Instead of going to show and uncritically gushing about all the like totally awesome gear I see, I’m going to instead shovel the interesting new product announcements to the Undergrounders via cleverly disguised PR posts (which I’ll label as “PR Posts”).

That way, I can preserve my limited stock of “gush” for things like actual fishing reports and essays.

Enjoy, Undergrounders. Tomorrow we’ve got some interesting news from Orvis, and whatever else comes across my desk. (Given my lack of interest in publishing prior press releases, it turns out I’m not on all that many media lists. Who knew?)

Buff Gear

Buff – the makers of the handy “tube” headwear so beloved by the Underground has expanded its line of tubes with Polygiene treatment (designed to keep the synthetic tube from smelling like crap after one use) and its Insect Shield treatment (described below):

The Polygiene® treatment lasts a lifetime and effectively blocks 99.9-percent of odor-causing agents. Additionally, it reduces static electricity and has a soft, next-to-skin feel.
Polygiene® does not contain any harmful substances and is 100-percent safe to wear.

Insect Shield® is a man-made version of a natural insect repellent found in certain types of chrysanthemum plants; think of it as invisible, odorless, non-toxic and wearable insect protection.

I like the Buff products for all sorts of reasons (and all sorts of weather), and while I’m not above springing for a less-expensive substitute, I use the things enough that I probably will tumble for the real thing.

Simms Rebate

Simms is throwing down a $50 rebate on your old waders if you buy a new pair of Simms. From their email:

We couldn’t have made it any easier. Just register online for your rebate voucher, locate a participating retailer, trade in your old pair of breathable waders and you receive up to $50 off immediately.

Fly Rod & Reel

Things are picking up for Fly Rod & Reel magazine, who reports a 15% growth in readership from 2009. Obviously, I don’t know if the improved “quality” of the magazine is responsible (it would help newsstand sales), though their press release doesn’t offer up any subscriber information:

…verified reports on issues served through the mail plus newsstand show Fly Rod & Reel is reaching more than 51,000 fly-fishers—a 15 % growth in readership from 2009. “The numbers came in for our March 2010 issue, and they’re whopping. This was the first issue of FR&R with our new upscale format and readers voted a resounding ‘yes’ to our upgrades. For example, we sold nearly 14,000 copies on newsstand.

Hardy USA

Launches two new lines of high-tech fly rods:

…their new Zenith freshwater and Proaxis saltwater ranges of fly rods. Each range is built with Hardy’s proprietary new Sintrix material. Sintrix is the result of ground breaking technology in the use of Silica Matrix Resin technology in collaboration with the 3M Corporation.

Hardy has developed their own specific formulation from this technology, and the results have been extensively field tested over the past 18 months. Their team of fishing pros from the Florida Keys to Montana has hailed the rods as truly innovative and exceptional fishing and casting tools.

The Sintrix material allows the design team to build the first series of rods that combines the best attributes of the modern reserve-power, fast action fly rods with the more technical requirements of tracking, tippet protection and a taper that shifts the load to the butt when you need to lay into the fish.

3M Corporation is offering up a new resin technology for graphite rods that is popping up like Dandelions in spring, and while those who worry about eighths of an ounce in their fly rod want to know more, I still haven’t forgotten that 3M bought the Bill Phillipson Rod Company and then shut it down (bastidges!).

Never speak their name around the Underground again.

See you in the PR Department, Tom Chandler.

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:  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.

From the Fly Rod & Reel Web site:

The Robert Traver Fly-Fsihing Writing Award is your chance to get your original work read by fly-fishing-writing professionals and possibly published in FR&R. The Robert Traver Fly-Fishing Writing award carries a $2,000 First Prize, from the John D. Voelker Foundation, sponsor of the award; a Second Place award of $750 will be included this year; Third Place is $250.

The details—the winning 2010 Traver Award essay or story must be:

“A distinguished original essay or work of short fiction that embodies an implicit love of fly-fishing, respect for the sport and the natural world in which it takes place, and high literary values.”

Send in a typed, double-space manuscript of no more than 3,500 words to Fly Rod&Reel, Robert Traver Award, PO Box 370, Camden, ME 04843. The winning stories or essays will be published in the Autumn 2010 issue of FR&R and on this Web site.

You may submit your manuscript on a CD or DVD along with a hard copy, and please include an oversize self-addressed stamped envelope if you’d like your materials returned—materials without an SASE will not be returned. No e-mail submissions will be accepted. Please, no phone calls. Enter only once. The deadline is May 15, 2010. Good luck!

Far be it from the Underground to question a writing contest where the announcement features both a typo and more than one incorrect use of a hyphen, but fortunately, the contest has produced some excellent writing in the past.

You’ve got until May to fire up the word processor and let the words leap from your fingertips as if they were tiny thunderbolts. (See what I did there? Am I good or what?)

See you typing, Tom Chandler

With so many of McGuane’s novels and screenplays set against fly fishing locations – and populated by fly fishermen – it seems only right that McGuane would receive this honor on that basis alone.

To do so would be to overlook his publication of the best fly fishing essay book ever written: The Longest Silence.

That book – which solidified many of my observations about fly fishing – opens with a startling passage about fish counters robbing the trout (and the sport) of its soul:

The fisherman now is one who defies society, who rips lips, who drains the pool, who takes no prisoners, who is not to be confused with the sissy with the creel and bamboo rod. Granted, he releases what he catches, but in some cases, he strips the quarry of its perilous soul before tossing it back in the water. What was once a trout – cold, hard, spotted and beautiful – becomes “number seven.”

I could strip mine McGuane’s book for enough material to fill a hundred blog posts, but I’ll leave the discovery (or rediscovery) of those gems to my readers.

Instead, I’ll reprint part of what fly fishing publishing legend Nick Lyons has to say about McGuane on the FR&R site:

In Tom McGuane we have a different species of writer. He has loved fly-fishing for more than five decades, since he fished the rivers and small creeks of Michigan as a boy; he has pursued trout, false albacore, steelhead, bonefish, striped bass, permit and salmon with great passion and success; he has fished from Tierra del Fuego to Russia, Iceland, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, Florida and throughout his now-native Montana, and widely elsewhere; and along with his great novels and stories and films has written, with dazzling skill, much about what he calls his “life in fishing.” He is Fly Rod & Reel’s Angler of the Year and my Angler for the Last Hundred Years.

McGuane says that “what fishing ought to be about” is to use “the ceremony of our sport and passion to arouse greater reverberations within ourselves.” Reverberations: a richer response to all aspects of the natural world, perhaps—and our responsibilities to it; something telling about ourselves, surely; more about our subtle connections to all the texture and detail of fly-fishing; and a lot about our understanding of leisure and friendship and expertness and the enduring value of ritual, and so much more. Mostly, what we know about these matters comes from those with words—words that shock us into some new awareness, that, long after we’ve read them, echo in our brains.

This is, of course, what we call “literature” which is not something fancy dan or pretentious or irrelevant to any other matter in the universe, not sentimental (which is exaggerating sniffles), not trading ever in clichés (which is like claiming fish you haven’t caught). McGuane does these things in a major body of nearly a dozen novels, from The Sporting Club in 1968 to one he just finished, in time for a trip this past summer to Iceland and his annual fall trip to the Dean for steelhead, around which week he says he designs his year, “for these pools, these beautiful fish.” And he does it in what has become a major body of work about fly fishing—parts of An Outside Chance, all of Live Water and The Longest Silence. He is, as all of the best writers must be, a man on whom nothing is lost.

He knows that “the best angling is always a respite from burden,” not part of a competition or PR jaunt or a chance to transact business with those you fish with or a banquet for your ego. He knows we need to be stewards and riverkeepers, lest “there will be less than nothing, remnant populations, put-and-take, dim bulbs following the tank truck.” He knows how to make memorable and precise observations about our emotions and affections: “Young anglers love new rivers the way they love the rest of their lives.”

Speaking as a writer, I revere McGuane for his ability to deftly peel back the unsightly layers that obscure what should be a beautiful sport. As a fly fisherman, I never tire of his obvious love for the sport itself.

See you with a good book, Tom Chandler.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m officially declaring an Underground Emergency.

Am I the only one who thinks “Working” Media is like “Jumbo” Shrimp?

Sadly, I’m camped in a Denver hotel room instead of wading the Upper Sacramento, so I can’t do what an Underground Emergency requires: immediately take up station near my home water (fly rod in hand), and await further instructions.

Life, it seems, is often dark.

Of course, it’s even darker when you’re running on 1.5 hours of sleep and voluntarily subjected yourself to airline travel, so I didn’t exactly arrive at Denver’s Convention Center all bright-eyed and bushy tailed. More like gummy and cranky.

Whaaa, morning already?

Still, as the poets remind us, every long journey begins with a single beer step, so after I quickly skimmed the show and spoke to the handful of folks from the prior year who hadn’t blotted me from their memories (or their show calendars), everything quickly became clear:

I was in trouble.

I was having difficulty understanding even simple, declarative sentences. And my normally razor-sharp journalist’s mind – ever alert for spin and manipulation – found itself kittenishly amused by brightly colored objects and tinselly things (much like the Washington Press Corp).

I thought the “EggiJuaneKenobi” was cute (it’s a sign of the Apocalypse)

Still, I did pick up a few gossipy tidbits circulating around the show, and given the obvious attraction for gossip among the general populace, I’m beginning today’s report with a juicy tidbit:

A highly placed source at Orvis confided they sold 3.5x as many Helios rods as expected (true), and that they were changing the name of the company from “Orvis” to “Helios” (false).

That’s me, collecting Orvis gossip.

Rest assured I’ll keep my ears peeled for more because gossip sells.

The Show Stuff

In a nutshell, here’s my first impressions of the show.

• There are fewer people circulating than last year, though the booth count doesn’t look too bad
• There are more fly reels available than at any time before in the history of mankind
• Everyone’s scrambling to be “green.” Some really are, some really aren’t.
• Adventure fly fishing video is taking off; everyone has one, including the companies using them to promote their business
• FFR is less elaborate than last year (which doesn’t bother me much at all)

Time to Smash & Grab

I’ve got to run back to the show for an early meeting, so the specific product stuff will have to wait. Still, I have time to hand out yesterday’s Underground “Smash & Grab” award – an honor inflicted upon the product I’d most want to stuff in my pants and sneak out of the hall.

Planning my escape exit strategy for today’s Smash & Grab

Normally it’s gear, but I haven’t scouted the gear too closely yet, so I’m awarding it instead to the latest issue of Fly Rod & Reel magazine, which ran:

• Another great Ted Williams essay where he scopes out the Davis Lake project and drops the hammer on “environmentalists” who get in the way of repairing the environment
• Its Robert Traver writing contest award winners
• A Gierach piece on BWOs – a subject I thought he’d done to death, but managed to do well yet again
• A short, smart piece on the Teton Dam project Buster regular by Bruce Smithhammer
• Lots more stuff like the above

Today’s the Big Show Day. You gearhounds can expect to see more of what you love.

See you at the show, Tom Chandler.

fly fishing, fishing, ffr, fly fishing retailer, orvis, fly rod and reel

Something Fishy

Published in October 2007, I made a note to get a copy and promptly lost the note, though I’m rectifying that oversight right now.

Williams is one of the handful of writers that sets Fly Rod & Reel apart from most other mainstream fly fishing magazines; he attacks environmental subjects with energy, taking few prisoners and leaving few questions unanswered.

His unabashed defense of thoughtful environmentalism (he’s taken the greenies to task on more than a few occasions) has converted me into a lifelong fan — and no doubt cost Fly Rod & Reel a few subscribers and advertisers.

I’ll review it as soon as I get it, though if you’ve ever wondered why our salmon are disappearing, our saltwater gamefish are in trouble, and our management policies are making things worse, then just order the thing today.

See you at the reading lamp, Tom Chandler.

UPDATE: Apparently, the worst problems have been fixed for now (though the site still kinda bites). 

I’ve made little secret of my respect for outdoor writer Ted Williams, so it’s a little startling to see this posted on his FR&R blog:

Note to My Blog Readers.

Unfortunately our new website refuses to let me and (some) others post reader comments. This and other (apparently uncorrectable) technical deficiencies have obliged me to cease posting indefinitely. When and if they are corrected I will resume. Sorry about this.

Best,

Ted

Ouch.

I’ll say it out loud; Fly Rod & Reel’s Web site makeover has been an absolute train wreck. It seems to have been designed with only a passing nod to current user interface standards, and though I’ve spent a fair amount of time over there, I’ve never been able to make the thing work.

You know it’s bad when your star attraction quits posting in a fit of technologus interruptus. (And Ted — if you’re interested, I’ll build you a blog that works this weekend. Just say the word).

See, the idea is…

The point of these new Web 2.0 technologies (like this here blog) is they’re supposed to make it easier for people to engage with each other, and yet the FR&R makeover has had the opposite effect.

I don’t mean to beat up on FR&R; they’re a literate, bold magazine, and I’d love to see them survive the fast-approaching publishing upheaval, but it doesn’t help when your online presence pretty much sucks.

The whole fiasco speaks to disconnected management or a Web development company without a clue (or both).

Of course, this plays nicely into the “future of fly fishing online” opinion piece I’ve been pushing around my plate. Be a good time to get that written.

See you online, Tom Chandler.

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