Yeah, I mean, if you get this stuff going viral, right. What I.

Brian Bashore (48:23.638)
monetize on YouTube for years.

Robert Cardenas (48:26.186)
What I've noticed though, like, I mean, if you don't start, you're not going to grow. Um, and it starts little, it starts little and my Robert Carding is fishing. You know, once I monetized it and then had some, a few videos go out, it just grows like crazy, like, like when I had that viral one go, I think I grew 10,000 subscribers just like in a matter of days. So like, I mean, I'm just like, well, maybe I should just be doing this.

Brian Bashore (48:54.198)
right? But they don't all go viral. Very few go viral, but sometimes it's the one you put the least amount of effort or thought into, right? It's the one that goes nuts. But I mean, hey, when it hits and sticks, it sticks and that's all it takes to catapult you to the new level.

Robert Cardenas (48:56.38)
Because, yeah, you are.

Right, exactly.

Robert Cardenas (49:04.158)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (49:11.166)
Yeah, yeah, just, I guess you just got to do it to, you know, you just need to start and then just keep going with it. You're not going to see like great growth right away either. When people start seeing your stuff, you got to be consistent.

Brian Bashore (49:25.502)
No, nothing in this industry. Right. Nothing in this, nothing in this industry happens overnight. And others have all said it's, it's a long game and building up these platforms, which is really building up your brand takes a long time. I mean, uh, I can, Ellie gave a, a good talk about brand building years ago at the MPA conference and everybody knows Mike I can tell you right. But you and I both know there's Mike I can Ellie and there's like, okay. What you see is I.

Robert Cardenas (49:38.307)
hard.

and

Brian Bashore (49:53.494)
Mike I can tell you is an entrepreneur businessman who's all business and smart as hell and has all business and has several companies. And most people probably don't even know of two or three of them. You know, this is the foundation, um, his media company and I mean, you know, Mike employees, uh, 10 to 20 people, you know, Israel as well in the podcast and his TV shows. I mean, it's just, he's leveraging every platform there is and every avenue there is.

Robert Cardenas (49:53.536)
Nope. Yeah. 100%.

Robert Cardenas (49:57.982)
all business.

Robert Cardenas (50:21.404)
Ask University, yeah.

Brian Bashore (50:22.838)
Yep, best you and all these things. So yeah, there's the opportunities are there if you're willing to do the work and learn because you're a self-taught videographer, camera man, basically. Right.

Robert Cardenas (50:33.898)
Yeah, I didn't go to school for that. I went to school for nursing. You know, and I honestly wish like if I was to look back at it, although I don't know how I would have paid for it. Um, but I would have went into marketing and business. So I had a little bit more of that background. I've learned all that on the road because if you're going into the industry as fishing, you need to know the business side of things as well. Um, yeah, it's.

Brian Bashore (50:36.794)
Right, oh, just-

Brian Bashore (50:44.619)
Right, right.

Robert Cardenas (51:01.846)
I wish I would have had a little bit more background in that, but hey, you learn, you learn, you go. And some of the

Brian Bashore (51:05.526)
Yeah, but there's a lot more money at nursing. I can tell you that than there is the marketing side of things, unless you're like the CMO or something. But the opportunities, the fun, right? The people you get to meet, the relationships, the travel. I mean, the cool stuff. You got to do a lot of cool stuff. That, uh, that goes, that goes a long way.

Robert Cardenas (51:14.475)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (51:22.057)
Yeah. I was just trying to figure out, yeah, to pay for fishing and have the time off. You're in marketing world. You're obviously working every day.

Brian Bashore (51:28.365)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (51:32.102)
And that's exactly how I got into guiding those Bill McGannon from all our nations creations that I were fishing local tournaments. Well, let's just guide for our pre-fishing to help pay for the tournament. And then it, you know, blew up from there. So like everything, it all starts small, right? Like fin gear. Well, let's just make these things because I need these things for my boat. Boom. Now we all need these things for our boats now and these guys make them so.

Robert Cardenas (51:44.012)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (51:52.802)
help make them better you know

Robert Cardenas (51:58.814)
Yeah, no, yeah, it's just, yeah, that started off with like one thing and now it's a lot of things.

Brian Bashore (52:07.618)
You, uh, you mentioned Schilling earlier that you ran into him or fish in a tournament. I ran into Chad Tuesday. Uh, yeah, Cedar shores. He was down in the Chamberlain Swenson picking up his new, his new Lund for the year. I think he said he had five live transducers on it. So he was getting everything tuned in, uh, the trance of what, and so he was out.

Robert Cardenas (52:22.821)
Oh.

Brian Bashore (52:31.95)
Got total Morales catch some fish. He was with his buddy there at Wednesday. He was just, you know, getting the boat all broken and just tuning stuff in. So he stayed the night and had a guy with him, but it looked sharp. And yeah, we spent a lot of time talking about the trail. Um, you know, his boys wanting to get into it. He's going to get them on some local stuff first this year's, you know, he's a hammer, right? Bow shilling up and comer.

Brian Bashore (52:56.822)
Yup.

Robert Cardenas (53:10.819)
What's your favorite tournament?

And yeah, and kicking butt, yeah. And yeah, and his kids, he literally lives in the outdoor world, so it's awesome to see.

Brian Bashore (53:15.274)
and kicking butt too in the aim tournament. Kicking butt. So.

Brian Bashore (53:25.906)
Yep. And, uh, Chad, his son, Bo, that he's got his daughters. I mean, that's it. That's all they do is fish and hunt, right? He runs the outfitters, the pheasant, uh, while he wings and walleye. So if we're going up there and check them out, but yeah, as boys, uh, you're going to see him on, you know, some kind of tournament trail eventually. And he's been just like Jay Shakur, brought up by, you know, Jason and, you know, and all these guys that, uh, they're following their. Yup. Matt and Jim, you know, there's a reason these guys jump in and they're

Robert Cardenas (53:32.748)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (53:44.022)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (53:47.406)
Sheeplebine, you know, there's so many of them, yep. McCoy.

Brian Bashore (53:54.282)
Yeah, Eric, especially right. There's reason these kids jump in and they're good right away We say kids because they're 20 years younger than us, but you know and they can compete Yeah, they grew up watching their dad

Robert Cardenas (53:58.777)
Yeah. The experience behind them and networking. Yeah. Traveling. Chase. Chase the same way.

Brian Bashore (54:11.542)
Yeah, Jason, Gary, it's, uh, it's cool to see those type of, uh, father, son type things through the industry and it's, it is said where it's in the bass world. And even within companies, um, you know, you see some of that rap allows you have the

Stephens or what have you. Um, was that right? Matt and Dan, um, on the PR or marketing side and then the media side, writer side. Um, yeah, there's just, it's everywhere. It's every, we have that at St. Croix with our pro staff coordinator and CMO, you know, uncle, nephew. Um, there's, it just works, works good. Yep.

Robert Cardenas (54:38.703)
Oh, sure.

Robert Cardenas (54:50.55)
you know, following the footsteps, you know, you know, you know. Yeah. It'll be interesting this year with the, with the forward facing sonar in the back of the boats, like you said, um, cause I could see it in the walleye world actually. Cause I, you know, I obviously, you know, it's the bass guys have started their tournaments and they got the two in the back of the boat shining out both sides. And then obviously one in the front or two in the front, whatever you want to do. I don't know. Oh, well, it'll be interesting. I think.

Brian Bashore (55:00.726)
Mm-hmm.

Robert Cardenas (55:19.486)
in the walleye world because I actually think that would be kind of beneficial in the back of the boat. You know, whereas the bass, you know, probably not as much.

Brian Bashore (55:25.302)
Well, so some of the guys have already been running them up here in the back but shooting them forward.

Robert Cardenas (55:35.89)
No.

Brian Bashore (55:36.75)
So in the back, it's fixed, obviously, if it's in the back, attached to trans and whatever that trans do, it's fixed. You're not looking around, but I can shoot it in front of the boat, aiming it down, and I can see the trees before I get to them. I can see the fish on the break before I get to them. You know, also if you're trolling or something like that, cause you're moving, you know, fairly slow. Yeah, I mean, any time you can expose and see what's down there better than you could before, long as you figure out how to use it properly, it's, yeah, it's gonna benefit you.

Robert Cardenas (55:41.268)
Right.

Robert Cardenas (55:54.698)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (55:59.23)
Nope.

Brian Bashore (56:06.614)
More money, obviously, you know, and now we're needing batteries to run all this stuff. But that's the progression we're in, right? Everything's moving that way.

Robert Cardenas (56:10.281)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (56:14.178)
Yeah. Batteries and live scope, yep.

Brian Bashore (56:18.878)
Yup. I'll be at the classic next week and I have some meetings set with some battery companies to... I need more juice in them. That's it. I need more power in the boat to run all this stuff because once I hit the live oil or anything else or the Yellow Tech, I got to turn the lights on to the nitro to keep that thing charged. My volts are dropping fast.

Robert Cardenas (56:39.91)
Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. I wish I was going to the classic. It's going to be some, I think it's going to be really cool. Drake's going to, Drake's going to get out there. I have to go to Florida, but yeah. Yeah. I like to try to be down there in the winter. Yeah. Oh, the Miami, the Miami, my daughter's got spring break and

Brian Bashore (56:55.059)
Oh, poor Robert. Didn't you just get back from Florida? Now you got to go back. Where are you going and what are you doing down there?

Brian Bashore (57:07.95)
Oh.

Robert Cardenas (57:08.642)
the Miami Open tennis tournaments going on. So we're going to go to that. And my daughter loves to play tennis. So she's been playing since she was little. People don't know I used to play tennis. I grew up playing tennis a ton actually. Was nationally ranked. But yeah, so my daughter's gotten into it.

Brian Bashore (57:32.218)
That, that cracks me up because people think of fishermen as whatever here. And I, and I knew this about you and Robert's a tennis player. It is obviously got your daughter and dude, she's very good at it. Austin Rogasky was a damn near Olympic skier. Right. This guy's like this Nordic skier type dude. And people are like, Oh, maybe they would think football players or whatever. Which yeah, that was me. No, we got skiers and tennis players.

Robert Cardenas (57:49.439)
Yeah, crazy.

Robert Cardenas (57:58.282)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (58:01.422)
Chase Parson was, you know, on the break of being a damn near pro golfer, you know, but his dead shoulder problems. Yeah, there's... Fishing's not as physically challenging, so...

Robert Cardenas (58:03.541)
Oh.

Robert Cardenas (58:10.378)
I think it was his potting. I think it was his potting though.

Brian Bashore (58:14.626)
Was it? Ha ha ha. We'll get them on here, we'll have them verify that. We'll validate that. Chase can't punt. Yep, yep, that's fine. So we've been texting back and forth for trying to get them on here. So, yeah, Florida, you go down there a lot. You got a place down there who you're going fishing with? You guys are going to the open, but you just got back. Okay.

Robert Cardenas (58:22.969)
So I'll hear about that.

Robert Cardenas (58:35.234)
Yeah, John Tennyson. So he's got a place down there for two and a half, two and a half months. And I try to get down there as much as I possibly can. Usually I get down there. Well, we shot a show this year down at Keith Kavias' place in Hernando Beach. So we went there. I went down to Cape Coral. I fished with Benzie from North Dakota. You know, used to work for Shields forever.

Um, went fishing with him and then, uh, yeah. And then I went down to came back, went back down there to Key West and JT and I went fishing. Um, and he's got a Bay boat down there. Um, and we, we had a few calm days in a row and that while I was down there. And he's like, we should go off shore. And then, you know, you're two walleye guys. I'm like.

Brian Bashore (59:29.742)
Hahaha!

Robert Cardenas (59:33.758)
Yeah, we should go offshore. And we should. And so we, we went out there into the blue water, which is nice in the key was you don't have to go super far to get blue water. Um, not like, you know, down by Keith where it's like 50 miles, you know, or 40 miles. Um, so we went offshore, you know, it's a little sporty, but nothing we can't handle. But you know, we're fishing next to these giant boats. Um, and we just wailed on the blackfin tuna and.

Brian Bashore (59:35.019)
We should, we can handle it.

Brian Bashore (59:57.751)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (01:00:04.566)
I caught a big cobia as well. Um, but it's funny being out there, you know, in a Bay boat. Cause you know, these, you know, these guys are all, they're all charting, you know, captains and stuff. And they're looking at us like, what are you guys doing? But the nice thing is, you know, you could see fish, you know, topping out wherever. We just did three lines, staggered them and we could turn that boat on a dime and just go right over to the fish, go right through them and you know, I mean, it was

Brian Bashore (01:00:07.29)
this tastes good.

Brian Bashore (01:00:17.11)
Right, you crazy asses!

Brian Bashore (01:00:31.454)
It takes those guys an hour to whip it around. No.

Robert Cardenas (01:00:33.438)
Yeah, they're not turning around. They're not turning around. Wow. Within 15 minutes when we started, we put our lines out, you know, and, you know, JT probably knows more than I do about that whole blue water stuff, but it's trolling basically and within 15 minutes we were hooked up on all three lines. And we're now what? You know, they're screaming, you know, they're like, you know, they're screaming out. So yeah, no, it was.

Brian Bashore (01:00:56.149)
Yeah, oh crap!

Brian Bashore (01:01:01.786)
This isn't just like, oh, my board went back, you know, or, oh, let it ride, let me grab the other one real then. It's like, no, they're all three just zing, zip it out everywhere you go.

Robert Cardenas (01:01:05.229)
Yeah!

Robert Cardenas (01:01:09.162)
Well, we were talking, we were talking about that because, you know, we didn't have outriggers or nothing. Um, but I'm like, God, we should bring boards down here and do this and get them out there. But then you're fighting a tuna with a board. When like something to try, I think it's something I'm going to have to try. Uh, but yeah, no, that was a blast. So then, you know, the next day it was calm again. Of course we're just back out there and now he's been out there at time. So.

Brian Bashore (01:01:21.838)
Yeah. Oh yeah.

Robert Cardenas (01:01:37.73)
to something different to do down there. I absolutely love the saltwater fishing. I am 100% addicted to it because every fish is fighting for its life. If you don't get that fish in quick enough, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger because something's eating it. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Brian Bashore (01:01:52.43)
Right. Yep, yeah, something's got to eat it. It's bait all of a sudden. If it's not your dinner, it's dinner for something else. I've done a fair amount and it seems like it's relatively easy once you figure it out or once you find them. Depends on what you're targeting. So

Robert Cardenas (01:02:07.21)
Yeah, it's simple. Very simple fishing. And obviously they do different knots and different lines and stuff. But I mean, we're way more technical up here than down there.

Brian Bashore (01:02:17.878)
Oh, wait way more in a five pound freshwater fish compared to a saltwater fish isn't comparable. The five pound saltwater fish is like a 20 pound carp or something over here. It's yeah, there's a reason they're using. Yeah. There's I've got a couple of 200 pound tuna in Venice and I don't ever need to do that again. I'm fine. I'm just, I'm cool with this cone catching red fish. So it's a, I lived in Maui. We did some, uh, pulled streamers for self. I just didn't get any, you know, but there's.

Robert Cardenas (01:02:23.394)
Oh, no. They will wreck you.

Robert Cardenas (01:02:35.705)
No!

Robert Cardenas (01:02:40.04)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:02:46.294)
Like I said, it's easy when you can find them, but those fish are all moving. They, you know, maybe, but a lot of time when you're doing that, you're only getting one or two fish a day, but when you're dealing with 500 or plus pound fish, it's meant to hold different. Unless you go to the right place, which I think you went, what, selfish Costa Rica is that. Or Guatemala. Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (01:02:56.706)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (01:03:02.018)
Guatemala last year. Yeah, I went with Brett King before he got married with a bunch of guys And yeah, I was absolutely you know, I questioned going down there because I was a little nervous. I'd never been to Guatemala obviously But you know once I got down to the people are so nice and the food is amazing and And the fishing like I can't even

Brian Bashore (01:03:16.357)
That's your home place, Garnetis. Come on, he's got to fit right in.

Robert Cardenas (01:03:30.922)
Like I, to this day, like, you know, I, I've gone and, and fished for, uh, you know, like Marlin or, you know, that kind of sailfish in, in the Keys. But you get like, you know, one sail, you know, and it's amazing. It was amazing. But I go to Guatemala and out of our three boats, we catch 138 sailfish in three days. So I can't even.

Like there's nothing that can even touch that. You know, I just, now I know why guys go down there to do it. I just, I mean, I can't, I can't go to the keys and go fish for sale fish anymore because it's like, I've done that I've reeled in a ton. Like you said, you know, I don't even need to re it. It gets to the point where it's like, I can't even reel anymore in.

Brian Bashore (01:04:03.2)
No.

Brian Bashore (01:04:20.218)
I'm just tired. I'm done. Yeah. Those, those fish, it's, it's a workout. I, that's on my bucket list. I've seen that the last few years. I'm just like, that's the, that I could do. That's beautiful place. I heard the same thing. Great people, great food, watch the water maybe, you know, but. Yeah. And you want to go for at least a few days and it's not really all that expensive.

Robert Cardenas (01:04:35.379)
Unbelievable.

Robert Cardenas (01:04:41.35)
No, no, actually, it's not right now. I mean, I maybe in the future will be but it's not. Um, you know, I made the mistake, you know, they asked us if we wanted to go catch yellowfin and I was like, yeah, let's go get yellowfin. Well, yellowfin compared to sailfish, it's like twice as bad reel in any yellowfin.

Brian Bashore (01:04:53.186)
Yeah, let's go!

Brian Bashore (01:05:03.627)
Tuna are the hardest, toughest fighting fish period. I mean sharks are scared of tuna, man. They are brutal.

Robert Cardenas (01:05:10.066)
Yeah, it's yeah. So we caught some elephant and we went back to catching sales. Oh, one now was done. Yeah. Well, even down in the key is JT and I, you know, after re reeling in five, you know, tuna and you know, like four or five Benita's we're like, we look at each other, we're done again. I can't do it anymore. Let's go in and catch other stuff.

Brian Bashore (01:05:17.12)
A couple of those, I'm good. I don't, that's exhausting. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:05:33.014)
Yeah, I'm good. Let's go in. Yeah. We'll keep whatever we can. We'll keep a little bit and cook it up and let's go back and hit some cervezas and, and hydrate. That's awesome. Yeah. Florida is a, yeah, that's special place and you're fortunate to get to go do it. And you're going to head down there and watch some tennis with your little one. That sounds like a good time, especially we got.

Robert Cardenas (01:05:42.006)
We're done. Yep. Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (01:05:52.768)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:05:58.358)
Looks like not really great weather coming up over here next couple of weeks. So another good time to run to Florida. Yeah. You run to Florida. I'm going to run to Oklahoma for the classic and we'll all hopefully.

Robert Cardenas (01:06:02.038)
Yeah, I need to get out of here. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's going to be fun. I think it's going to be a good classic. A lot of new people.

Brian Bashore (01:06:13.294)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's so we all say, I'll know what the talk will be the whole time, you know, of rookies and forward facing so and R and whatever, but gives us all some talk about, so it just is what it is. Uh, we've been chit chatting here for over an hour already. What, uh, if you could leave a little tip nugget to the people moving up, I think we've just about covered one of these already, but what, what would that be to help them and maybe their angling, their, their media.

Robert Cardenas (01:06:18.379)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (01:06:24.11)
But, you know.

Brian Bashore (01:06:41.466)
career. Just a little tip for the listeners what can help them along.

Robert Cardenas (01:06:46.563)
Well, like I said, if I was going into... One thing, if you're a young guy, I would personally buy a GoPro. And I know parents, we're very protective of our kid too, of not being on social media, this and that. But I honestly think if you start a YouTube with just your friends or whatever, I think Chase's kids do it with their YouTube channel.

get a GoPro and get comfortable talking in front of a camera and making videos. Just, you know, it doesn't have to be, you know, when you're young like that doesn't have to be crazy, but you're going to, you're going to get used to doing it, being comfortable doing it and then editing them. You know, that's going to come as well. So it's something for kids. I think just to start them doing for media wise, industry wise. It's it. I think that would be huge.

Um, other than that, I think definitely if you're going into school, definitely get some kind of business background, um, marketing background, um, you know, do nursing, but do a second major and get your marketing or your business background. Um, uh, yeah, cause I, I think, you know, to pay for things, you gotta find, you gotta find a way, um, or if you're going to be a influencer.

Brian Bashore (01:07:56.642)
Hey.

Robert Cardenas (01:08:11.478)
Do it. Just, I mean, tell yourself you're going to do it. It's a lot of work. It's consistency. You have to do it every day, you know, two videos a day, three, you know, whatever you ought to do. I mean, if you want to do it, you can do it. And then the, and then the fishing world just, you know, work, obviously try, you know, work with sponsors and, um, you know, build a friendship, you know, it's not going to come easy. Um, but, you know, once you get in, you start meeting more and more people. Um,

Brian Bashore (01:08:36.076)
No.

Robert Cardenas (01:08:41.502)
and keep those relationships. Even though, even if you get let go, you still keep the relationship because a lot of times those people are going somewhere else in the industry. They're gonna be there as well. Everybody just kinda shakes around. You get comfortable with one guy and they know you and it's good and all of a sudden they're gone. But just stay there because that guy's gonna be somewhere else too.

Brian Bashore (01:09:03.294)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (01:09:08.522)
Yep. And then when they're looking for somebody, he's reaching out to bring you on that team, if, if it works out for him, you, uh, yeah, all a hundred percent right on you mentioned something about the GoPro made me think about something I wanted to ask you about equipment. What does Robert, I mean, this thing is amazing, right? We all have one of these now, you know, and the GoPros.

Robert Cardenas (01:09:12.45)
Exactly, yeah.

Robert Cardenas (01:09:29.374)
Yeah, that is amazing.

Brian Bashore (01:09:37.602)
This is probably an older one, hero eight or nine. This one's an eight and there's a nine charging there. Uh, I just looked at a 10 a little bit ago.

Robert Cardenas (01:09:38.178)
Yeah, I got it.

Robert Cardenas (01:09:46.934)
Yeah, I got, you know, I keep that. I got, you know, lights, lights are huge. Like, you know, it's a little bit dark, whatever, you know, your video quality audio obviously is, is probably one of the biggest things people override. If you can figure out, I mean, there's a lot of different ways now that there's wireless mics, um, that you can connect to your GoPro even, um, audio makes a huge difference for keeping people's attention. Cause if you have

Brian Bashore (01:09:49.815)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (01:09:53.432)
Yep.

Robert Cardenas (01:10:16.694)
Bad audio, people will just go by you. Um, so that's one thing. I mean, obviously I got, you know, I got a camera for video. I got cameras for photos, you know, just, I got a lot of stuff, you know, in that stuff. But I mean, your phone, this thing right here, I do all my interviews in the morning at the NWT with this now, obviously with a mic.

Brian Bashore (01:10:37.009)
The D-

Robert Cardenas (01:10:46.39)
but I can, it's quicker for me. I don't have to turn around, download it from this to the computer and then bring it up because everything's real time. So for that kind of stuff, I don't mind doing it with this. I mean, you can shoot 4K 60 with your phone. Obviously, if you do that, it's gonna take longer to download. You don't need 4K 60 to do an interview and something you're gonna put up on social media. You don't need that. 1080 is completely fine. Will it look a little better on social media? No.

Brian Bashore (01:10:49.134)
Right.

Brian Bashore (01:11:11.454)
No. The majority of-

Robert Cardenas (01:11:16.058)
Not yet.

Brian Bashore (01:11:16.906)
No, I mean, most everything's 1080 and we have four and 5.3K, but 1080 is really, it's all you need.

Robert Cardenas (01:11:24.77)
And honestly, like, you know, I'm very like particular and stuff. I take a lot of time, but you know, I've gotten better about that because you can't caught unique content and caught in quick content and don't worry about it. I mean, get, get your, get your post up. Just, um, people worry, well, I can't do this. I got to edit this. I got to do this. You just, you just got to get it up. You just got to do it. You just got to keep going.

Brian Bashore (01:11:47.882)
Yep. Some is better than none. And then the raw stuff is what goes viral anyway. And that's what people kind of really want to see. And, and almost everybody has one of these. There's no reason you can't get started, you know, and GoPros are, you know, two to three to 400 bucks and it worked great for so many different things. Audio is tricky. You know, you got to get the, the mode, uh, frames forms, whatever it is, but you can Bluetooth or you can connect direct and

Robert Cardenas (01:11:53.118)
Yeah, exactly.

Robert Cardenas (01:11:59.351)
Nope.

Robert Cardenas (01:12:10.688)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (01:12:15.615)
You can get little cases like this to put your GoPro in. And then there's like a little shoe up here that you can stick your audio or your wireless mic that'll connect into your GoPro. And then you just wear your wireless mic. And then you got amazing audio with a GoPro. And these GoPros are crazy, you know, good. I do have a problem with GoPros sometimes when it's really hot out. They like to overheat and shut off.

But for the most part, they're pretty good.

Brian Bashore (01:12:46.274)
I was just looking at some to use one for the live stream and the new GoPro 12 was awesome but everything says it just overheats. It gets too hot.

Robert Cardenas (01:12:56.208)
They have a history. I mean, they've just always done that. They always say it's butter.

Brian Bashore (01:12:59.234)
The 10 didn't seem to have any bad reviews about getting hot, but like I said, I mean, we're going to be out in 100 degrees. It may not matter what you're using at that point, but just having it plugged in all day, it is 30 minutes, it gets hot and shuts off.

Robert Cardenas (01:13:07.53)
Yeah, yeah, actually.

The GoPro 3 Plus black has been their best GoPro. I have like four of them. And I've never gotten rid of them. As they don't, yeah, they won't overheat. Their audio is probably the best audio out of all of them. And I don't know why they haven't gone back to that thing. You know, what they're trying to.

Brian Bashore (01:13:19.326)
I think I just threw one of those away because nothing worked on it anymore.

Brian Bashore (01:13:35.386)
Right. Yeah. The audio, I was looking at the nine, Ted, the 12 and I'm like, the audio just, I use a wireless mic because I don't, I can't hear it at all without it. With it, see the videos and reviews people like, Oh, this is the audio. I'm like that you have it five feet from your face. There's no way. Cause I don't.

Robert Cardenas (01:13:42.506)
You have to. Yeah, you have to.

Robert Cardenas (01:13:51.946)
I literally, when I was using GoPros when I was making my own videos, which I'm gonna try to get back to as well, I just haven't really done anything for myself. I'd have two GoPros set up and I'd have one where it was mainly on me. I always just had one in my console in case I went to the back of the boat, but I always left the audio on that, so I always had audio. So you always have that good audio on a SD card that you can use.

Brian Bashore (01:14:19.106)
Yeah, I listened to like Tom Bowley stuff. I'm like, Hey, that guy's got great audio with him, but he's using a wireless mic. But I'm like, okay, I don't want to work one for each camera. You know, I'm going to use the mic on one of them and the other two or three go pros are going to run. And obviously you can be very good at editing and make sure you're over overlay audio, but it's not the easiest thing. I think Tom does a good job with that, but it's, I can't.

Robert Cardenas (01:14:28.801)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (01:14:35.526)
Overlay audio, yeah. Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (01:14:41.51)
Yeah, time. Time consuming.

Brian Bashore (01:14:44.95)
Yeah, I don't the little tiny audio speaker thing. I can't I don't without having a mic plugged into it. I don't think I can pick up anything except wind. It seems like but.

Robert Cardenas (01:14:54.418)
Yeah, if you're going to do it, you need an external mic. You just need it. No matter what, even, even with the big cameras, you know, like, and you know, like with, with these, I use an external mic with the phone too, for the interviews. I mean, if there's wind, it just cuts out that, that the blowing sound. So, I mean, there's a reason for it. Um, but you know, you.

Brian Bashore (01:14:59.106)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:15:02.901)
Oh yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:15:12.546)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (01:15:17.774)
So people can go to Amazon or Google and find all these. I mean, everything is an adapter. It's a compatibility type thing. There's something out there for most all of these deals. You may have to buy two or three different accessories to put them together to build. You'll see Robert out there with this camera and it's here's the camera and here's the three or four layers on top of it of the other, you know, the phone, the camera, the light, the mic, it's, it's a contraption, the gimbal of it. This stuff's not cheap. So, but if you're getting into it and.

Robert Cardenas (01:15:27.811)
Everyone.

Robert Cardenas (01:15:37.985)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (01:15:41.387)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:15:46.542)
You know, it's obviously a little investment, but it lasts most, you know, you take good care of it. Stuff will last you on.

Robert Cardenas (01:15:52.758)
Yeah, you can use it for a long time. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:15:57.018)
Alrighty. Well, that was some good tips there for Robert on how to get into it, how he transitioned from a pro angler into the social media and media guru he is from his TV DexBite video and skills to it, WT posting and, and all of that stuff. And, uh, boat insurance people probably didn't know the story of the boat Rob out there and, uh, that's one way to build a brand. I don't recommend anybody else doing that, but if it ever happens, reached out to.

Robert Cardenas (01:16:19.453)
Yeah.

Robert Cardenas (01:16:23.326)
No, absolutely not.

Brian Bashore (01:16:26.766)
The card is he can walk you through the process, you know, get you with the good insurance guys So thanks for tuning in folks and that's if this episode of real talk fishing with no limits and stay tuned we have Somebody good coming up on the next one as well. So we're just full of them over here We got guys like Drake and Robert Brett King and hopefully chase is listen He's gonna get on one of these here real soon as well so we can talk about his putting game. So

Thanks for tuning in. You can follow along and catch this on any one of the podcast platforms out there. Or you're watching this over on the wall. I guys Facebook page or over on the wall. I guys YouTube channel. So thanks for tuning in and we'll see you on the water.

Robert Cardenas (01:16:52.962)
I'm sorry.

Robert Cardenas (01:17:05.827)
See ya.