Making Youtube a Career | Robert Terkla, Lunkers TV

to stay. Let me put it this way. There is a glass and it has liquid in it, and it is exactly even top to bottom. The liquid is right in the middle. And you know what I'm getting at. You could easily be a half full or an half empty guy, that both of you would be right. This is no one knows what the heck is going on out there right now, and so just choose to be half full or at least try to spread a little half fullness to your friends, especially on social media. Don't

don't weaponize fear. I mean, that's a good way to say it. Don't don't weaponize fear. There's no reason to use fear for clickbait or for good conversation with your friends. We don't know. This whole thing might just go away in thirty days. It might be gone, it might not, It might be we might deal with this for years.

But why scare people with that? All that being said, I'm not working, I'm not touring, But what I do have ISyE Apparel, and that has typically been the sponsor of all these podcasts and it's it's never been more important than right now. Ee Apparel is literally my touring company. Gee a peril is keeping the lights on in the touring company. It's allowing my band and crew to come in, keep their jobs and also make a little extra working

shipping outyege Apparel. It's pretty cool and we're very blessed to have this other entity that allows the touring guys that are desperate for work to go and get a little get a few hours in. We have this Shirt of the Month t shirt subscription and it's a perfect way if you're wondering how to support my guys. This is very much a family run business. Go grab you a shirt of the month. Sign up for that. We have legitimately have really cool shirts. I'm wearing one of

them for those of you that are watching this. I'm wearing I believe this is March, but I love these shirts and it's a really cool thing. You just sign up and then you're gonna get You're gonna get a shirt the first of every month in your mailbox. And we know the ups I mean, excuse me. We know that the whatever it's called, the mail, the National mail, what's it called. We know that that the USPS. We

know USPS is going to run no matter what. So that being said, that is a sponsor of this podcast today, and this is gonna be a fun one. I have one of my favorite people in the world gonna come on the podcast today. He's also probably one of the most interesting people in my circles. And I'm I'm a musician, so I know some strange, interesting people. This guy's definitely strange and interesting, and part of that is his career path is very interesting. It's not your normal career path.

Robert Turkla of Lunkers TV is who I am talking about, one of the biggest freshwater fishing channels on YouTube, very successful at what he does. He's come about it in a roundabout way, and I'm gonna get him on the phone right now, all right, I'm rolling Robert what's up. I'm here for you, Let's go on. Why don't always say I'm here for you? I don't know, because I'd like to be here for people. Because right now I'm stuck in my house standing at a flag. That's literally

when I'm doing that now, I'm bunching my flag words. Okay, there's nothing else to do right now. I don't even know how to film a video right now. How are you filming videos right now? I don't know. I was thinking about making a series that just starts to say one and then goes on to day twenty eight. People would watch it. So are you going fishing? Still? No, I'm not. I've actually decided I'm not going to leave my house all because that's what they just put out right,

twenty eight days are gonna stay here? Yeah, didn't governor ever put it out? Yeah. So you're up north North Texas and I'm down Central. We seem to be a little behind you, guys. Constantly, the Dallas Fort Worth therea is is doing things faster than Austin. Surprisingly, Actually, I know it's kind of random. You got a little bit more local down there. Yeah, so what are you gonna do? This is like primetime fishing and you're not doing it. No,

it is prime time fish. When when I see the tree saw button, I know that the best is falling. And then now I'm literally stuck in my house. I don't know. I'm not imagine when this is all over, what's gonna what it's gonna be like, people are gonna be going crazy, They're gonna go I hope, I hope. I hope come near to month it's just all over with and this is just been joke. I know. Do you think I'll ever tour again? Ever? I think I'll

ever tour again? I I don't know. I read the other day that I was talking about three concerts and stuff that may not happen all the way through. Uh fall. Well, I'm really hope you do, because I really want to hear those vocal cords. I really enjoy drinking beer just listening to you sing, so well, we could do that as long as we're practicing social distancing. We could, you know, like be six feet apart and I could still sing and you can drink beer. I know it's not as fun.

I can get up there, and you know I can't. I won't be able to grab the thing, Mikey, I was watching I was watching those art today and you were doing, have you watched that yet? No? Watch, You're so lucky and you have three great dicasons to watch and uh be lucky you get to watch that, Okay. Man, I was thinking about it. This is what my mind was going. I was like, Man, all these people are in this big gathering at this on TV. I was like, well, are we ever going to do that again? Are people

going to be so weird worried? And how are you gonna sing with a face mask off? Imagine how muscle battle sounds. I don't know. Oh man, you're uh you make good points. I mean I was telling my band yesterday. I was like, guys, I mean, don't get your hopes up. We used to think, we used to hope that we'd play in June. I have I have no idea now. Yeah. No, I don't think that's gonna happen. Yeah. So I'm just wanting the thing's so bad? Why are they still flying?

I'm wondering the same thing. You could actually buy flights to Europe right now? Why is that? But that doesn't doesn't make any sense. Why would you still Why are they still flights on in. It's that bad and it doesn't make any sense. Do you do you have any old military connections that ever give you kind of insight on what's going on, or Pentagon people or something like that. No, no, not right now. Everybody's pretty much a lockdown. All who

does in the military probably enjoyed themselves. They're getting paid no matter what because now they're just gonna sit home and they don't have to go into work and do all the dumb stuff all day. Are you still getting paid you too? On YouTube? Yeah, it's cut down a lot, like a lot. I hope it doesn't last for a couple of months. That would really suck. So why did you decide to do YouTube as a career? And like, what what point did you say, you know what, I'm

going to do this and nothing else. I'm going to fish. Oh that actually sounds messing. I didn't really start like I was. I was selling cars. I figure out the longer and I was drinking way too much. And then I quit selling cars one day really randomly, like I was drinking way too much, Like my face was like red all times in a shash, and then I realized, Man, I can do YouTube. Videos because then it would make me stop drinking because then I can't get drunk on video.

That's pretty much where it was. Come on that real stuff, true stuff. My buddy told me I should make YouTube videos, and so I started making us videos and then I, I don't know one in the fishing world. We're doing daily videos, and so I was like, you know what, I'm getting a shot, and I started doing daily videos. I get made fun of a bunch of the beginning, so like showing people how to make toast and stuff like that. What year was that, twenty fifteen? I think sixteen.

But I made my channel was like five days. It was not a chee four days after she was born backwards, okay, and you told me that you you didn't even really know how to fish that well before you started the channel. No, I was terrible, and I was terrible. I had a no no, no, it was really bad. Didn't know what I was doing. I mean, I was just really fishing, just to fish. And then apparently people like to watch

people that don't what to do it. So pretty much everything I've learned has been through day one and YouTube videos. Now that's probably why it's so popular, because no, one wants to see a know it all. Yeah, I'm definitely not gonna know it all even the other day. I mean, I know a bit more than I did five years ago. But because if you think about it, I would assume, on a serious note, in five years I probably finished over a foul sometimes yeah, over a fountain days in

five years actually probably probably close to like eleven. It's that law of mastery or whatever. You've mastered fishing. You're You're the best fisherman I've ever been with in my life. Well, I appreciate that. That's I don't know how many people you fish, but I will take that. Yeah, I mean, and the reason it's such a crazy question is because how many people would say, screw it, I'm just gonna quit my job and just fish on YouTube. I mean

that that's like the ultimate man dream. But you actually did it, and then you were really successful with it. I got really lucky, to be honest. I just came in at the right time. I met the right people, me and the boys, and then we kind of just grew together really fast. I think I think we starting the whole daily thing got them kind of motivated. The chances that we had inverdeing their stuff, and then they kind of once everybody started doing stuff that wasn't so

espishly the ditch market. But if you could make it to where everybody can be kind of relatable to it, like showing your daily life, then that's when the market took off. To be honest, that's actually what really started propelling is not is when, not really when I started doing it, but when everybody else started making daily videos as well, and then you were the one they found.

So so when you well, I mean because you were doing it before them, obviously, yeah I was, but they had a little the other guys that was I messed with. All all the guys they had, they hadn't quite a bit head saw on me. So when you say the guys, you're talking about the Google guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a couple of bigger YouTubers that were fishing at the time. But the thing is is, like when everything started changing, like the way that YouTube YouTube is

like it's always changing. You have to evolve and you have to be like a chameleon on YouTube, Like you got to be able to mold and the surrouvings and some of the people that were big on YouTube. When it came to fishing, they could not adapt did. They kind of fell off, And that's kind of what happened. Happened over the years. That's why you see, like I saw doing so much fish and stuff, and I brought him hunting and I brought in dumb stuff. Now he's a Flair that has his own damn farm people. You

can't just fish or you'll die. Yeah, So how did you guys get together? Originally they googen guys and then I sent how it all started? Was I sent back in the day, I sent a flare jon Apart. Y'all come in to each other a little bit before, and they kind of got a couple of collobs. But then I sent Flair a Twitter to him and on Twitter, I was my other account was verified, so he answered it. It's the means why he said he answers and that

was verified and I wasn't a random person. And he flew down and he fished me for double edgys and me and him chatted and then we started getting all the guys together. And then we all started working in a little circle, and we didn't really work with anybody outside of us circle. It's pretty much how it all got started. So you started it. I wouldn't say I started. I like to say we started it as a group,

because there's a group effort. That's crazy, man. I mean, I know I'm a country singer and that sounds cool, but fishing for a living, I mean that, that's seriously, that's like the man dream of America. Yeah, no, it is awesome. I'll never complain if everybody hears me complain about that. It's crazy. Yes, I like I like hone ELK, and I like business. I like business just as Yeah,

you're really good at business. So what So that's that brings me to why did you You've made this decision a couple of times to stay with YouTube and not go pro. Yeah, but now you're kind of debating it again. Yeah, I go back and forward. I'll do it at some point. I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do it, especially now, well I don't even know to be another, don't how to cancel a ton of ship. So uh, I'll do at some point, just because I need to check it

off my list. I will. I'm gonna be there. I already told myself whenever I go to do it, I'm gonna be like any winnings that really get obviously donated forturnity, because I won't be doing it for mot me and definitely I'll just be doing it just to basically win and kind of check that off my blocks and kind of go off. And that would build Lunkers TV. It build credibility more probably, Yeah, yeah, it'd be a little bit more validity up ebating. And we have a lot

of people that talked. That's the funny thing about how it all started. A lot of people talk terrible about it, like the first I would say two and a half to three years of the entire thing, and then once we started really taking over all of the stuff, then they kind of stopped. So so this is basically the final now on the coffin in my eyes, yeah, that would be. And then you got into storage buying. How did that start? I actually had my original accounts on

this blood trick on store Turger. I made it back to two I want to Dynasty. I made it because I was I was watching the show on TV and I was like, hey, I do that. It was like fun And I was sitting on the stairs store probably four months ago, and there hadn't been. A gentleman came and there was talking about it, and I overheard him talking about asked about it, and I kind of spurred

my interest to do it. And being the you two roads, like I bought the first unit I found that had something cool and you I could see that there's a dirt bike in the back, and I'm like, I want that unit. So for those of you that don't know what he's talking about, he's you buy storage units, and

I didn't know. I mean, I've seen I've seen the reality TV a little bit about it, but I didn't really know much about that business world that there's people that make a living buying abandoned, right, abandoned storage units that yeah, the reason was once that people haven't paid for or a person passes, or they go to jail for supremature. So then that the tenant, the owner of the of the facility, they just put him up for auction. They have like I think it's like a sixty day render.

They have getted for a thirty day public notice out and you have the original tenant thirty days to day, and then they don't pay it. Then they just put them up watching and you get to see it before you buy it. Yeah, Aline, you get to see him for like I don't know, you get to see photos, but in person you have like fifteen seconds and twenty

seconds or so, whoa twenty seconds? Yes quick, you look at what you're looking in there and and over over the time, I've linkedup with a guy and that's really even with like twenty years. So it's kind of made it really easy for me to pinpoint. That's what I was able to pick up that fraudulent a couple of weeks ago. Dude, Okay, so that was that is crazy.

So you got this channel Lunkers TV. You know, it's about fishing and hunting, but one the one of the amazing videos has nothing to do with either one of those things. It's you catching this lady and fraud. I watched the whole thing. It was good. It was good television, Like it was really it's really good. Like I was just like, I can't put my phone down watching this episode.

So they staged the unit. You said that, you said you get to see a unit for fifteen to twenty seconds, and then these people staged the unit to make it look like it was really valuable when in reality, it was just like a few decent things in the front and then junk in the back that was in really nice boxes. Yeah, exactly. So livings were bought on lines.

I bought one of December and I got it, just went back all the way back to December and we bought one of the seat prior online from the same complex. Didn't even realized that. I was sitting there drinking whiskey one night, just scrolling through them, just some pretty much what I do of and I just to see what's going on. And I found it. It It looked good and I put on it and I noticed, man, this was

good looking. And I was the third complex where it was, and then I was like, holy shit, this is all the tame. And I go back to the previous two that we had bought and we lost that song. I was like, oh my god, they're staged. And then that's when we opened it up, and I knew that's why I went in there knowing what it was. But I was kind of like hoping that I was wrong. But

a lot of people don't know this. I've actually talked to the owner of that lady was fired, she lost her job, and I'm actually gonna be working with Storage Treasures here in for all this stuff done to help them fight the whole podulent stuff. I'm gonna actually do an entire serial on how to find it deside it so people stop it. So that's a big thing. How of that fraud? That's huge? Yeah? God, So what ended up happening with that for that instance? Did you lose

money or did you get it back? No? I know what. I got my money back instant like serious wly gave me the cause I told myself going in there, I didn't care if he was going to cost some five grand to buy it. I was going to overpay just to prove a point. So I knew have to give my money back. And that's what I had. I overpaid for that. You know, I paid seventeen hundred and fifteen. She gave it back instantly, and say also repaid grounds to the week prior the owner did. So it was interesting.

I promise you will find more. I find the one hundred percent. We find them all the time. They haven't been in New York. I bought that storage com the Storage Union one or the Storage the Comic one. Oh yeah, yeah, So do you have to be a member of some website that you get the CDs for sale storage units. Yeah, I mean it's you don't have to be a member on them, but you get ten percent off of your members by units in bulk. You definitely want to be

a members. He saves a lot. Yeah, and with this crazy virus thing, no one wants to be going through storage units right now probably huh yeah, No, it'll in two months, so whenever it's over with, there'll be a giant mess of them. There's a lot of money to be made in so and a lot if you buy it correctly, you can make a lot of money. But that's like one of America's secret talents is putting all

their junk in storage units and forgetting about it. You should see did you should see some little stuff from sound? There was one in Atlanta. I want to have a bought the comic unit that had six guns in it in Atlanta and it was going for this at the time for thirteen grand. And the only reason why I didn't buy this because I've just spent thirteen grand on

the melon. They had six well six gun stakes. It was like, so I told you that some of the people they go to jail and stuff like that that they die and people forget about their that kind of stuff. The unit. When we when we what we call like like gauging the unit, like we kind of can tell the story, what's what's going on there. It had so much expensive furniture, had all this expensive stuff in it. So the guy was probably in jail for a white collar time and no one can get his stuff out.

That's the only thing we can come up with. Everything inside it is so extensive, But that's what's kind of fun about it. Yeah, it's in a little treasure chest. You never noticed that. I'm in. My whole plan with that one was to load upaul the safe a U

haul truck and drive them back to Texas. So because if I would have opened them inside of Georgia and it would have been like a suppressor or something inside the safe, so they would have been a federal offensive transfer across state line right when the transmitting back to Texas and opened it there and then I'm in Texas, so I would have never known what was inside the stafe. Okay, so what was in it? I know I didn't buy the Unix. Oh you didn't buy it. No, not that one.

All the safes that I found before. I always had drugs, buildos and in a safe, in a safe, I've got a gun safe. Yeah, dude, you find there's so much weird. It's always like I promise you not even in time, you're gonna find you in a safe. Almost every time, actually, every time I've actually had a safe, there's been drugs in a matter so far from like needles and uh, what's that stuff? People use juice to get big steroids.

One one you got that. You had a bunch of steroids and needles, always killed and weed and bought everything it can think of the use. Oh my gosh, dude, So how do you even First of all, how do you even open a safe? Where do you go about doing that? Oh? You probably you have sal much strong any way you can think of. You open them up. We pushed them off the top of the buildings. We've got, dude. And the thing is you can call it. If it gets a nice day, then we'll probably call a locksmith

to pick it and then open it. But I haven't found the safe it's worthy of that yet. All the ones I'm finding are like one hundred dollars staves maybe right, maybe max two hundred dollars stays. If that's not it's not a big deal. But when we find those, you know, those really nice ones. I was like that one in Georgia, all six of those days, they would have had a locksmith bad in them all because they were all really expensive,

like thousands of two thousand dollars states. Okay, so so then where where do you that seems really annoying to have to sell all this stuff that you get. Where do you do that? I don't have to do it. I got so they got to work with the on of one of the larger auction businesses in Dallas. So then Grimes and all I have to do is tell him I got a unit. He comes out with me,

he sends his employees out. We do the but they take all the trash, they take all the photos, they do everything, all the inventory, they sell it, the ship it, they do all this stuff. So basically all I'm doing is front asked to buy the units and and doing videos. Yeah, you probably make more on the YouTube videos anyway. Yeah, the YouTube videos is mainly what I care about is I'm a content creator. But if I can at least

break even on the units, that's the goal. But The thing is, all the units so far I probably make. I'm probably almost double the money on every unit, at least triple all the money I put into it. That's good business. Yeah, but I'm telling you it's not as easy as I make a team. I just feel lucky and linked up with the white person. Oh, I know it's not. I sure wouldn't do it. There's no way I would do I would do that. It's legal gambling, you know, in Texas we can't gamble like this and

and that kind of stuff. I just spend one thousand bucks a chance. It makes four I'm gonna do it. I guess you're right, makes sense. It's it scratches that itch if you're a gambler, for sure, cutches my ch. I've got some isches that I found that you can discussed. Are you still standing out there by your flag? I am yeah, I'm alwadys standing on my wind. I'm just walking back and forth around, just looking out that so

may not what else to do? You know? I thought about just going out and like, how am I going to film a video today? Well? I thought after my second episode of those ark this morning, after drinking a couple of cup of coffee. I was like, man, what am I gonna do? I thought, you know what, let's go drive the car about four feet, turn it on and take the top off and just sit in it. And I was like, that's not a video. But well,

I'll tell you what. I had the same thought this morning over my coffee, and I thought, what am I going to do today? Oh, I'll just call Rob and get him on video, just talking about random stuff. Oh, I'm I'm here for you. But so you provided my content today I could and I got to tell you stuff that I hope it gets you excited. You know it does. I would say, you know you're gonna go home to night and get excited, but you know what, I know you already sit at home. That's right. I

can't make these damn jokes. He walk. Oh no, that's terrible. All right, buddy, always good to talk to you. Let's do it again sometime. Yeah. Well, here for you, hopefully building here is nice kitting vocal cords of yours. I can't wait. Give me the greatest time ever. All right, dude, say to Sarah, alright bye, that I told you he is an interesting fella like that. Guy always has stories.

You know these kind of guys that you meet. I'm sure everybody knows a guy like this where he just always has a story and it's going to be one of the stranger stories you've ever heard in your life, Like going to Georgia and finding six safes and figuring out how he can bring them back in a U haul so that he can legally get arms across the border.

And that's just a day for him. Right now, he's standing out by his flag thinking of something interesting to do, as you guys are probably too, and that's the same thing I'm doing. That's all I got for today, guys, thank you for watching this. This podcast is intended for Monday morning drive to work, and I know none of y'all are driving to work right now, so hopefully you're still keeping normal schedule getting up at a normal times.

That's been so important for me is no matter when I go to bed, I'm trying to wake up at the same time to try to just keep some Like when the world is out of control, I try to put any touch of control I can on it, and anything I can control, I go all out. So my watch, for instance, wakes me up, and I've been I don't touch it. That alarm goes off at the same time every single morning, no matter when I go to bed, and that's what I can control in a world that

we can't. So I hope you guys are good and stay safe mentally. We'll see you next Monday morning. Love you guys, ye yee.