The Trout Underground has long had a manifesto – a reflection of the moment when the light bulb went on (albeit weakly), and (yet) another fly fishing site was born.

While I credit Gierach for exposing me to a different sort of fly fishing writing (remember, this was back in the late 80s), the Trout Underground came to life after reading (again) the introduction to McGuane’s seminal The Longest Silence.

Since then, the world has seen the birth of thousands of personal fly fishing sites, some of which probably qualify as national treasures – assuming that fly fishing qualifies as a national anything (Fly Fishing: “The Official National Time Sink of the USA”)

I’m not referring to the big sites, but the smaller, more personal – and often more literate – sites.

They’re labors of love, lacking both a publishing schedule and commercial underpinnings. Their authors are the true children of the digital publishing revolution, and at the very least, they offer a beguilingly personal glimpse of the sport – unencumbered by commerce, sponsorship or squeamishly narrow editors.

And yes, you’re probably running down a mental short list of your favorite little fly fishing sites. They’re not aggressively promoting a commercial angle on anything (gear, company, or even the writer), and they’re usually updated far less often than you’d like. (Feel free to identify your favorites in the comments section; unlike small trout streams, good little fly fishing sites don’t need the protection of anonymity.)

One of the best – and probably most unfairly overlooked – is the site I’d try to develop if I was writer enough – David Kim Mote’s StoryARC, which features a lengthy, but hugely appealing manifesto of its own:

I’ve been writing fishing stories and poetry for 30 years, but it’s always been on the back burner, behind jobs that pay, family, novels, actual fishing, and so on. About once a year I take my bundle on the market, submitting here and selling there. But ambitious stuff about fishing and the outdoors is not exactly a hot property. The poetry that gets bought tends to rhyme. The fiction that sells and reads is of the Santiago genre. You know it: man vs. beast, in which the man is old and savvy or young and callow; the beast is hoary, cagy, scar-lipped, monstrous-racked, and endowed with curiously human faculties and attributes. Hemingway and Faulkner mastered the ambiguous extremes, and everybody since then has covered the rest. Maybe it’s because I don’t catch enough big fish, or because I fall too obviously between callow and savvy, but that style of story has never worked for me. I get going on the epic struggle or the strange simpatico and suddenly veer off into irony or existentialism. I can’t help it, which is why I put like 40 hours a week into my day job.

Recently it got worse: I challenged myself to write a flyfishing story in which nobody catches a fish. I aimed for humorous realism, maybe with a clever analysis of the skunking every angler has to take now and then. Gierach, here I come. I liked the product (though Gray’s did not), so I went it one better: I wrote a fishing story in which nobody fished. The market liked that one even less, but I liked it so well I haven’t been able to write anything else since. At this rate, my next story will feature a dry river and a party of anglers slaughtered like sheep.

With my market choices dimming, the logical choice was to create my own market. Since I pushed the button on StoryArc, my acceptance rate has risen sharply. Self-publication is a long, hallowed, and only slightly embarrassing tradition. You might find it pathetic, but I prefer to imagine myself in the company of Whitman and Thoreau.

If you find yourself in the same boat–stuck with unsalable stuff and too lazy to market hard or too stubborn to write what the market wants–send it to me. (storyarccontact at the Google dot com.) It’s only slightly unfair that I’m both the main contributor and the editor in chief, but everybody gets paid the same. The site will remain simple, streamlined, and specific: words, words, words (and the occasional photograph). I’ll publish what reads, even the Santiago stories, but I’m looking for harder stuff: literary, challenging, subtle, political, muscular–you know, all the adjectives that came with the English degree. And no spelling or punctuation mistakes.

I’m assuming my work and money are going down the memory hole, but if some profit unexpectedly turns up, I’ll share until I become greedy and my values are corrupted, then, well, you know. But if Random House suddenly wants your work, they can have it; what I publish remains yours. If you have other terms, I’m happy to hear them.

Singelbarbed and I once had a phone conversation about our blogs, and I expressed more than a little frustration at the difficulty maintaining the Underground at a time when I was becoming a father, launching a new marketing presence, and watching half of the professional copywriting market implode under the weight of the Internet.

In short, I wondered how I could make enough money off it to justify the time – or even if there was an exit strategy in my future.

He simply said “That’s all bullshit – we write because we want to publish the stuff the magazines won’t.”

That, in a nutshell, sums up StoryArc, the manifesto of which touches a nerve.

Motes cops to not mastering the “epic” fly fishing story, and at a time when the fly fishing publications are seemingly soiling themselves in their rush to embrace the extreme.

The concept is clear (if not downright embarrassing).

If you’re simply having fun – if you’re not hung over, or chasing a fish bigger than the fish the previous writer was chasing, or writing from the back of a lama 6,243 miles away, or proudly throwing your life away – you’re not really fly fishing.

Reinforcing this trend are all the industry’s full-page ads featuring grim-faced fishermen, who appear to hate the sport even as they practice it in appalling conditions.

For one writer (published in a new, high-end magazine), “trout” even became a five-letter variant of a four-letter word.

Some seem to have a lot to prove with their pursuit of fish, and it seems fly fishing has evolved from a pleasant pastime to an Ahab-like obsession with big fish, big rods and hero pics. To paraphrase one astute commentor on the Underground, “The fly fishing magazines lost me when they switched the emphasis from fishing to catching.”

Of course, rants like these aren’t meant to change the landscape of fly fishing as much as observe it, which is probably what Motes had in mind with StoryArc.

Like Motes, I accumulated a small stack of rejection slips before going the Trout Underground route, so there’s what you might call an understanding there – an acknowledgement that what’s happening isn’t exactly commercially viable, but a lot of fly fishermen seem to think it’s pretty cool anyway.

Stop by StoryArc, and see if you think it’s cool for you too.

See you on the small fly fishing sites, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: david kim motes, fly fishing blog, fly fishing literary site, fly fishing writer, storyarc

Fly shops and manufacturers aren’t the only segments of the fly fishing universe experiencing unwelcome economic pressures.

Is online competition hurting fly fishing's magazines?

In fact, fly fishing’s traditional media outlets are facing growing competition from online media and a painful recession – and several may not survive the experience.

After all, new ezines are popping up like dandelions, and other online channels (like blogs, video sites, etc) are growing.

And don’t forget the handful of fly fishing-focused social media sites (think Facebook with fins) that are appearing (as well as Facebook itself).

Couple that kind of competition for readers with a zero-growth fly fishing industry, and you’ve got the makings of The Great Fly Fishing Magazine Shakeout.

Which may be starting now.

Trouble in Magazine Land

Last year, American Angler editor Phil Monahan lost his job to budget cuts. At the time, the cuts were blamed on the umbrella media company’s poorly performing newspaper properties, but those claims always seemed suspect – especially in light of recent news.

First, Fly Rod & Reel magazine – whose ad page counts have been looking thin for a couple years – announced it was going upscale with thicker issues, better paper and a reduced publishing schedule.

In other words, Fly Rod & Reel is pushing the hyperspace button. (It’s also interesting to note they announced it via press release a couple weeks before they managed to get it posted on their site.)

Now, Fly Fisherman magazine – the 800 pound gorilla in the mainstream fly fishing world – just announced staffing cuts. (Humorous aside: the headline in the press release said they were announcing “Changes to Staff” – a euphemism if we’ve ever heard one.)

The Caveats

It’s entirely possible to attribute all the above effects to the recession – and the magazines might be happy if you did exactly that – but I’d suggest multiple forces are at work here.

First, let’s be clear; I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or more of fly fishing’s print magazines fold in the next 18 months, but I’m certainly not expecting the whole crop to simply disappear.

It’s interesting to note that magazine subscription rates (among all magazines) were growing until the recession hit, so despite the struggles faced by newspapers, it’s not as if magazines are dead.

They’re still very much alive.

The problem isn’t one of readership as much as advertising revenue – a symptom of both the economy and increasing competition from the online world..

In other words, the constant flow of online content isn’t dragging readers away from magazines, but the growth in online spending does seem to be draining dollars away from hard-to-quantify print ad spends.

“Wait a minute” you say. “Don’t the success of The Drake and the launch of the Fly Fish Journal offer proof of print’s viability?”

If they do succeed, I’d suggest they represent more a fragmentation of the market than the salvation of it.

The Drake is clearly aimed at a different group of anglers – and it’s also not a big publication.

In a pair of emails, Tom Bie didn’t want to discuss circulation figures, but another magazine editor guessed its circulation at 7.500 – which still largely amounts to a vanity publication, at least compared to the other mags.

Those numbers may or may not be accurate, but it’s still true The Drake’s appeal doesn’t lie primarily with the over-45 angling crowd, who represent the core of the market (e.g. the folks with disposable income) for fly fishing’s advertisers.

I don’t want to argue the merits of one generation over another, but let’s just say the impact of the “extreme generation” on fly fishing may be far greater online than it is in the marketplace.

The shiny new Fly Fish Journal (one issue only) remains an unknown quantity, but it’s suddenly facing competition from a going-upscale Fly Rod & Reel. Is there room for two in that space? And are advertisers – already facing a chaotic marketplace – really ready to support another magazine?

No matter who’s left standing once the economy improves and the dollars start flowing again, I think print magazines lacking a robust online presence will founder when trying to attract new subscribers – and won’t be able to offer online ad placements as a bonus.

That’s an important distinction to any ad salesperson trying to make their quota; if a competing publication serves a similar audience (and the fly fishing world just isn’t that big), but also offers an advertiser access to loads of online impressions, who gets the ad budget?

It’s the Internet, Stupid

It’s estimated that 74.2% of North America’s population accesses the Internet – a figure that represents 134% growth between 2000 and 2009.

In 2008, a Pew study said 40% of people received their national and international news from the Internet – up from 24% in 2007 (only 35% identified newspapers as their primary source of news).

In other words, the Internet is on its way to becoming the dominant distribution system for information.

Even in the somewhat moribund fly fishing media world, that seems to be the case.

Several of fly fishing’s print magazines are clearly trying to make up for lost ground on the online front, but several are also clearly failing at it.

Meanwhile, online mags like the newly minted Catch offer an attractive alternative for advertising dollars – and will offer an even higher profile in the future. Why?

First, it’s possible we’re at the tail end of The Golden Age of Pointless Two-Page Brand Ads in magazines, and good riddance.

Instead, actionable marketing content – possibly with video or other media embedded – will likely become ascendant, and the online magazine format offers the perfect conduit.

That bodes well for the legions of videographers currently making fly fishing movies. There’s no way the market supports the video hordes via large “feature” efforts, but at least some could make a living powering out videos for destination lodges, gear manufacturers and others – most of which will be distributed online.

Then there are the “engagement” social media (like blogs and Facebook), which promise much to those willing to commit to them. So far, the fly fishing industry (and the fly fishing print magazines) have not done a stellar job leveraging things like blogs and social media, yet examples abound of successes in other industries.

Then again, the Return on Investment (ROI) of online channels like email have been well known for decades (email offers the highest ROI of any online media channel [with the possible exception of search marketing]), yet the fly fishing industry as a whole barely uses the medium.

How long can the industry keep its head firmly planted in the sand?

What’s Ahead?

At the Underground, we balk at forecasting the future, but we’re fine with guessing at it.

First, my earlier prediction for the future of print magazines (online/print hybrids – stuffing multiple media channels with content in order to drive readership and subscriptions) may yet come true.

In fact, Field & Stream is using traffic magnets (blogs, social media, etc) to drive subscriptions and offer different online advertising possibilities.

Done properly, a hybrid solution could easily prove more viable than an online-only magazine.

Of course, there’s no shortage of online magazines available for destruction testing of this hypothesis; they’re popping up like weeds.

I gather we’ll wait and see.

Keep in mind the following: the Internet tends to fracture audiences across many different media channels rather than unify them, so it’s quite possible that the future of online fly fishing media won’t see a dominant trio emerge like the Big Three print magazines.

Instead, readers will piece together their information sources via multiple media channels – a blog here, a twitter feed here, a magazine here.

That’s good for information consumers, but hard for advertisers, who will suddenly face a bazillion media channels, many of which will require their attention.

That, dear Undergrounders, will not be easy.

Then there’s the difficulty online magazines will suffer trying to maintain audiences for quarterly publications.

In a fast-moving Internet world, winning readers back on a quarterly basis represents the hard path to building a magazine’s readership, especially given that ad rates for online publications are traditionally lower than offline.

An online magazine suffers fewer costs, but lacking subscription fees, why wouldn’t want they want a steady (if smaller) source of revenue between issues – and a way to keep readers engaged?

The answer lies with other media channels, and that whole integration issue rears up once again.

The Commercial Angle

I’m at almost 1500 words, and I haven’t even addressed the rapid growth in the use of online channels (blogs, social media, video, etc) for commercial purposes.

At least one online magazine (it hasn’t yet made an appearance) appears to be published by a travel agency. I’ve also noted (with some distress) that the unsavory practice of running destination stories written by people with a financial interest in the lodge or travel agency appears to be migrating from print to the online world.

In other words, I’d expect the already-blurry line between advertorial and editorial to fuzz over pretty heavily, and despite my appreciation of online media channels in general, that’s not a prediction that fills me with joy.

In simplest terms, even if fly fishing’s media won’t stay current, some of the more progressive manufacturers, travel agencies and retailers will.

And the reader won’t always be the winner.

Illustrating this trend are the fast-increasing number of organizations contacting the Underground looking for paid reviews or advertorial placement on the site.

I’ve turned them down, but it’s likely that others won’t.

The FTC’s recent clarification of their new disclosure guidelines for bloggers and other online media seems timely given the groundswell in interest on the part of marketers.

The rules state that financial relationships with manufacturers should be disclosed if a post offers a positive review of a product, and while I applaud the idea in principle, in practice it gets a little dicey.

I already disclose the source of the product (bought it, provided by the manufacturer, etc), and the rules are really aimed at the despicable practice of stealth marketing, where bloggers are paid to post reviews, but don’t disclose that information.

Still, my reading of the rules suggests that bloggers may be forced to disclose the same financial relationships that writers in fly fishing magazines have traditionally ignored – including things like free junkets to pricey destination lodges in return for coverage (which unsurprisingly is always favorable).

We’ll see how that shakes out.

The Underground Ahead

I believe a few fly fishing organizations are waking up to the online world with something approaching panic.

Illustrating that fact is this:  I was contacted three times in 2009 about selling the Underground (or blogging as the Underground on another site), presumably because the Underground’s built-in readership and Google juice would prove attractive to someone looking to jump-start their online presence.

None of the contacts has amounted to anything, but their existence tends to support the idea that organizations are looking to quickly get ahead in a competitive online world.

Naturally, all the above is simply the speculation of a longtime writer and marketing consultant (albeit one with 24+ years in marketing), and the Undergrounders are encouraged to weigh in with their own take on the subject.

See you at the magazine rack, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: american angler, catch magazine, fly fisherman, fly fishing blog, fly fishing magazine, fly fishing media, fly rod and reel

Because there isn’t all that much good news going around these days, I thought I’d take a break from our dorsal fin photography program to throw a little “happy” into the mix.

You might recall that a couple years ago, Orvis, the National Fish & Wildlife foundation, and a lot of fly fishermen threw down bigtime to help fund CalTrout’s McCloud Redband trout recovery (to the tune of $120K).

Now California Trout – that zany group of coldwater privateers fighting everything from the looming extinction of salmon to the corporate mega-sleazes nice folks at Nestle – has scored yet again.

This time it’s at the hands of StoneFly Vineyards and Orvis, who will be forking over 5% of StoneFly’s net wine sales to CalTrout’s eye-patch wearing, parrot-equipped pirate crew.

Sure, me buccos, if asked, we’d suggest CalTrout use the money to leave the online marketing stone age behind, but at the Underground, we’re not going to let our pet marketing peeves get in the way of the really important stuff, so here’s the scoop from the press release:

The StoneFly Prize is a fisheries conservation initiative jointly sponsored by The Orvis Company and StoneFly Vineyards. On a yearly basis, 5% of total net wine sales will fund conservation and restoration of North American coldwater fisheries. California Trout, the first recipient of The StoneFly Prize, has worked for decades to fight for and improve the health of wild trout and steelhead waters in California

zzzzzz… What? Like you, I needed powerful illegal stimulants to make it even halfway through the typically sleep-inducing press release, but the news itself is good.

The economy is putting a stranglehold on more than a few of the conservation and environmental groups around the country, and unlike those overpaid wall street screwups fuckups goddamned criminals folks, there are few bailouts for non-profits.

All this comes at a pivotal time for many of California’s coldwater species, especially steelhead and salmon.

And – having done a bit of it myself – I can say with some authority that fighting large corporations and entrenched water interests is a lot like sticking your head in a vise and turning the handle until everything goes black, then waking up and doing it over again.

Their resources seem inexhaustible and yours seem pitiable, yet the fight continues (like one tiny pirate ship against the entire British Navy), only now CalTrout has a few more bucks to fight with.

Ahoy, mateys. See you at the bench vise, Tom Chandler.

First, somebody caught a world-record steelhead and killed it, which caused a little uproar on the Intertubes.

Then Moldy Chum posted 61 photographs of a big steelie being manhandled, taped, and generally beat to hell before release (it ended up on the cover of Fly Fishermen magazine). With its chances of survival about as remote as your chances of inheriting $23 million from a Nigerian Prince, we’re forced ask the obvious question:

What the hell?

Perhaps the world’s steelhead fishermen should to take a lesson from our own glow-in-the-dark Singlebarbed:

A couple dozen large Pikeminnow and the occasional smallmouth were browsing in deep water – and without any vegetation available to hold insects, and with the catastrophic upheaval of the runoff, I guessed these might be hungry and desperate fish.

I had a fistful of the “Ellis Island” reject flies I needed to expend and plopped an Olive unknown into the water above them. With a 4mm bead and 25 turns of fuse wire there was a corresponding mushroom cloud and crater in the river bottom – and most of the fish scattered.

I gave it a quick tug to free the fly and all hell broke loose, some silver flash comes out of the water and does its best Salmonid imitation, screams off downstream and returns to sulk.

I’m long past caring what it is – and from its profile it appears to be a trophy Pikeminnow – but thick and fat like a bass, not skinny and cylindrical like usual.

It’s laying in the slack water at the bank, and I realize it’s the new IGFA world record for Sacramento Pikeminnow. The old version was merely 6.25 pounds – and “Mr. Chunk Monster”, the genetically blessed fatty was likely to tip them scales closer to seven.

Did our heavy-metals-rich friend rush to the nearest certified scales to claim his spot in the record books – and the adulation sure to follow?

Hell no. (That’s why we like him. Well, that and the fact he’s usually good to bum flies off.)

Our take? They’re fish, for godssakes – not magical beings capable of validating our sorry, quietly desperate existences.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

fly fishing, steelhead, fly fishing for steelhead, world record fish, pikeminnow

Technorati Tags: Fly Fishing, fly fishing for steelhead, pikeminnow, steelhead, world record fish

As a writer, I can’t help but be amused by the ongoing abuse of the word “extreme” in our modern outdoor lexicon. I’ve seen it applied to everything from simply fly fishing in the snow to car camping, yet in this one case – where someone dives out of a helicopter to wrestle a Marlin – it might actually apply.

Then again, so does the phrase “extremely stupid.”

Uh. Hmm. Diving out of helicopters to grab marlin?

Some time ago I posted a note about this video clip – where “Extreme Angler” Matt Watson leaps from a helicopter onto a marlin – and my thought was that it was simply a fabricated spoof. Then came this from a Today Show interview with the helicopter fisherman in question:

It didn’t sound easy, but Watson had no idea how difficult it would actually prove to be. He told Lauer it took 11 months and a number of failed attempts before he and his film crew finally got everything right.

The challenge wasn’t just tackling the fish; Watson also wanted clear shots of the dive from the helicopter, and underwater shots of him wrestling the marlin. That meant boats and divers and the helicopter — and then getting a marlin to cooperate by staying close to the surface, where Watson could grab it.

You can read the rest of the interview here, but the short version is all part of an “Extreme Angling” show, where the host will also catch marlin from paddle boards and jet skis.

It’s the kind of show people would tune into because maybe – just maybe – we’d get to see somebody gored (the aquatic equivalent of NASCAR), but in truth, my interest in helicopter fishing is pretty limited. The PR stunt/media event isn’t exactly new – and plenty of no-talent “celebrities have raised it to an art form the last decade – but to see stunts invading fishing in a never-ending quest for noteriety and bigger ratings… well, I’ll pass.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Read the interview, and you’ll realize the above video clip is deceptive at best; Watson didn’t simply fly around looking for a Marlin, and if you’re not feeling a little manipulated yet, then ask yourself why not?

]]> http://troutunderground.com/2009/03/14/is-marlin-jumping-now-officially-fishings-most-extreme-act/feed/ 5 http://troutunderground.com/2009/02/25/american-museum-of-fly-fishing-invites-cheney-to-speak-an-open-letter/ http://troutunderground.com/2009/02/25/american-museum-of-fly-fishing-invites-cheney-to-speak-an-open-letter/#comments Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:34:14 +0000 Tom Chandler http://troutunderground.com/?p=2762

In an announcement that seems to have been delayed in order to sidestep public outcry, Dick Cheney has been invited to speak at the American Museum of Fly Fishing (this nifty bit of reporting via MidCurrent):

Moments ago we spoke with Cathi Comar, the executive director of the American Museum of Fly Fishing, and learned that the Museum has gone ahead with their invitation to former Vice President Dick Cheney to attend their annual fundraiser dinner in the fall.

The decision was reached late last week but not made public until now. Cheney has accepted and will attend. Comar explained that the Museum board discussed the decision at length over the past several weeks and ultimately decided that since the Museum’s role was historical, their primary duty is to record and preserve artifacts of fly fishing history.

When asked about Cheney’s obviously negative impact on fisheries conservation, Ms. Comar replied that the Museum chooses not to take sides on political or environmental issues. “Although we work with conservation organizations,” she said, “conservation itself is outside of our role.”

The last quote is telling: “Conservation itself is outside of our role” – a statement that leads me to believe that money falls inside the museum’s “role” more than fly fishing.

And one certainly hopes Ms. Comar appreciates the irony of the museum’s focus on history; without all the desperate conservation efforts undertaken during (and prior to) the Cheney presidency era, fly fishing might well be history at this point.

Ms. Comar, know that in your pursuit of dollars and nudge-nudge, wink-wink “look who I’m standing next to” name-brand speakers, you’ve pissed off pretty much anyone who spent the last eight years fighting to reverse Cheney’s frequent assaults on our fish, wild places and water quality here in the West.

Cheney – more than any other single person – was responsible for the massive salmon kill on the Klamath in 2002 – a process outlined in the seminal Washington Post story titled Leaving No Tracks:

Cheney's 2002 Klamath Fish Kill

Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in.

First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers.

Because of Cheney’s intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.

Characteristically, Cheney left no tracks.

The Klamath case is one of many in which the vice president took on a decisive role to undercut long-standing environmental regulations for the benefit of business.

Interestingly, Marshall’s MidCurrent story suggests a letter was sent to all those who complained about the museum’s choices, but I’ve received no such letter (perhaps if I’d mailed in a donation with my complaint).

Naturally, the letter in question wholly sidesteps the issue:

In a board-approved letter to the many fly fishers who have complained about the Museum’s decision, Comar notes that the Museum has never allowed political reputations to influence its decisions about whether to include and display the fishing equipment of the various presidents or vice presidents.

The question isn’t one of simple popularity, and you’ll notice she’s equating collecting and displaying equipment with giving someone like Cheney a forum to speak.

Display some of Cheney’s gear? Fine. Historians will wonder how he could profess to enjoy the very thing he spent eight years trying to destroy.

Give him a forum to rewrite history on this subject?

You not only lost the logic train there, you lost me as a supporter. But then, since I don’t have much ability to contribute to the museum’s “role” (gathering cash), I gather my support probably doesn’t matter much.

See you anywhere but at the American Museum of Fly Fishing, Tom Chandler.

UPDATE: Buster Wants to Fish weighs in (more with killer graphics than words, but they make their point)

UPDATE: Ted Williams – who has led the protest from the start – weighs in on the latest news.

UPDATE: Alex at Hatches lists the “Top Five Cheney Exhibits” at the museum (funny stuff)

UPDATE: Eric Sharp of the Detroit Free Press weighs in (incredulously)

Technorati Tags: american museum of fly fishing, dick cheney, Fly Fishing, klamath salmon kill

We’ve commented before on the fly fishing industry’s woes – both those due to the economic situation and  those that appear to be self-inflicted.

Now, an article from a Mount Washington publication lets slip the information that Sage rods have also suffered layoffs (as we suspected), and that the industry’s less capable of putting the screws to small, independent dealers (judging by the emails I’ve received, small dealers aren’t exactly enamored of the treatment they’ve received at the hands of a couple big fly fishing companies).

For example:

Companies that once demanded large yearly orders to maintain a dealer ship are begging small shops to take on their lines at greatly reduced entry fees. I spoke to a sales representative from a reel company the other day who was promoting a new reel. When I asked how much it was to open a dealership he said it was normally a $1,000, but at present they would only ask that you buy three reels.

Even more interesting is the continuing “Big Boxification” of upper-crust brand Sage:

One of the most shocking renovations announced a few weeks ago was that the Sage rod company would market a rod exclusively for Cabalas. Any shop that has been one of their dealers for any length of time and has maintained the inventories that Sage has required over that time period must be mortified. In my opinion the company sold out their dealers and sold their soul to Cabalas.

Sage fly rods is a business after all, and they go where the money is, but it’s interesting to see this change occur, which – like telling someone their baby is ugly – is pretty hard to take back. For that matter, I’m counting Sage among the companies that have been slow to recognize the tectonic shift occurring in the marketing world, though you’ll soon see that one of the Sage family of companies is making some noise on the Internet.

In fact, it appears that several companies are suddenly (desperately?) acquiring Internet religion, and I’ve been contacted a couple times with what I’ll label as somewhat dubious propositions.

Singlebarbed and I are huddling in an attempt to develop an editorial policy that’s fair to us and our readers, and we’re on the verge of announcing something that should provoke a little discussion from the brownliners and Undergrounders alike.

For that matter, it’s clear to me the Trout Underground probably won’t continue in its present form forever; I can safely say the Underground won’t end 2009 the same way it began it.

Change is inevitable, but until then, see you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: cabelas, Fly Fishing, fly fishing industry, sage fly rods

As far as winters go, this hasn’t been much of one, but despite the lack of snow and surfeit of sunny weather, everybody’s doing the same things they’d do if they were staring at 8 foot snow berms.

Chris Raine’s in his shop, huddled over some massively dangerous power tool (they’re all massively dangerous to me). He’s turning piles of high-grade bamboo into shavings and fly rod strips, and eventually high-dollar bamboo fly rods.

Edmondson’s been traveling a lot for work, Wayne’s installing flooring in his own Man Cave, Ian Rutter’s gritting his way through the eastern show circuit, and Dave Roberts is teaching fly tying classes and calling to taunt every time he scores another cloudy-day, Rogue River BWO hatch.

Me? The last pair of weeks have been a little unsettling, involving odd pains and news you’re not wholly sure you want to hear. It’s all good now – in fact it’s possible to go fly fishing without wondering if my cell phone coverage is good enough to get a call out in a hurry – but it’s still winter, which is to say none of us are fly fishing as much as we could be.

Yesterday – in a good post-doctor mood – a quick trip to the river would have been stellar, but in the winter, there are damned few “quick” trips anywhere.

With an hour (tops) in hand, I found myself tromping through the nearby woods with Wally the Wonderdog, cleaning up piles of shotgun shells left behind by slobs shooters.

In the summer, a quick trip to a nearby stream emerges at a single impulse; it involves little more than wading boots, a light fly rod and an Altoids tin of flies (maybe a extra few minutes if the fish were eating dries).

Those are the trips the Undergrounders rarely read about (for all sorts of reasons I’m not apologizing about that), but during winter, there’s more gear, more clothing, and – for some reason – way more searching the Man Cave for lost crap.

And speaking from a purely legal perspective, the nearby little waters (with the stupid fish) are closed.

Winter’s the time of year when you can say “no” to fly fishing for all sorts of reasons, and the bar on what constitutes a “good” reason seems to have fallen considerably from its summer levels.

I’m not getting flies tied and fly lines cleaned, my office is still a mess, the Man Cave garage is still in disarray after the sheet rock people folded, spindled and mutilated it, and those writing projects are still moving slowly.

I’m not advocating sloth or watching I Love Lucy re-runs or even [gasp] wasting time on the Internet; I’m just wondering where my summer fly fishing time – that handful of disconnected hours each week which normally find me on the river – goes when the weather turns cold.

I’m still fly fishing enough to stay sane – a big improvement from a few years ago when the Upper Sacramento was closed to fishing in winter – but I’m not fly fishing enough to escape the thought I should be doing it more.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll go fishing, and with any luck, find a few answers.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: fishing, Fly Fishing, fly fishing the upper sacramento, upper sacramento river, winter fly fishing

Even before the downturn, many decried the “expense” of fly fishing – and the need for the industry to produce inexpensive gear to recruit new genes into the pool.

I admit to some confusion around the gear aspect given the sub-$100 fly fishing outfits offered by several manufacturers (though I always wondered why they didn’t put the damned backing and line on the reel instead of forcing some newbie to do it).

And yes, I think it’s fair to say no newcomer to fly fishing should be expected to spend $3000 for a fly rod, reel, waders, boots and little gear, but frankly, fly fishing’s never enjoyed as much really good, really affordable gear as it does now.

And compared to other outdoor pursuits, fly fishing’s actually pretty affordable. (Priced a bass boat lately?) After all, a day on the water costs as little as an annual license (amortized over many days), and the biggest single consumable expenses revolve around gas and flies.

In other words, it’s possible that fly fishing’s “expensive” reputation has little to do with reality, and a lot to do with perception.

So what’s feeding that perception?

I’ve got a few guesses, but want to hear from the Undergrounders.

Some Guesses?

• In most magazines, the average newcomer is bombarded by ads & stories for high-end rods and $5k/week destinations
• Fly shops aren’t always the friendliest environment for newcomers
• Fly fishing isn’t expensive as much as it is hard – and to some, investing time to get “good” is the equivalent of “expensive”

What do the Undergrounders Think?

• Is fly fishing too expensive to recruit newbies?
• Is the industry newbie-unfriendly?
• Are fly fishermen newbie unfriendly?
• Is the sport’s focus on high-end gear and exotic places throttling the sport?
• Recruitment during a recession is never easy (even as millions suddenly find themselves with spare time), but what will get newbies into the sport?
• Do we want newbies in the sport? (This last for you cranky readers.)

Pencils up,
Tom Chandler

Technorati Tags: expense of fly fishing, fishing, Fly Fishing, fly rods

Some of the sharper Undergrounders may have noticed a slight downturn in the economy, and the Underground’s award-winning team of economists suggests the fly fishing industry’s noticed too.

Early in 2008 Scott Rods suffered some layoffs (though that had more to do with management issues than the economy). Then Winston laid off some rod builders, and recently, more bad news arrived on the horizon in the form of layoffs at Orvis (more on that below).

It seems as if I receive weekly notice of another independent fly shop going under, and yes, even the formerly flush pro BASS circuit is losing sponsors faster than I can LDR a skin-hooked 18″ rainbow.

Then the Baltimore Sun reported on the fading fortunes of consumer outdoor shows, and while everyone’s crossing themselves and hoping for a quick recovery, it’s clear that consumer spending in the “luxury” market (and fly fishing largely falls under that shadow) is in the dumpster.

Clearly, luxury boat sales are more affected than Chuck Furimsky’s Fly Fishing Show, which does offer cash-strapped members of the fly fishing community access to bargains, which may be the source of so much of AFFTA’s discontent with Furimsky’s shows.  (Following quote from the Baltimore Sun story, which is worth a read):

Timonium’s Fishing Expo and Boat Show, which began its silver anniversary run Thursday and ends today, is a shell of its former self. Walking the floor of a show that used to be nearly three times as big and attract celebrities such as Ray Scott, founder of BASS, is as depressing as the news from Wall Street.

“Everybody’s looking for value for the dollar,” says Chuck Furimsky, owner of The Fly Fishing Show, which still appears in eight cities across the country. “Instead of a $700 rod, they’re buying two $150 rods. … There’s still a light at the end of the tunnel for us; it’s just not as bright as it once was.”

The Retail Connection

Then news arrived of layoffs at retailing heavyweight Orvis:

According to Hathaway, 27 employees, mostly salaried, have been laid off from the Orvis offices in Sunderland. He said 12 hourly workers were let go from manufacturing positions in Manchester.

“We’re facing a historic downturn in our economy in this country and the world and Orvis is not immune to any of that. We have to make difficult, painful decisions that will ensure the health of the company,” Hathaway said.

Orvis employs about 220 people locally, and has about 2,000 employees worldwide, according to Hathaway. No retail store employees were affected by the job cuts.

In an interesting blogger death feud sidenote, brownliner Singlebarbed suggests Orvis is more susceptible to the downturn than other manufacturers, and I find I wholly disagree.

From my online marketing perspective, Orvis is pretty much cooking the rest of the fly fishing industry on the marketing front (especially in the online world), and it seems as if most of their competitors don’t even realize Orvis has turned up the heat.

The organizations that survive downturns do so because they got their manufacturing and marketing ducks in a row during the good times – something the historically backwards fly fishing industry hasn’t (by and large) done.

Rather, it’s likely there are layoffs occuring at other fly fishing manufacturers, but they’re simply going unreported.

The Media Hurt

Naturally, the fly fishing magazine world isn’t immune; Ad pages at consumer magazines are down 11% overall, and fly fishing mags aren’t likely any different. (Bored? Count the number of ad pages in your favorite fly fishing magazine, and be prepared to use far fewer fingers than before.)

In fact – as I’m noting in an almost-finished opinion piece about the future of fly fishing media – fly fishing’s print magazines are facing the double-whammy of a bad economy and an accelerating reader shift to online media.

In other words, things are pretty much as you’d expect them to be in a “luxury” market facing the worst recession in our lifetimes, and with news that all our bailout money is being viewed by most banks as a “no-strings-attached windfall” (hint: lending hasn’t loosened, and bank execs are basically sniggering all the way to… well, the bank), don’t expect it to get a lot better anytime soon.

Still, here at the largely recession-proof Trout Underground, ad revenues haven’t declined at all, but that’s mostly because we haven’t talked anyone into advertising.

As for the rest of the fly fishing and sporting world, I’d like to point out that the cost of enjoying the outdoors hasn’t increased all that much (gas perhaps), so my prescription is to take two fly fishing trips and call the Underground in the morning.

In other words, though credit has largely ceased to flow, that’s not true of our major rivers.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: consumer spending, fishing, Fly Fishing, fly fishing industry, fly fishing media, fly fishing show, orvis, outdoor industry

Via Ted Williams’ blog we discovered this news item; longtime outdoor humor writer Patrick McManus is ending his 28 year run at Outdoor Life magazine, a noteworthy occasion – though perhaps not for the reasons you might think.

McManus wrote Outdoor Life’s humor column for nearly three decades, but the magazine terminated his contract, and according to McManus, it did so for budget reasons:

Being among the most highly paid contributors apparently factored into the editor’s decision to terminate McManus, a top name in outdoor humor across the country. The top-selling writer has more than two million of his 18 books in print.

“The magazines are just running out of cash,” he said last week. “We parted on good terms.”

Our question is this; is this a signe the outdoor magazines are really feeling the pinch of a bad economy and an ongoing shift to Internet properties, or was McManus simply past his expiration date?

We’ll keep our eyes peeled for signs of the Outdoor Magazine Apocalypse, but in the meantime, I’ll say this: McManus’ humor has been labeled by some as hokey, but I got a kick out of it, and will probably never forget McManu’s gold-plated image of an unconscious deer waking up and pedaling his youthful character’s bicycle down a mountain.

That’s priceless shit.

The larger picture? Outdoor media and fly fishing are reaching a crossroads – many high-profile fly fishing “celebrities” and other leading names are aging towards some kind of retirement (ahem).

Because nature hates a vacuum, new faces will likely take their place, though it’s unclear who those new faces might be (though I have a few ideas, and not all of them make me happy).

Agree? Disagree?

See you in philosophical media discussions, Tom Chandler.

fly fishing, fishing, patrick mcmanus, fly fishing media

Powered by ScribeFire.

Technorati Tags: fishing, Fly Fishing, fly fishing media, patrick mcmanus

The last big movie “about fly fishing” (that wasn’t about fly fishing at all) allegedly exploded participation in the sport of fly fishing, bringing tears of joy to equipment manufacturers and leading those who prefer riverside solitude to grumble incessantly.

Now, with production beginning on the movie version of David James Duncan’s The River Why, will we see a new boom in fly fishing — and a whole new wave of models throwing tailing loops in SUV/Viagra ads?

Word comes from the Oregon state office of film and television that a movie adaptation of David James Duncan’s “The River Why” is set to start shooting around July 7.

As the film’s Web site describes Duncan’s book: “Set on the banks of a wild river, ‘The River Why’ is the story of 20 year old Gus Orviston, the Mozart of flyfishing, who leaves his big city home in rebellion from his family. In the process he comes in contact with an assortment of eccentric characters who help him in his journey to adulthood. Most of all, The River Why is a love story. The love of a man for the wilderness, and for a beautiful woman who comes to share it with him.”

It’s not like me to claim credit for things I obviously had everything nothing to do with, but clearly, one of Hollywood’s brighter bulbs read the Underground’s massively popular “The Five Fly Fishing Movies That Should be Made Immediately” post, and rather than pay me a percentage of the gross, searched out the one plot that wasn’t already suggested by myself or the Undergrounders.

It’s OK; if our huge monetary sacrifice helps our beleaguered fly fishing industry off its knees and back onto its blistered, unsteady feet, well, I’m glad to once again be of service.

I’m dashing this off just prior to a death march hike into the mountains after brookies, and while the cold, cloudy, threatening weather suggests a stay at home hugging a cup of hot chocolate, I think the Undergrounders should discuss the following talking points in the hopes I might survive and return to discuss it with them:

• Can Hollywood possibly do The River Why (a literate book) justice?
• Will fly fishing enjoy another boom, and will we be subjected to endless “yep, I was there” ramblings about the movie from people who once were employed to buy donuts for the film crew?
• Is this good news, or bad?

I’m sure this will provide fodder for message boards all over the fly fishing universe; naturally, I expect my readers to rise above the obvious gags that I didn’t have time for, instead holding a literate, Algonquin Roundtable level of discussion.

See you in the cold, windy mountains, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: a river runs through it, david james duncan, fishing, Fly Fishing, the movie, the river why

It’s a sad truth. When the fly fishing’s good, the reading is bad. And right now, the fishing’s getting very good.

The books stack up in inverse proportion to number of big mayflies fluttering around the river, and I’m left a torn man.

After all, I like muscular prose almost as much as I like muscular fish, and when I’m in a whiny mood, I’ll even suggest it’s unfair I have to choose between the two.

Still, reality almost always wins out (this isn’t politics after all), and I’ve accumulated a suitcase-sized pile of books and DVDs to read and review.

It occurs to me I might not be the only one.

Maybe the Undergrounders share my literary-induced pain — or could be asked to share the names of the books they’re dying to read (or even those they just did).

Fire away, Undergrounders.

See you on the river (or in the stacks), Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: books, Fly Fishing, fly fishing books, Writing

The Metal Cage Death Match between the American Fly Fishing Tackle Association (AFFTA) and Chuck Furimsky’s Fly Fishing Show has seemingly delivered us a winner.

And surprisingly, it’s not industry heavyweight AFFTA.

Last year, fly fishing’s industry trade association (AFFTA) announced its first consumer trade show in Denver — a trade show held on the same weekend as Chuck Furimsky’s long-established Fly Fishing Show.

The resulting furball had all the tragi-comedic elements of Shakespearean farce; given its stated intent of growing the sport, why was the industry trade association trying to snuff out an existing show?

AFFTA President Robert Ramsay repeatedly said it wasn’t a personal thing; AFFTA simply felt it was time to gain a little traction (and a revenue stream) from a string of consumer shows while trying to grow the fly fishing market for its members.

Of course, when a trade association targets one of your most profitable trade shows, it might be hard not to take it personally, and Furimsky countered AFFTA’s move with a fair amount of heated rhetoric.

As time passed, the words grew more contentious, the whispering picked up intensity, the threats emerged, and exhibitors were forced to decide which show to attend. Many thought AFFTA’s show — which could count on the attendance of most of fly fishing’s bigger manufacturers — was a major favorite to win.

At the Fly Fishing Retailer show in Denver, the whispering came from every point of the compass.

Some said Furimsky was difficult and deserved his comeuppance. Others said this was simply a bungled money-and-power grab by a panicked AFFTA and its bigger fly fishing manufacturers, who were facing a stagnant industry and disliked the discounting that occurs at Furimsky’s shows.

The Jabs Just Keep Coming

Predictably, after the January showdown, both sides claimed a moral victory, though it wasn’t long after that AFFTA’s President Robert Ramsay — the point man in AFFTA’s effort to launch a string of consumer trade shows — announced he was leaving AFFTA’s top job.

The announcement was immediately pounced on by the Furimsky camp as proof the AFFTA consumer show was a failure.

Then the Underground’s post-show article incited a fair amount of “spirited” commentary from both sides of the issue.

Kenji Haro — director of Denver’s Fly Fishing Retailer Show (a successful dealer-only show that’s run in the fall), posted this comment on the Trout Underground:

I think the point of the AFFTA show was that Chuck’s was not contributing to the industry growth…. fine for the art of bamboo rodmaking, but how does that get more people involved in the sport, which can support your local shops and eventually garner more interest in your niche? Did The Furimsky show give proceeds, even a little, to the association that supports the sport in DC and does outreach to get more people aware and involved?

The Fly Fishing Show’s Dave Seward responded with a salvo of his own, including an allegation that they had offered funding to AFFTA, but that AFFTA simply wanted too much:

As far as “give a little, to the association that supports the sport in DC and does outreach to get more people aware and involved” that is a whole can of worms, no pun intended. At one time The Fly Fishing Show was willing to donate 10% of booth rental fees of every AFFTA member back to AFFTA, they wanted more to put it simply (You can check out this effort on utaff.org/constitution.html “let the Truth be Known” also check out Business as usual).

Furimsky himself also chimed in, and amidst the volleys of charges and counter-charges, the truth will likely never be clear to those without backstage passes to the AFFTA board’s decision-making process.

AFFTA Opts Out of Death Match Weekend

In what Furimsky’s camp cites as a clear victory, AFFTA recently announced they weren’t going to reprise their Denver consumer show, but would instead merge their “successful” show concept with outdoor trade show giant ISE. From the AFFTA press release:

“This agreement with ISE, producers of the largest and longest-running outdoor consumer events in the marketplace, creates the most powerful promotional and educational platform our members have ever had. The highly regarded show concept showcased at our January 2008 consumer Expo in Denver will be used as the model for our collaborative efforts with ISE to produce the finest fly fishing events in the country.”

AFFTA would incorporate “Discover Fly Fishing” pavilions within ISE’s Denver and San Mateo shows aimed at recruiting new fishermen into the sport.

Furimsky — who has maintained all along that his show does plenty for the sport of fly fishing — announced he was partnering with the Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF) and launching in-show recruitment pavilions of his own.

Plans are being finalized to present an “Introduction to Fly Fishing” area staffed by men, women and youth members of F.F.F. that will provide free instruction to any of the tens of thousands who attend the shows. All questions and help requests in every aspect of fly fishing will be professionally responded to by qualified and certified F.F.F. instructors and show personnel.”

Last Show Standing…

Frankly, it’s hard to see a lot of winners in this mess, though Ramsay’s departure and the sublimation of AFFTA’s consumer show into the ISE shows suggests AFFTA no longer has the stomach (and perhaps the budget) for this kind of fight.

Furimsk’s Fly Fishing Show has earned the title of “Last Show Standing,” and while the true behind-the-scenes machinations which led to this furball remain unclear, what is clear is that AFFTA’s new President — Gary Berlin — is walking into a situation requiring a little fence mending.

Also left unclear is the role played by the AFFTA Board of Directors: former AFFTA President Ramsay repeatedly said the decision to launch a competing trade show was the result of a unanimous decision by AFFTA’s board — which includes representatives from industry heavyweights Umpqua, Sage/Rio, Frontier Travel, Simms, Cloudveil, Ross, Orvis and LL Bean.

If this somewhat select group was handed the goal of growing participation in a stagnant fly fishing industry — and their best answer involved a divisive attempt to terminate an existing fly fishing show and claim its revenues for their own organization — then the fly fishing industry as a whole might be headed for a rocky ride, and not solely as a result of economic forces.

As always, the Undergrounders should feel free to add their perspective below. See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: fly fishing,fishing,AFFTA,fly fishing show,robert ramsay,chuck furimsky,trade show death match,stuff I’d rather not write

Technorati Tags: affta, chuck furimsky, fishing, Fly Fishing, fly fishing show, robert ramsay, stuff I wish I didn't have to write, trade show death match

On Highway 97 — a few miles outside of Weed, CA (just past the A12 junction) — you’ll find the Living Memorial Sculpture Garden — dedicated to the men and women of the USA’s armed forces.

On this weekend, spare a thought for those who have fought our wars, and for those who are still fighting them.