151 Clay Groves | Breaking Through the Ice. Literally and Figuratively

Clay Groves is host of the Fish Nerds Fishing podcast, an ice fishing guide, and a grant writer based out of New Hampshire. Although he and co-founder Dave Kellum started the podcast in 2013, they first started Fish Nerds in 2011 as a writing project with the hope of publishing a book about catching and eating every fresh water fish in New Hampshire. Even though the book project never materialized, it did grow into the Fish Nerds Fishing podcast and with over 170 episodes under his belt, Clay has found a very specific and niche topic that has proven to catch his audience’s attention.

Show Notes

Even though the book project never materialized, it did grow into the Fish Nerds Fishing podcast and with over 170 episodes under his belt, Clay has found a very specific and niche topic that has proven to catch his audience’s attention.

03:58 - The backstory behind the Fish Nerds and the Fish Nerds Fishing podcast
07:35 - MAPCON: Clay’s first experience with a podcasting conference
08:51 - Clay’s background in education and his opinion on conferences in the education space and how MAPCON compares to them
10:05 - What he thinks about the podcast community at MAPCON
11:25 - Road trip adventures with Podcast Junkies episode 136 guest, Amanda Doughty
12:05 - How he met Amanda and their collaborations
13:01 - Making friends through podcasting
13:33 - How using Patreon has greatly helped him with podcasting
17:48 - How to get the most out of a service like Patreon
22:33 - Advertising his ice fishing guide business on his podcast
22:51 - Some of the challenges of podcasting while ice fishing
24:28 - What people are mostly surprised about with ice fishing
26:07 - The sustainability behind ice fishing
27:09 - How thick the ice has to be for ice fishing, snowmobiles, trucks, and airplanes
29:51 - How he feels about getting paid for ice fishing and what he’s doing to grow his business
32:39 - Clay shares one of his most memorable fishing stories
37:34 - People’s natural tendency to help others who are in a bad situation
40:03 - How he got into teaching
41:56 - How he almost had a career in the music industry and when Nirvana stunk
44:51 - The How to Play Guitar with Clay podcast - good or bad idea?
46:18 - Why he likes trying new stuff and the different things he’s done
49:11 - His daughter’s acting endeavors
52:36 - Allowing your children the freedom to explore different interests
54:58 - What he’s changed his mind about recently
58:11 - The one most misunderstood thing about him
01:01:01 - Clay talks about the time he first heard about me and Podcast Junkies