Any guess as to how Moldy Chum feels about AFFTA?

AFFTA responded, and the Chumsters took issue with what appeared to be some dissembling on the part of AAFTA, debunking Enzi’s supposed “cred” on the small business side of things.

In other words, Moldy points out that AFFTA’s rationale for giving Enzi the award) is damned thin:

Here is one example of legislation sited as proof of Enzi’s pro business cred.

The Save our Small and Seasonal Business Act if passed would, Amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to extend for three years after the date of enactment of this Act the annual cap exemption for returning H-2B aliens (temporary nonagricultural worker).

This legislation was so critical to small businesses that the following “trade organizations” registered overwhelming support for that bill.

American Horse Council
American Nursery & Landscape Association
Professional Landcare Network
Save Small Business
The Association of Pool and Spa Professionals

So exactly how does this act benefit the fly fishing trade…. other than making it easier to hire someone to mow the lawn and clean the casting pool?

Now, let’s balance the record of Mr. Enzi, champion of small business and kid’s health, with his environmental record.

Here is his evironmental voting scorecard for his entire tenure in the US Senate.

110th Congress: 15%

109th Congress: 7%

108th Congress: 0%

107th Congress: 0%

106th Congress: 0%

Hey, at least it’s improving!

In years past, I chewed on AFFTA for a series of horrendous decisions, though the “new” AFFTA — which at least communicates better than before — seemed like it was settling into a nice, quiet, hassle-free existence.

Guess not.

Read the deeply researched Moldy piece here, and let Moldy (and AFFTA) know what you think.

The Blog Thing

You don’t have to look far past Moldy’s posts to see the growing role fly fishing’s blogs are playing in the sport and the industry.

During the Siskiyou County land use furball; the McCloud Hydro mess, my prior AFFTA stuff; the recent stream access and mining issues in Montana; Moldy hammering AFFTA’s choices — and plenty of other times — fly fishing blogs created and led the party.

Meanwhile, “traditional” media — and much of the industry at large — wouldn’t (or couldn’t) do much of anything.

It’s tight-knit industry — one that’s largely used to escaping any kind of organized criticism — and it’s hard not to suggest those days may be in the past, especially with the proliferation of non-industry-tied blogs.

And a quick glance at the recent Montana Stream Access issue — where several Montana blogs provided their own original reporting in addition to references to local news outlets — suggests blogs are playing a larger role than before on the environmental front, where I’ve long suggested few magazines have pulled their weight.

See you online, Tom Chandler

Today we find ourselves standing squarely atop the Trout Underground’s Five Year Anniversary (to the day).

Which is why – when I stumbled across a WordPress word-counting utility – I foolishly used it.

The number of words published on the Trout Underground? 690,000+ (and still counting).

That’s about 4.15 million keystrokes – not counting my comments, the stuff I never finished, didn’t publish, or backspaced into the aether.

Suddenly, it’s not just my butt that hurts.

For those who still read books, that’s between five and ten full-length novels. (I was tempted to put “five and ten full-length novels” in italics, but realized them emphasis wasn’t really necessary).

With all the above churning in my head – and with today being the Trout Underground’s Five Year Anniversary – this is as good a time as any to invest fifteen minutes leaning back in a chair, sucking on a beer and pondering the following:

What The Hell Do I Think I’m Doing?

While the Underground has changed its hair color a few times, the constant over the last five years has been a desire to write about the odd bits of the fly fishing life you won’t find in a magazine.

The personal moments, the beautiful moments, the frustrating moments, the new dad moments (like standing over a stinky changing table instead of a small stream) – you get the picture.

In that sense, I’m still batting a thousand.

I keep writing about my tiny, unglamorous corner of the fly fishing world (and my trips to other tiny, unglamorous corners of the fly fishing world), and a surprising number of you keep coming along for the ride.

Which astonishes me.

The Upper Sacramento River – and the small streams and alpine lakes I photograph and write about – lie far from the exotic destinations currently occupying the center of fly fishing’s media universe.

It’s rare to find an issue of anything lacking a story about Patagonia or a distant part of the former Soviet Union, and if you don’t have a hero shot or confrontation with some marginally frightening foreign bandit, you don’t really have a story.

Whether this represents the ongoing “extremification” of the sport depends on your perspective, though it’s pretty clearly the result of (to steal from Vonnegut) certain economic realities.

In simple terms, if you want to make money, you go where money’s being spent.

In fly fishing, the trail of dollar bills leads squarely to How-to/Where-to articles (which appeal to new anglers, who are buying gear); gear reviews (which sell more gear than ads); and “adventure destination” articles (which sell trips for travel agents and lodges, who buy ads).

And while it’s easy to read the above as condemnation, I’m just recognizing reality.

Fly fishing’s a hobby for most, but for a few it’s a business, and it’s clear fly fishing’s online world is increasingly occupied with the business of business.

It’s normal and expected, though I still get fired up after some fool pitches me an “opportunity” that mostly allows them to profit from my work (for the last time, “exposure” doesn’t feed my kid).

Despite steadfastly ignoring every major fly fishing trend (at least as it relates to gear, travel and fermented beverages), the Underground continues to draw approximately 22,000 unique visitors every month – the equivalent of a small magazine.

That suggests one of two things. Either fly fishermen are still plenty interested in essays about everyday fly fishing, or Wally the Wonderdog is way more popular than I guessed.

Frankly, I’m willing to go either way on that one.

What’s Next?

When I launched the Underground, fly fishing’s online universe was a shiny new place; a big experiment run by people wearing waders instead of lab coats, and for a while, most of us were happy enough dabbling in the science instead of focusing on the results.

Like any movement, it couldn’t last forever.

Almost overnight, bloggers seemingly stopped linking to other blogs, cliques formed, commercial interests crept into the equation, and one day, someone suggested an advertiser wouldn’t receive coverage on their site as long as the advertiser was paying for space on mine.

Which is when I realized things had fundamentally changed.

Today, blogs aren’t the hot media channel they used to be, and the herds are leaving “long form” content behind for “hot” technologies like Facebook and Twitter (you don’t need a Mensa card to know 140 character-long tweets are a lot easier to create than 1000-word posts).

Flipbook-based ezines are also hot properties, yet I can’t help but think they’re something of a throwback; no conversations take place between their virtual covers, and in fact, they exist largely apart from the “social” web.

Given the low rates paid for online advertising (which reflects its often abysmal clickthrough rates), it’s hard to see more than one or two ezines achieving profitability (needed to pay those providing the content).

In other words, I believe we’re just at the start of the new media revolution. There’s plenty more to come.

What is clear is this: given the public’s reluctance to pay for anything appearing in a web browser (that’s why traditional media outlets are embracing the iPad and its easy-to-monetize apps), blogs only make commercial sense when you’ve got something to sell.

You’ll want to keep that in mind for the future.

Five Years Later

Today, I’m a fly fishing dad of a two year-old daughter who fishes less than he used to, and while I miss yesterday’s largely obligation-free existence, I’m unable to stop staring into the light generated by my bright, shiny little girl.

Sadly, it turns out that money still matters, and lacking a trust fund (wealthy couples looking to adopt an older child should contact me immediately), I’m transforming my 25 year copywriting business into a marketing consultancy – a time-consuming affair.

I still fish more than some, though even when I do, I don’t always find the time to write about it. The last year has been wildly hectic, and the last three months have been off the charts.

At times, the Underground’s felt like a bit of burden, and when I’m feeling that pressure, the trolls, nasty emails, alpha-dog wannabees and wholly clueless commenters seem a little bigger than they are.

It’s hard to imagine life without the Underground, but it’s equally hard to ignore the imminent signing of a time-consuming-but-very-interesting new client and the half-dozen (sizable) online projects featuring February deadlines.

In other words, the last three months are about to repeat themselves, and while I’m not making any decisions on the Trout Underground’s Fifth Anniversary, I’m also not ruling out changes.

They might include everything from turning TU into a multi-author blog (this lightens the load) to simply burning it down and walking away.

Wherever the journey leads, it’s safe to say the last five years wouldn’t have been half as much fun if the Undergrounders hadn’t shared the ride. For the most part, you played along when I was having fun, but Threw Down Big when our fishing access was threatened, my father died, Little M arrived, and the dozens of other times it was needed.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Recently, I said the Underground wasn’t going to finish 2009 the same way it began it. That’s about to become true.

The Original Trout Underground Manifestor header, circa 2005

Interest in advertising on the Trout Underground is growing (slowly), and suddenly, we’re important enough that a couple manufacturers want to shower me with gear to review (one of them offered to let me keep the swag).

It seems the Undergrounders love gear reviews, but here’s the rub: if a reviewer knows in advance he’s keeping the gear he’s reviewing, then a cynic might suggest he’s receiving a form of payment for the review.

The advertising angle is pretty much the same; advertisers have dollars-and-cents leverage when they’re not happy with editorial content, and some are notoriously willing to use it.

My journalism training suggests compensated reviews represent a sizable conflict of interest, and it’s one reason why you might question the unbiased nature of those high-end destination reviews when a lodge paid the writer to be there.

Can you trust me to honestly review a piece of gear when the gear itself becomes a payoff – a form of blogola? Can you trust me to say what I think knowing an advertiser might object?

I think you can, but it’s a question my readers have the right to ask.

I will say this: perceived conflict of interest has long been one of journalism’s slipperier slopes, and without the trust I’ve built among my readers, the Underground is little more than 1700+ posts of search engine content.

Why is all this an issue?

The Underground Gets Real

Because while the Trout Underground’s big fun – and yes, I believe it fills a niche mainstream fly fishing media doesn’t – it’s also the following: A hell of a lot of work.

Writing is my day job, and investing vast expanses of time here absent any real return isn’t fiscally sane – especially when the economy is face planting and hordes of part time amateur writers are turning the professional writing world into a race to the low bid.

An Early Trout Underground Header Image

The L&T’s totally cool about the amount of time I waste spend here, but we both know I’d generate a lot better return if I invested it in my business, or [gasp] wrote articles for print magazines.

Which – in the case of the Underground – seemingly leaves me with two choices.

1. Let the Underground float downstream, belly up in the current
2. Find a way to make a few guilt-free dollars off the site – but do so transparently

What’s going to happen? I’m not sure, but Singlebarbed and I are in the process of creating our Advertising/Gear Whore policy, the genesis of which you’ll find after I’ve made some long-winded observations about…

The Underground’s Take on the Future of Fly Fishing Media

Keith at Singlebarbed and I have always been clear with each other why we write our blogs; we’re happy writing and publishing the stuff the magazines aren’t publishing.

That’s not necessarily a shot at the print folks; the Internet is a different animal, though fly fishing’s media would do well to heed the lessons of newspapers, which are in a free fall (The Rocky Mountains News ceased publishing today, and even the SF Chronicle is threatening to close)

Recently, Phil Monahan lost his job at the helm of American Angler because the magazine owner’s newspaper operations sucked the life out of the organization.

Monahan and I had our disagreements online, but he’s a talented editor who somehow grew American Angler’s reader base in a stagnant market. Simply put, he deserved better than he seemingly got.

More Underground Header goodness

It also seems Underground Fave fly fishing writer Dave Hughes recently left Amato Publishing due to budget issues, and you don’t have to look to closely to see the cracks widening at a few other publications.

And yes, because I write a blog, you’re expecting me to tell you that blogs are the the future of fly fishing online, and no others need apply?

Not so much.

Blogs as Traffic Magnets?

In truth, I believe the standalone, original-content blog format is something of a dead end – at least in terms of viable fly fishing media properties.

More than a year ago, I predicted blogs – at least those with hopes of generating enough revenue to make them worth writing – might have to serve a larger master.

One obvious niche is the role of traffic magnet to a larger entity. In this context, you could consider bloggers the online equivalent to columnists at a newspaper, whose job it is to keep readers coming back.

This one came a little later; I'm not clear on the date.

And yes, you might notice the new, high-profile online magazines have sprouted blogs. That seems like a necessary survival tactic when you’re releasing an online magazine every couple months (an eternity in Internet time).

Without something to keep readers engaged, online magazines are forced to re-acquire a sizable chunk of their readership every issue. That’s not good.

Still, the blogs mentioned really have yet to fill the “columnist” role, and the online sites associated with fly fishing’s magazines are similarly devoid of “anchor” blogs (with Field & Stream being a surprising exception).

One thing is clear; fly fishing blogs are finally gaining ground in the fly fishing industry: MidCurrent’s Marshal Cutchin and I found ourselves on the cover of Orvis’ fly fishing catalog.

The Trout Underground’s stand on the McCloud & Nestle led to an appearance on TU’s On the Rise show, and more media folks have been popping their heads into my virtual online window.

And yes, the number of commercial enterprises looking for free access to my readership has grown by an order of magnitude over the last few months (and illustrated why many of fly fishing’s small businesses could stand to read a book on pitching story ideas).

Simply put, the online revolution is happening even in the quiet backwater that is fly fishing.

The Underground’s Ad/Gear Whore Policy

Barring the sudden appearance of a wealthy patron (hear me, trustfunders?), advertising is now a reality for the Underground. Problem is, standard online banner ads aren’t always effective – especially over long ad runs.

Rather than trap advertisers within the confines of a 160 x 600 pixel banner ad, I’m adding “ad pages” to the Underground’s mix. To reach the growing number of folks who read my content via RSS and email feeds (they may never physically visit the site), I’ll be creating dedicated ad posts, essentially mimicking the pages in magazines that are dedicated to ads.

Clearly marked ‘Advertising’ (in multiple ways), these ad posts offer an advertiser a little more elbow room – and a chance to deliver “content” they couldn’t otherwise deliver.

Frankly, it makes a hell of a lot of sense for everyone involved, and rest assured, the advertising posts will remain separate from the editorial posts you’re (presumably) here to read and comment on.

If online advertising can’t be made to to work for everyone involved (not just in fly fishing, but across the Internet), then it’s entirely possible – as some have predicted – the Internet will have presided over the death of intellectual property.

With a series of unpretty options as my alternative, I believe this is one way to make viable online advertising a reality.

As for gear reviews, I promise to be entirely transparent about the disposition of the stuff I receive. Singlebarbed and I have agreed to do something good and useful with the first pile of gear coming to us (like raffle it and donate the proceeds to a worthy cause).

If we keep something, we’ll “pay” for it somehow (donating the media price equivalent somewhere). More on this come.

Finally, The Underground e-Newsletter

Also, the Underground’s firing up an e-newsletter service. It’s yet to be named, but the e-newsletter should offer:

1. Photos, shorter works, snark and other information not available on the blog
2. A chance for me to fire off news alerts about breaking stories/legislation/actionable items
3. Access to some of the older Underground pieces that deserve a second showing

If you’re a regular Undergrounder, then by all means, sign up (I’ll have a signup button in the sidebar soon).

I see this is yet another step in the big experiment that began when I began writing the Trout Underground in November, 2005.

The world is shifting beneath our feet – and some days it feels like it’s spinning faster than it did ten years ago – and like everyone, I’m trying to make sense of it.

As always, thanks for visiting, reading, and commenting on the Underground.

It’s been a hoot, and it’s about to get even more interesting.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

An editor of a mainstream fly fishing magazine – responding to online criticism that his magazine ran the same stories over and over – said a large pool of new fly fishing writers capable of stringing simple sentences together didn’t exist.

That’s a hard statement to swallow given the existence of The Drake, This is Fly, AEG and a laundry list of literate, relevant fly fishing blogs.

Clearly, there’s no shortage of new voices in fly fishing demanding to be heard.

Yes, they can write. And yes, many them have a lot to say about the sport and the environmental/access/lifestyle issues facing it — issues largely ignored by fly fishing’s print media.

Speaking to us via blogs, video, online magazines, podcasts and other digital publishing platforms, these voices continue to multiply and capture an audience — despite the inattention of a largely hidebound fly fishing industry.

The Drake’s importance in this fragmenting media landscape is clear; while a lot of us are succeeding via digital media channels, The Drake is currently kicking butt in the exact same sandbox as the industry’s traditional media players.

Ten years? Hot damn.

Time For a Change

For years — convinced their audience was interested only in fin & grins, teak-and-butler destination stories, and gear ads masquerading as editorial content — the leading magazines and weekend video producers fed readers & viewers a steady diet of the stuff, wholly overlooking the sport’s younger practitioners and and ignoring those who wanted more.

In fact, these younger readers were the subject of much hand wringing, and a common industry position was they didn’t exist at all.

In other words, if you didn’t buy into the existing program, you weren’t on the radar.

The problem wasn’t with the “market segment” in question; it was the radar that was broken.

Of course, new media’s audience isn’t limited to younger participants; plenty of “seasoned” fly fishers are on board with the Drake and what I’ll simply call “alternative fly fishing outlets” (hint: you’re reading one).

In fact, it’s likely the “new wave” is composed of as many geezers as youngsters, and the cumulative effect on the media side of fly fishing is one of rapid, wholesale evolution.

Meet the New Boss?

It’s fair to ask if we’re witnessing the democratization of fly fishing media, or simply the emergence of a new fly fishing elite happy to make the same mistakes as those they replaced.

And once the marketing dollars start flowing to new media, will the too-chummy relationship between industry and media be repeated?

Being largely trapped in the present, I have no answers.

For now, the Drake represents an alternative voice in a fly fishing industry that desperately needed one, and its long-term success benefits all of us interested in perspectives beyond the typical.

Happy 10th Anniversary to the Drake. It wouldn’t be the same without you.

Technorati Tags: fly fishing,fishing,the drake,fly fishing magazine,fly fishing media,fly fishing’s new media,AEG,fly fishing blogs,damned straight

Sure, it’s a pointless and degrading stereotype (although an honest to god paycheck would be nice), but why write your own blog if you can’t descend into pointless stereotypes?

With that in mind, I’ve got articles from a handful of weird and wonderful blogs. Let ‘em rip:

Alex at The Day Tripper describes his attempts to build streamers which are bigger than most of the fish I catch:

I’ve got a friend from California who fishes for trophy Largemouth Bass. I’m talking pigs. On one particular lake he fishes, one of the most productive ways to catch Bass is by using live Rainbow Trout as bait.

He likes to fly fish whenever possible, but said he hadn’t found a Rainbow Trout fly pattern that he was happy with yet. The first thing that popped into my head was to tie a big, articulated Butt Monkey. I tied it up for him, it was about 6″-7″ long. “That’s not big enough.”

He needed something in the 10″-14″ range. I’ve tied and fished the juvenile Brown Trout pattern below for 2 years now, with varied success for trout. However, it has been a great streamer in lakes for warmwater species.

He’s also looking for readers to judge his Short Story Contest. If your eyes are still working after tying all those #22 BWO dries, give it a visit and vote.

Not to be out-weirded, Singlebarbed gets deeply immersed in the world of odd fly tying thread (we’re a little concerned, buddy). I myself find little use for “glow in the dark” thread, but there it is. And if it’s on the Internet, it has to be true.

Later, he saves himself a trip to the place with the padded walls with a pointed post about fishing, eating fish, and your health. Don’t miss either.

Next, the Shy, Demur Crowd at Buster Wants to Fish start digging around the concepts of foreign-made fly fishing tackle versus the stuff made in the USA (where does Europe fit in all this), and in what has to be a gross violation of Internet protocols, it’s a reasoned, thoughtful thing. Get in on the discussion.

Then Moldy Chum posts a picture that makes it crystal clear you’re a second-class fisherman:

He also shows you a clip from a new fly fishing film titled “Drift” that we found very interesting. You can see the trailer here.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.