How Often Do You Buy Fishing Magazines?

[Highlander]

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.

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

[Wildfisher]

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.

[Inchlaggan]

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.

[Wildfisher]

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.

[Wildfisher]

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:

[Wildfisher]

I think this one (Total Flyfisher) is the only fishing mag. available  electronically

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/total-flyfisher/id425639864

[Traditionalist]

There are quite a few fly fishing e-zines;

http://www.askaboutflyfishing.com/magazines_ezines.cfm

Some are very good.

http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/t/18934