Knot Lucky Fishing

Knot Lucky Fishing Battling PTSD with offshore fishing and empowering our warriors with the tools to get back on their

What war took, what God gave back.This picture was taken in 2009. I was 26 years old, fresh off my first deployment. We ...
09/01/2026

What war took, what God gave back.

This picture was taken in 2009. I was 26 years old, fresh off my first deployment. We lost great men that deployment, and we killed a lot of terrorists. Looking at it now takes me back to another life. A life where I felt invincible. Where the only thing I cared about was going back to war, so much so that I ruined a marriage to an amazing lady. War had already changed me by the time this photo was taken. It made me tough. It made me resultant.

From 2007 to 2014 I deployed to combat six times. I experienced killing the enemy, getting blown up in vehicles, carrying injured and dead brothers, nearly getting beaten to death in Jacksonville Florida, a divorce, and accidentally taking the life of a child. That is the man in this first picture, even if you cannot see any of it on his face.

The second picture is me today. Healing. Evolving. Helping others as much as I can through God. Same man, two very different stages of life.

Yesterday I had a phone interview with Wesley Morgan, an officer who wrote The Hardest Place, a book about the American war in the Pech Valley of Afghanistan and the men who fought there. In it, Eric Cox gives his account of being shot in the face on the same mission where Kevin Pape was killed.

When Wes first reached out I told him straight up, I had no valorous awards, no Purple Heart, and was an average Ranger on my best day. I told him I had a lot of cool friends who did some heroic stuff I could put him in touch with instead. He said he wanted the point of view of an enlisted guy who went from the big Army to Ranger Battalion during the surge, and I fit that mold.

He wanted to start with what made me enlist. I am not sure he was ready to hear I had a God moment on an L*D trip 🤪, but that is where we started. Walking back through six deployments with every detail I could remember made me cry, made me laugh, and made me grateful I got to serve alongside giants. Men who are the epitome of what a warrior is.

He asked if I could find pictures from that time in my life. I told him I virtually have none. I hit up Devon Swanson, and he found this gem.

All the love. His love. One love. 🇺🇸🪢🍀🦈🙏🏽

Joshua 1:9. Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you g...
08/31/2026

Joshua 1:9. Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

This one is important to me because for a long time I walked through life scared, and I didn't even realize what I was walking through it without. I was walking without God. I used to be afraid of everything. I carried a child like fear with me everywhere I went, like a monster under the bed that never left my side. But what I was really afraid of wasn't the world around me. It was my own shortcomings, and the lack of a close relationship with God. I believed in Him, but I wasn't listening to His calling. I kept telling Him to leave me alone, to go pick somebody else.

Once I accepted Him, fully gave myself to Him, and accepted my journey and His purpose for me, life got better. That doesn't mean I don't have moments where I second guess myself. I do. That's exactly why the first thing I do every morning is pray. I need His strength every single day, and that strength is inside of me.

Fear can stop us from evolving in our healing journey. I have often wondered why it takes some of us hitting rock bottom before we even begin to heal. It is the fear. We get comfortable in our trauma. And as humans, we prefer comfort over discomfort, even when that comfort is really just pain we have learned to live with. The trauma becomes a familiar place, a place we know how to survive in. The fear of facing our pain, facing our own inadequacies, is what keeps us stuck there.

There is even an addictive piece to this. Toxic cycles can work a lot like addiction, because the brain starts chasing that high that comes right after the low. The relief you feel when the pain eases for a moment releases the same dopamine hit your brain craves in any addiction. So instead of chasing real healing, you end up chasing that relief, and the cycle just repeats itself. This is exactly why it is so important to hand that fear over to God, make yourself uncomfortable on purpose, and begin the real work of healing.

One love.

All the love. His love. One love. 🇺🇸🪢🍀🦈🙏🏽

08/31/2026

There is something about wintertime that gets a hold of me every single year, and it never lets go. It is my favorite season, hands down, and I can feel it creeping up on us already.

Something about the cold air, the water waking back up, the action turning on strong after a long hot season of grinding under that brutal sun. Wintertime is not slow around here. It is fast paced with fish everywhere, and it keeps me and everybody on that boat on our toes from sunrise to sundown.

I am already counting down the days. The bite will be hot, the mornings will be cold, and I would not trade a single bit of it. This is my season, and I cannot wait for it to get here.

All the love. His love. One love. 🇺🇸🪢🍀🦈🙏🏽

The great white shark painting sold for $5,000. Thank you to everyone who placed a bid and helped make this happen.$2,50...
08/30/2026

The great white shark painting sold for $5,000. Thank you to everyone who placed a bid and helped make this happen.

$2,500 will go to Knot Lucky, minus shipping cost, and the other $2,500 goes straight to the artists who painted it.

Thank you Dennis and Derek for taking your time and doing this at a discounted rate. Your talent just put real money behind our veterans, and that means more than you know.

All the love. His love. One love. 🇺🇸🪢🍀🦈🙏🏽

Seventeen years ago today, on a mountain in Paktika Province that most Americans will never hear the name of, I lost two...
08/29/2026

Seventeen years ago today, on a mountain in Paktika Province that most Americans will never hear the name of, I lost two brothers before I ever set foot on the ground.

August 29th, 2009. Objective Berlin. My very first Ranger mission.

The lead element hit the HLZ and took contact within seconds. PFC Eric Hario was 19 years old, three weeks into his first deployment, killed almost the moment he came off that bird. Staff Sergeant Jason Dahlke was the opposite end of that same coin, twenty nine years old, on his sixth deployment, a squad leader who had already given this country everything a man can give across Iraq and Afghanistan. Hours later, clearing through the dark, Jason was hit too.

I was part of the Quick Reaction Force. My first experience of that mission, my first experience of this whole life, was standing on the flight line as that helicopter came back and we carried Eric and Jason's bodies off of it. Then we loaded onto that same bird and flew in to reinforce the fight they had just given everything in. That was how I was introduced to combat. Not a slow build. A gut punch, followed immediately by a mission.

We fought for hours after that, climbing a mountain that the history books say even Alexander the Great could not conquer. We lost more good men to wounds that night, we watched a working dog get hurt right alongside his handler, and somewhere up near 9000 feet of elevation, exhausted and half broken, we finally understood what Eric and Jason had paid so the rest of us could keep climbing.

I have carried both of them with me every single day since. Not as names on a memorial wall, but as men. As brothers who did not get to grow old, get married, raise kids, or come home and figure out what peace even feels like.

That is part of why the White Shark Tagging Program exists. Every great white we catch, tag, and release off our coast gets named after a fallen Ranger, a way of putting their names back out into the world doing something alive and moving and free. Eric and Jason swim the Atlantic now under their own names, carrying real research data on migration and behavior while carrying something bigger too, the truth that these men are not gone, they are still out there making an impact, still teaching us, still leading the way.

Rangers lead the way. Eric and Jason led the way for me before I even had boots on the ground that night, and they have been leading me somewhere ever since, toward Knot Lucky, toward the water, toward whatever good I still have left to give.

Today I remember them. Not with sadness alone, but with the kind of gratitude that only comes from carrying men that good on your own two hands.

Rest easy, Eric. Rest easy, Jason. Sua Sponte.

All the love. His love. One love. 🇺🇸🪢🍀🦈🙏🏽

08/28/2026

Yesterday we loaded the boat up. Three veterans, one of them fishing with us for the first time, and we went looking for bait. We found it quick, and it was plentiful. I was so happy watching Ben throw that pancake and load us up with about thirty pieces of bait right off the bat.

We rode through what felt like a washing machine, the way the seas were acting, but we got to the reef and started trolling and immediately got bit. Then it was bite after bite after bite. But the fish were not the only things biting. So were the sharks. I stopped counting at a dozen, and every single fish we hooked up, besides one, got eaten before we could get it to the boat.

Frustrating as a fisherman. Amazing to watch. What a great day with great people.

All the love. His love. One love. 🇺🇸🪢🍀🦈🙏🏽

08/27/2026

Got a good crew on the water today. Ryan, Bad Luck Ben, and a new vet riding with us for the first time. That right there is the whole point. Every seat on this boat is a chance to hand somebody a day they needed.

We just filled the well with bait, and now we are pointed east, chasing the horizon to see if there is a fish out there with our name on it. No promises out here. The ocean does what she wants, and half the magic is that you never know what the day is going to give you until you go looking for it.

Say a little prayer we find one.

All the love. His love. One love. 🇺🇸🪢🍀🦈🙏🏽

08/26/2026

Just out here floating around. Watching dolphins play. Looking for bait. Thinking about God. All the love. His love. One love 🪢🍀🇺🇸🦈🙏🏾

Things are hectic in my personal life right now.I am dealing with a stalker. Family members who aren't doing well physic...
08/25/2026

Things are hectic in my personal life right now.

I am dealing with a stalker. Family members who aren't doing well physically. We just had to put down the pup of someone I love very much. And yesterday I found out that it appears Skeeter, my dog, has a thyroid tumor.

I had a feeling something was wrong. Just listening to my intuition, I took him in to see the vet. It sucks because even at 13, he plays with his two year old sister non stop, walks every day and still gets the zoomies.

Then you have the other side of the coin.

Yesterday I became an uncle from my brother from another mother. My kid "brother" Turner of the Starbrite family gave me the news that his lady Olivia gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Savannah Cay. I'm going with the story that Turner agreed to the name because his favorite Starbrite pro staff member lives in Savannah 🤣. It's my story and I'm sticking to it. Congratulations to the whole family. I can't wait to meet this baby.

All of this unfolding at one time had me turning to my Bible. I came upon Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 2.

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted."

This whirlwind that life is currently throwing at me would have crippled me in the past. It would have made me angry, bitter and resentful. It would have had me in a very dark place and highly aggressive.

But now, I feel the pain, I feel the frustration and I feel the joy. I let my brain process these emotions, then I give it to God.

There are hard times ahead and that's ok. I have the best support system a man could ask for and I walk with Jesus. Like Pink Floyd says, shorter of breath and one day closer to death. Then I will be bowing at the feet of my King for eternity.

Until then, I'm going to embrace every moment I have with my tribe.

All the love. His love. One love. 🇺🇸🪢🍀🦈🙏🏽

08/24/2026

Meet Parker. This kid raised $11,500 for Knot Lucky this year, and I still get choked up thinking about it. Eleven thousand five hundred dollars, from one young man who decided our veterans were worth showing up for. That is not luck. That is heart.

Yesterday we were fired up to head offshore and chase whatever Mother Ocean wanted to give us, but she had other plans and reminded us real quick who is in charge out here. So this morning we made a new plan. We are standing on the pier, salt in the air, sun coming up over the water, and honestly I would not trade it for anything. Some of the best mornings are the ones that do not go the way you drew them up.

That is the whole thing, right there. You show up, you adjust, and you find the beauty in wherever you land. Parker already gets it. This beautiful morning gets it too.

Thank you, Parker. You are one amazing kid, and you made a real difference for the men and women who gave everything.

His love. All the love. One love. 🪢🍀🦈🙏🏽

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