Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell on a satellite phone call to Houston – while the rig was exploding
[source: Newsweek print edition "Perspectives"]
If you ever really needed an excuse to turn off the television and get the hell out into the real world, this video offers it – in nothing less than hilarious terms…
Given the population’s diminishing attention span, the above is way, way closer to the truth than is likely healthy for the republic.
That said, if those of us who regularly “interface with the real world” can hold it together long enough, we may once again end up as rulers of the planet – while everyone else wonders why their legs have shriveled up and they don’t know how to eat anything that didn’t appear from the microwave.
See you in front of the TV, Tom Chandler.
[disclaimer: this editorial opinion does not necessarily represent the views of Trout Underground (HMbgh (an LLC)) or it's employees, and may in fact only be the product of senility or runoff)
5. Wondering how to imitate the Tar Ball hatch
4. You mounted a “No Smoking” sign on front deck of flats boat
3. Learning to really like “Blackened” redfish, oysters and shrimp
2. Wondering why Simms doesn’t make a Nomex flats shirt
1. You’re cutting outboard fuel costs by refilling gas tank directly from Gulf
[ed: Guess it's "Top" week here on the Underground]
I understand the concept of luxury establishments just fine, and even if I didn’t, I largely lack the class warrior gene. If the rich want to pay through the nose to catch pellet-fed trout, then more power to ‘em.
Still, when Donnie Beaver enters into the equation – the much-disliked “entrepreneur” who has repeatedly tried to illegally bar public access to public waters – then I’m also completely willing to howl at the moon a little.
It appears Beaver’s (Ward, I’m concerned about the Beaver) westward expansion has resulted in a the HomeWaters Club (Official Motto: Never Again Be Forced to Fly Fish With Common People).
This from the “Luxist” web site:
HomeWaters Club is a theme based private club, with multiple locations and reciprocal rights of use in each, similar to an equity-based destination club, but with a fly-fishing identity. It was formed in 2009 as an alliance between Spring Ridge Club of Pennsylvania and Alpine River Club of Colorado, to preserve, and offer members access to 35 miles of trout and steelhead waters across Pennsylvania and 40 miles of the streams and rivers in Colorado. At present, there are nearly 200 members, and the club is expanding to other areas of the US. But right now, the locations span from central, northeastern and Erie, Pennsylvania, to Vail and Steamboat Springs Colorado areas.
So far, it’s pretty standard marketing puffery, albeit for a company whose bylaws include a hoofprint signature from the cloven-hooved deceiver himself.
But in the next paragraph, note the appearance of a well-known fly fisherman’s name:
Recently, a new dimension was added to HomeWaters Club, and that is is HomeWaters University. This is a new program designed to offer a two-day fly-fishing immersion experience. With a staff of 20 fishing guides, HomeWaters University can teach beginners and experts, children and parents, from how to cast for the first time, all the way to learning new casting skills. Housed at the HomeWaters Club new River Village in Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania, the center-piece of HomeWaters University is the first-ever Lefty Kreh Challenge Course offering a range of dry-land, still-water and moving-water stations.
Ahh, Lefty – fly fishing’s Biggest Self-Promoter Most Recognized Name. Did you really have to do it?
Clearly, fly fishing isn’t a route to a lifetime of riches or early, yacht-based retirement.
That said, you risk being exposed for feet of clay when you mess with the folks drawing the attention of a lot of airborne rotting vegetables.
See you on the river, Tom Chandler.
I’m sitting next to my ever-growing pile of Kleenex and empty Nyquil bottles (which may have contributed to this wandering essay), wondering who clubbed my former life and buried it in a shallow grave in a remote part of the national forest.
Enough. Really.
And by “former” life I mean the one where I wasn’t infected with some horrible little virus every other day or so.
All of which amounts to a long-winded writer’s way of saying this week has been grim and last night was even grimmer, though today is sunny and I’m pulling myself upwards instead of sliding back down into that shallow grave.
Still, my Yugo-class immune system has deservedly earned Bush-level approval ratings, and things have gotten to the point that my clients are wondering why shit isn’t getting done.
Right outside my window, winter refuses to give up the ghost (snow finally melting, but still a good foot in parts of the yard), and even the normally anti-whiner Chris Raine is issuing threats to the weather (are you listening, weather?).
Meanwhile, Mount Shasta has become news media central with a 30-40 car pileup on the I5, a climber dying on the summit of Mt. Shasta, Tom Stienstra’s arrest and some weird shit in Dunsmuir pushing us square into the center of California’s marijuana legalization wars (not to mention a lot of bad jokes).
In short, the fecal matter is hitting the rotating blades (and hard), and when that happens, the reporters dive for their phone lists, the politicians dive for cover, and the fly fishermen should probably go fishing.
At least the smart, healthy ones. Read more →
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: Read more →
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 <strike>7.500</strike> [Ed: Tom Bie of the Drake now says his circulation is "between 21,000 and 23,000"] – 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:Â 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.
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 Monsterâ€, 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.
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.
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?
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