Poll
Question:
How Often Do You Buy Fishing Magazines?
Option 1: Every Month
votes: 6
Option 2: Now and then
votes: 11
Option 3: Rarely or never
votes: 33
Just out of interest and further to the thread of magazine circulation, it's while since we had one of these polls.
Last mags I bought were at Glasgow Airport February 2011 (with Alex). I never read them and decided to buy no more.
I don't buy them any more and have not done so for quite a while. Indeed I very rarely buy any magazines or papers at all now, I can get all I need or want from the internet, more selectively, of better quality, much cheaper overall, and without having piles of stuff left over that I eventually have to get rid of.
TL
MC
Used to buy them all every month without fail, but after a while I got fed up with the same articles appearing month after month in different titles. Add to that the growing number of advertisements, and the fact that very little in them interests me anymore I just don't see the point in spending the money on them.
Idea for you Fred, start publishing a bi-monthly wild fishing magazine (on paper) I would deffinately buy every issue.
daz
Actually Daz I think the day of the printed mag. has passed. Cost, poor quality, boredom through repetitiveness and waste are all factors I think.
Books are forever, mags. are not.
I think of them as being a bit like unnecessary packing on fly lines: cardboard boxes, plastic spools etc Pointless and destined to end up in the bin. Just my opinion of course. :)
Used to buy them regularly 10 years ago. Now I only buy them when going on holiday or flying for something to read. I'll also buy one if there is a particularly noteable article but stopped getting taken in by this month's must have fly or the latest innovation in tying materials a long, long time ago.
For what i do, its pointless buying any magazines. As you were saying Fred, books are forever. This forum is a big learning curv, more info and knowledge on here with you guys than any magazine can publish.
Andy
canny mind the last time i bought one !
Had to be the one (to date) who answered yes!
In truth it is my wee sister who buys me an annual subscription for my Christmas.
It's a fact of life that things change. The Internet is / will affect mags in the same way as digital cameras have done for Kodak who recently filed for bankruptcy protection. Who could have imagined that 20 years ago?
In both cases the substance remains; the delivery technology / media has changed.
I recall that at least one of the stockie bashing orientated mags has added iphone style formats to it's portfolio. I wonder if that will be enough though? Free and dynamic, as in web content, will be hard to compete with.
I buy the odd one, as a treat, if there's an article or two that catches my eye. £3.40 or whatever it is for a couple of minutes reading the article you bought it for does seem a bit of a waste. Call me old fashioned, but there is something nice about flicking through the pages of a hard copy though. I also like the big, glossy pictures, maybe I'm a bit simples though :roll: :lol:
I think there's something to be said for multiple types of media - each is more suited to a particular time and place. I can get most of the content of a Sunday newspaper on line, but there's something nice about sitting down with a coffee and turning the pages . . . for me, the same goes with Magazines. That said, I do buy a lot fewer than I used to.
Quote from: Tweed on January 19, 2012, 02:25:29 PM
Call me old fashioned, but there is something nice about flicking through the pages of a hard copy
That's exactly how I feel about books. Add to that the joy in owning something that lasts, something that can constantly be gone back to. I can't get that from mags though.
I'd rather read a book than a Kindle but when you have to buy 3 mags to get something to read for an hour or 2 at a cost of between £10 & £12 total than it's a bit of a no-brainer.
I haven't bought a fishing magizine for many a year,although my son bought me two on my birthday along with a box of sweets.
The mags are lying in the spareroom. The sweets are long gone.
The most repeated message here seems to be "used to buy them but now don't bother" - either people are fed up with content/format or find the online experience more relevant.
I'm a relative newcomer to flyfishing so have just taken a subscription for a 2nd year of FF & FT as there's still enough in it for me but, yeah, I could see that changing in future if the experience becomes similarly jaded.
I don't think you can compare the likes of this forum with the mags. I see FF & FT as a little treat to myself and there's a good chance I'll pick up some useful info or ideas. On the other hand the Forum is a constantly increasing mine of information, a bit of a Wildipedia of trooty knowledge but fully interactive too as questions are asked, ideas exchanged with fun and entertainment thrown into the bargain. :D
My new years resolution not to buy any mags this year and put the money into a jar to pay for the odd days fishing
Jim
If you want a hard copy books must surely be the way? That said I would never buy a book by writers like Stan (I got my "Bible" sent as a review copy from the publisher) and certainly never ever ever ever ..... by writers like Paul Procter. That genre / style I find utterly soulless. Just my opinion of course, different strokes and all that.
I just bought a second hand, good copy of "Isolation Shepherd" for 2 quid.
Juxtaposition "Beneath The Black Water" for 7 quid and FF+FT for 3 quid +.
As Donald says, it's a no brainer.
As many others seem to have done, I used to buy some of the magazines but soon found that they became repetitive and gave up on them. Trout and Salmon and Fly Fishing and Fly Tying lasted for a couple of years. Admittedly I still buy the occasional copy of these publications, maybe two in the last year.
Recently I bought the Oliver Edwards DVD on wet fly fishing. I have not watched all the fly tying sequences yet but found the fishing techniques very informative. Have to say that there was less on the technique than I expected for the cost. However I feel like I have gained far more from this DVD than all of the fishing magazines I have ever read. Perhaps this format could be the way forward, not sure how long you could make it run for.
Quote from: Robbie on January 19, 2012, 06:46:03 PM
However I feel like I have gained far more from this DVD than all of the fishing magazines I have ever read.
I would agree with that. There is nothing beats a demo.
Casting articles in mags are the most ludicrous of all. Pointless imo. You will learn more in 5 minutes on youtube.
Confession .......... I do buy T&S and FF&FT from time to time (mostly to read on the train/plane but mostly to leave on my desk at work as light relief from staring at a computer screen). There are occasional gems and I am impressed by FF&FT attempts at campaigning on key salmonoid issues (equally they understand who their audience are!) and of course, Bruce Sandison's columns.
I mistakenly bought Trout once; that is unmitigated garbage!
Occasionally on my way into work I stop at Brothwick's (?) newsagent at the bottom of Orchard Brae in Edinburgh and they stock some american magazines, the best of which the name of which escapes me. It is excellent (the first sign of quality is the lack of adverts and full page photography); well written articles about fishing and conservation/access issues. There is also another american magazine called "Flyfishing and Flytying Journal" which is no where near as good, but I have bought twice for the cracking fly tying recipes.
Buy T&S if I get caught up in some traffic disruption they shut a bridge or there are leaves on the line and I end up hanging about in a station. Alan has hit the nail on the head for me an excellent set of observations, they are all the same! But there are some that would argue that the best part of £4 is well worth it to keep up to date with the adventures of Stan (He catches big fish ALWAYS you know).
There seems to be a trend that I have followed, which is to buy magazines as I took up fishing , then gradually moved away from them. As you fish longer you see the repetition in the magazines and they become of less and less value to you. But perhaps they have served their purpose in feeding me a lot of information quickly at the start.( This aspect may ensure their survival.) While I also buy books on fishing, most beginners won't start by doing this. My experience is that I soaked it all up, learned quite a lot, but am now a lot more independent - and more interested in the information on this forum.
In answer to the question, after a period of buying a magazine or two per year, I have bought the last two editions of FF&FT(the only one I ever buy) purely because I have got back into fly tying and these magazines have sort of fed my enthusiasm. They're also quite relaxing to read on a cold wet night, providing short easily digested articles.
Obviously the magazines have different slants - from FF&FT which fits me best, to Concrete Bowl Scraper or some such, and your view of each will depend on your own outlook. They all however need new flies, new rods, new techniques (are there any) to keep the magazine industry going. They are almost forced to keep inventing stuff.
(As a side issue - if you had always lived deep in London or Birmingham - which mag would you be buying and what would your fishing style be. The mags might be a great mental escape in that situation.)
I buy magazines because I enjoy reading them. Believe it or not I also actually like the adverts - to see what new products, places, offers, new hotel/fishing there are out there etc. Also if there are more adverts in a publication this generally means there will be more Editorial pages in the mag' - as it's generally the adverts' £ yield that dictates the pagination of the mag. I look at a computer a lot at work and enjoy the coffee table aspect of the mags also – nothing better than a Sunday soak with a mag!
The internet is a great place to get specific information and for interaction - but often with magazines you glean information and come across things, pictures, articles etc that you're not specifically searching for. The internet doesn't often do that.
i have boxs' of old editions in my garage pre-internet days which i have never gotten rid of possibly because i believe that i could always re-read them for information on venues that i have yet to visit (never happens as they are too difficult to get at) also i con myself into thinking they may be valuable one day.
i rarely buy any nowadays unless there is a really good article. I do still read them though as i sometimes accompany the wife to tescos to help her with the weekly shop were i spend most of the time at the magazine counter reading said magazines. until i get summond by mobile by the wife. i do feel guilty about this -reading for free that is and buy one now and again.
T&S do the best articles trout fisherman comes across more and more like as a coarse fishing magazine. i have some New Zealand magazines in the past which are the same quality as American ones
Gave up on buying the comics a while ago, the best thing in them was the adverts... Well at least the advertisers know what they were talking about!
Buy books now.
I subscribe to T&S and FF&FT, but then I work away from home on an oilrig for more than half the time and internet is not always accessible to me, though better nowadays. Sometimes I also enjoy not looking at a computer screen especially when reading before going to sleep. Great way to turn off for 5 or 10 minutes when working when things are stressful, overall I enjoy them. If I didnt do this job I'm not so sure I would buy them every month, for one I doubt if I could afford to but then I might get to fish more often!
The best fishing magazine I've come across is Chasing Silver. Great articles, great photos, it's modern, relevant, informative and interesting for both salmon and trout anglers. Well worth a read if you haven't read it before.
It's a quarterly publication, which no doubt helps keep the quality of the content high, there's hardly any adverts in it either.
Available in WH Smith or via the iPad app, it's worth every penny. The app is also very good if you have an iPad.
I stopped reading Trout & Salmon years ago.
That sounds interesting and worth a look
Aye definitely, I don't think you would be disappointed. It's everything T&S isn't.
I will search it out. I'd rather spend more infrequently on quality than 3 quid odds each month on trite. A bit like books, they are forever and thus superb value. Out of the regular mags T&S is best imo. The only thing worth reading in FF+FT is Bruce Sandison's work, again just my opinion.
Never heard about it before but will look out for it now !
I prefer Andrew to Sandy as T&S editor, FF&FT seems to be struggling!
But reading mags less and on here more so mags days could well be numbered as seems to be the consciousness of the post.
FF+FT was looking better for a while but has taken a big step backwards by resurrecting some dull writers that had appeared to have fizzled out and gone. Scotland is going to struggle for a credible angling writer once Bruce retires. He has his imitators, but none has his knowledge of his home land, his experience and writing intelligence. Stan is good, but he is not in FF+FT very often. They would do well to sign him up ASAP. Like him or not he has credibility.
If quality of content and value for money is of concern to a publisher then I think a quarterly publication is the way to go. This way you can release editions that have lots of good articles and that are relevant to a specific part of the season - ie spring, summer, autumn and winter.
It's just not possible to fit enough good, relevant articles into a monthly publication these days - the quality of information available through forums like these blows magazines out of the water, and it's free, interactive and available at the touch of a button.
Most people don't buy magazines these days because they learn from them, it's because they love the subject and maybe have a bit of loyalty to the publication, but magazines definitely have to evolve and move with the times if they want to survive.
I cacelled my subscription to Pike and Predator magazine this year. So now dont read any fishing magazines at all. I cant say i miss them.
This is worth a look if you haven't seen it before.
http://eat-sleep-fish.co.uk/ (http://eat-sleep-fish.co.uk/)
Free monthly e-zine, by fishermen for fishermen.
It's now on issue 12. To read previous issues go to the home page and click Issue Archive on the right hand side of the page.
There's some interesting articles and good photography.
Yes, the idea is not new, but it's mostly pretty good. I have spoken with Pete who runs it. He's a nice guy. The standard was high up to the November issue. It must be a real problem for editors of magazines when online content is being given away for free. It must hurt them. Still nothing beats a book imo though.
QuoteThey would do well to sign him up ASAP. Like him or not he has credibility.
You having a laugh Fred, tell me you are.
:roll:
Like a few other I subscribed for years. T& S. I still buy the odd one if I see anything that takes my interest.
FF & FT has been good but I too detect a fall in standards.
Someone mentioned American mags. If I can get my hand on some, there are a few good ones out there. Just for something different, a different perspective. The good ones are American Angler, Fly Fisherman, Fly Rod & Reel & Fly Tyer Magazine. Hard to source UK I find. I rely on the odd one being sent to me by my sister.
As a youth I bought Field & Stream but do not see it now, I loved that publication.
Older mags that have since gone were far better. Creel & Rod & Line are good examples. Some of the modern writers pale into insigniicance to some of the older generaton & reading between the lines of some I would swear they are ghosted, Stan included.
Tight Lines
Quote from: admin on December 07, 2012, 08:07:26 PM
Yes, the idea is not new, but it's mostly pretty good. I have spoken with Pete who runs it. He's a nice guy. The standard was high up to the November issue. It must be a real problem for editors of magazines when online content is being given away for free. It must hurt them. Still nothing beats a book imo though.
Aye I'm partial to a good book myself. Hoping santa brings me a classic or two for the collection :D
I think it must be difficult to keep the standard of any monthly publication high, especially when the seasons over, and especially with what's now available online for free. T&S has to evolve or die, to my eyes chasing silver has shown the way forward - less editions, higher quality and better value for money. Regardless of what's online, fishermen still like to read articles about fishing but for four or five quid a pop it's got to be good. It's easier to attain quality with a quarterly publication, the trouble is T&S and other monthly mags are still using the business model that they had before we had the internet. They'll end up going the way of Kodak if they don't adapt.
Sean
Quote from: rubberwellie on December 07, 2012, 08:32:19 PM
They'll end up going the way of Kodak if they don't adapt.
If they keep recycling the same tired old stuff they certainly will do. I hate these articles that just highlight places to go fish, I really do. Other than Sandison's they are dry and soulless. The reason Bruce makes a good job of it is he KNOWS about Scotland, not just about fishing. Fishing should always be the canvas onto which a broad picture is painted. Other writers fail at this miserably. I would not even read these articles now.
Quote from: Highlander on December 07, 2012, 08:25:28 PM
Like a few other I subscribed for years. T& S. I still buy the odd one if I see anything that takes my interest.
FF & FT has been good but I too detect a fall in standards.
Alan, to be fair most articles only really impress if the reader believes the writer is knowledgeable. Someone writing about something only confirms he writes. The impressionable novice will enthusiastically try to glean what he can from magazines, but will quite quickly realise that he knows just as much as the writer and there is a limit to what can be learned from just reading about fishing anyway. They also soon recognize the cyclical and repetitive nature of these publications. That's where we are and why we don't buy often. In the past magazines may have had to rely on a constant stream of new novice angling recruits to take up the slack. Fewer are taking up angling now and those who do will soon learn that a much wider range of up to date and free expertise is available on forums like this.
QuoteThat said I would never buy a book by writers like Stan (I got my "Bible" sent as a review copy from the publisher) and certainly never ever ever ever ..... by writers like Paul Procter.
Not that I mean the above though may well be but I just get the feeling, but can't put my finger on it that some writers do not actually write the article it is done by someone else. OK it may well be there thoughts & words but not their composition. Have you ever noticed or felt this Fred. I use the term ghosting but again not sure if that is the right term.
I spoke some time back with "well known" angler & to be honest he could hardly string together a couple of sentences yet he proliferates a certain mag with articles. No way is he a writer. Inquiring minds.
Tight Lines
I really can't say Alan, all I meant by the above was these kind of books / articles I find a bit dry. But that's just my opinion and many others will disagree. Truth for me is fishing books / articles are petty dull and I look for more than fishing. Wyatt's book is like fishing philosophy, John Gierach writes around, not about fishing. That's my kind of writer. Stan, Paul Proctor etc are without doubt very popular or they would not be in T&S.
There is a difference between reporting on fishing -"I went here and caught this with these" and writing on angling "the mew of the buzzard in the corrie where in 1572".
Each camp has its own share of good, bad and occasional excellent contributors, the same is true of T&S as it is of the web and this forum.
It is all a matter of taste of course, few of us on the forum would claim to be writers (though many clearly are) and there are a goodly number who report on their trips in a lucid and informative manner (and whose posts are much anticipated) with no pretentions to literature.
I think the problem is basically threefold Alan. We have moved beyond them, there are too few new recruits angling and there is the Internet. Top of the pointlessness league must be written articles about casting with incomprehensible explanations and diagrams. One free Youtube video will teach you more in 5 minutes. You just cannot compete with that.
I have looked after and designed web aps and sites for one of the world's major plant societies for many years now. Without wishing to insult anyone the general levels of education and professional qualification within its membership are rather higher than you'll find on the banks of Loch Earn. I don't think there are many ex-soccer casuals in there.
As well as being the technical "guru" I am also a member, have been since the early 1980s and I have also written articles for their prestigious twice yearly journal. For a few years in the 1990s I was the illustrations manager. The changes I have seen over 30 years are astonishing. Like everything else it has suffered a drop in membership and currently the spiralling cost of producing and sending out the journal swallows up most of the annual membership subscriptions.
Something has to change.
Just keeping on hiking the cost is not the answer as the fishing magazines will have discovered. Right now I am installing a new online only membership subscription service. We know there is a demand for it. Reduced cost for membership and the journal will still be available in pdf format for viewing on a computer / tablet. The paper journal will almost certainly be phased out over time with massive cost savings.
This is the way to go. Pretty soon everyone will have a tablet style reader just as pretty much everyone has a computer. Do not doubt that.
This is the way fishing magazines will have to go are they to survive, it still won't be easy for them though with all the free internet content out there. Just think – even casting articles could work! :lol:
I think this one (Total Flyfisher) is the only fishing mag. available electronically
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/total-flyfisher/id425639864
There are quite a few fly fishing e-zines;
http://www.askaboutflyfishing.com/magazines_ezines.cfm (http://www.askaboutflyfishing.com/magazines_ezines.cfm)
Some are very good.
http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/t/18934 (http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/t/18934)