The Drop

“My ego and my common sense still argue with each other.”  For someone who’s spent decades stress-testing the edge of what’s survivable, Nate Fletcher talks about his surfing career like it was mostly something that just happened around him. His impact on surfing is undeniable, across airs, big waves, and board and fin design. And though he carries it like a man overdue for a cigarette, nursing a permanent headache, each sentence beginning with a reluctant exhale, he also seems largely without ego, even as he admits it still tends to argue with his common sense.  To muse on the impact he’s left behind is to treat his career as a finished painting, something to step back and admire, as if he isn’t still out there at 50, dragging a wet brush across the canvas. He does, however, admit to being done with big wave surfing, after a life spent learning intimacy with death, including being towed into one of the heaviest waves ever at Teahupo’o, and producing one of surfing’s more deranged frames: suspended for a

“We could never pay back Kelly Slater for what he did for Channel Islands. That’s the truth of it. What does he want? The whole company?” As you’ll remember in SITDX, Britt Merrick spoke to the fracture left by Kelly’s departure from CI – something that registered, at least to him, as something of a betrayal, and perhaps one he felt more acutely than his father ever did. Kelly, when given the space to explain himself, offered a different version of events. He’d spoken to Al, there was a blessing, and, by his account, even affection on the way out, and an “I love you” to seal it. Britt claims it wasn’t Kelly leaving that broke his heart, that part he understood, but rather the Firewire business approach, the offshore model, and the way it has diminished domestic board building, eroding the respect that once sat alongside it. Britt, in his typical calm and considered tone that softens the edges of everything he says, phones in from Torquay to join Dooma and Dane at the desk. They move through Medina orderin

Mikey C has been axed, Josiah has been relegated from StabMIC to the Drop. Another week, another contest! Lets drop in to everything that is the Margaret River Pro.

Stab in the Dark with Ethan Ewing Episode 1 is now live, and it raises an important question. Not who he will pick as the winner — that will come — but whether a better surfer has ever existed. Mikey and Buck discuss this point, along with several other headlines from the past week: - Should Griffin have won that Dane Henry heat? - The innermost workings of Kelly's mind. - Does it matter more how a board looks or feels? - Stab High tickets for sale (for Premium members only!)

Dane is back. Mercy. Things resume. To watch along visit here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krloTW3PL1k Dane has become almost synonymous with anti-competition, his exit at the peak of his powers romanticised, mythologised even, into a Reynoldsian legend. An episode dedicated to the start of the WSL season, then, seems an odd fit. But Dane was a competitor once, which gives him a rare vantage: an outsider’s mind once lodged inside the system. His eyes are sharp and wisened from walking the floors himself, which makes talking competitive surfing with him an interesting experiment. Josiah and Dooma sit him down and prod for his take on the Aussie Treble, what competing at every stop taught him, why shaper non-monogamy is weird, trading boards with Andy Irons, and more.

It only took us 7 years, but The Drop has finally gone to Youtube! For pre-event eps, at least. And the best part is, you don't need to look at our ugly heads the whole time — live Bells warmups are the real star of the show. Listen on your standard podcast app, or watch the full show (preferred method) here: https://youtu.be/wSuxjOW02qs

Stace G and Mikey C give their long-awaited 2026 CT season preview, including: - Changes to the Tour - Rookie class analysis - Shaper Rankings favorites - World title picks and darkhorses

Little Weeds winner, Stab High champ, and surfing's master technician Chris Wilson joins the pod to discuss his favorite aerialists, a new sponsor and that time he nearly died surfing for a Stab film. This is Stab Mic episode 07, hosted by Damien Fahrenfort and Josiah Amico.

A wave that killed a friendship. Another that tormented our writer. And an interview with an Israeli CT rookie that ruffled many a subscriber's feathers. Mikey and Buck discuss.

15-year old snow/surf phenom Patti Zhou and 3-minute tube-hunter Koa Smith join Josiah and Dooma in the StabMic studio. This ep is sponsored by Sun Bum and Roark.

Stace Galbraith is joined by recent CS grad Oscar Berry to chat about his ascension to the CT, Newcastle carnage, and who he thinks will be the Rookie of the Year.

This podcast is also a video, watch along here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_uNAACqhF0 Subscribe to Stab Premium: https://stabmag.com/pricing/ EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Two thousand and twelve. Kony. The predicted apocalypse didn’t come, as foretold. Spewing. 18-year-old John John Florence and 26-year-old Dane Reynolds meet in Japan for Dear Suburbia, scoring what they both still swear are the best waves they’ve ever seen. “The perfect combination of power and shape,” says Dane. “It felt like you could do anything you wanted.” “It was barreling off the takeoff, and you came out with so much speed and just had this perfect bowl bending at you,” adds John. It was the first and only time they ever went on a trip together, and possibly the last time they talked. John chalks it up to them moving through time at different paces — John getting on tour the year after Dane had already left it behind. Dane dove into filmmaking, John grew into the world title chase. Nevertheless, Dooma’s question, “why don’t you

Mikey and Buck break down the 2026/27 CS changes, Stace and Vaughan Blakey preview the final event of 2025/26.

How long can Kelly Slater, star of Stab In The Dark X and, less famously, the greatest competitive surfer of all time, remain the topic of conversation at stabmag.com? Indefinitely, one suspects. He is, after all, the most fascinating and formidable of lab rats. But for our fragile neural circuits, let’s linger on Kelly one last time, in all his scheming, elegant, slightly terrifying glory. This week, Stab co-founder Sam McIntosh joins Dane and Dooma at the Stab Mic desk. They start where the conversation had no choice but to go: Kelly’s selection of his own shaper, Dan Mann, as the shaper of the decade, and the fallout that ensued. Though Sam encouraged him to cut his own shaper’s board, which is the gentleman’s agreement for every previous edition of SITD, Kelly was naughty. He raged against the system and left his Mann in play. Sam defends him: deceptive, mercurial, infuriating, sure. But a liar? Must be a brilliant one. We’re treated to SITD marginalia: Sam marooned on the beach counting Kelly’s 14

Watch the latest episode of Stab in the Dark X starring Kelly Slater here https://stabmag.com/stabcinema/watch-... Any genuinely endearing conversation might hinge on seating Dane Reynolds next to someone improbable and letting the room do the work. Last week: the reigning world champ. This week: Kelly Slater, calling in from New Zealand. Four months post hip replacement, the greatest surfer of all time admits he can barely lift his knee into a car some days, but he insists the robo-hip already outperforms the real one, which had been dragging him through agony for the last four years. He’d been surfing through pain the whole time. Laird Hamilton personally rang to convince him to get on the operating table. A wellness check, from one absurdly fit old-boy to another. He also reveals that during Stab In The Dark X, his back seized up for four days straight. Bedridden and unable to walk without looking like a pretzel. But you can’t keep a good goat down. He still paddled out, still tested six nearly identic

Has Fernando gone too far, or are CT surfers being petulant little children? Mikey and Buck share their thoughts on the recent ISA/WSL kerfuffle, along with: - a SITDX ep 3 breakdown + finale update - an industry report with more sticker changes than a used car lot - Italo's secret sponsorship trick - One of the world's best waves' sale price - and more!

The reigning world champ gets grilled by his childhood hero on all things surfing and life. We listen in like Watergate. This is episode 2 of the Stab Mic — watch the full video version on Stab Magazine's Youtube channel.

The first (aired) episode of StabMic is here, and with a massive guest to kick things off. Watch the full show with visuals on stabmag.com or the Stab Premium app.

The week of Holden Trnka is upon us. Buck and Mikey discuss the Pipe CS event (which Holden covered from the tent), a wildly under-rockered boat storming the Steamer Lane lineup (which Holden not only witnessed, but assisted in the life-saving efforts that followed), whether or not Instagram reels are killing our surf boners (Holden says they are), and oh yeah, a few hints about the NEW EPISODE of Stab in the Dark X starring Robert Kelly Slater.

Massive three-part ep incoming! Not only did John Florence sit down (exclusively) with Stab's co-founder Sam McIntosh to chat about his recent departure from the tour, and what he'll be doing to grow his brand(s) in the meantime... This ep also features a Kelly Slater Stab in the Dark ep 2 breakdown, where Mikey and Buck discuss board theories, shaper rivalries, and the first elimination (spoiler alert!). Finally, we chat with our guy on the ground in Hawaii about what's been happening in and around the Pipe CS event.