Pete Utschig doesn't really do bucket-list destinations. He does bucket-list fish — and then figures out which corner of the world he has to stand on to catch one from shore.

The man behind Phase Gear, the film Project Magic Hour, and the new Surfcasters documentary series stopped by the shop mid-way through a two-week run up the coast, South Jersey, Rhode Island, and Montauk still to come, to talk with Peter about the life he's built around the surf.

From one Florida weekend to a full surf fishing lodge

About fifteen years ago a Northeast angler brought Pete to Florida and, as he puts it, handed him the keys to the candy store: not one big predatory species from shore, but a dozen. Friends asked to come along. Then strangers did. An Airbnb-style guide service followed, and last year it grew into a true all-inclusive surf fishing lodge 20 minutes to the water, 45 minutes from three or four different inlets, running December through April, which is exactly when nobody wants to be in the Northeast.

Everything is provided: rods, lures, meals, and Pete's fifteen years of local knowledge. You bring board shorts. Flights are direct and reasonable, and the whole trip costs a fraction of a comparable lodge gig overseas. As Pete says, borrowing a line from Kyle Schaefer of Soul Fly Lodge: you can't control the tides, but you can control the vibes. To fish with him, message @phasegear on Instagram.

A bucket list made of fish

Push Pete on where he still wants to go and you get species, not countries: cubera snapper crashing topwater around the rocks from Florida to Costa Rica, giant trevally in Indonesia, oversized corvina in Ecuador, the huge tarpon of Gabon, and bluefin tuna from shore in Europe, where he once put the rod down mid-retrieve because two of them were blowing up sardines inside casting distance.

One thread runs through all of it: he does it himself. No guides, minimal intel, local friendships made along the way. "If you need all the details," as Peter puts it in the episode, "you're not curious, and if you're not curious, you're going to suck at this anyway."

Do you want to catch, or do you want to fish?

The heart of the episode is a distinction Pete comes back to again and again. Catching is filling the freezer and bending the rod. Fishing is the whole journey, the sunsets, the skunkings that still teach you a spot, the mentors who show you how to rig an eel or where to swim a bucktail, and the lesson a wise fisherman once handed him when he asked about the best time to go:

"At my stage, the best time to fish is anytime you can. And if you talk to an old-timer, he'll tell you the best time to fish was yesterday and tomorrow, because it's not when you were there."

Also in this episode: what guides learn from their own guests, why daytime travel fisheries beat striped bass vampire hours, the giant grouper that ate a crab fly directly under Peter's feet, and what's next for the Surfcasters series, including a possible second lodge location.

Listen above, or find the Saltwater Edge Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Missed Pete's first visit? Go back and listen to Searching the Surf for the Magic Hour.