How do you feel about…..
- This topic has 36 replies, 22 voices, and was last updated Jul 11, 2008 at 2:12 am by
.
-
Posts
-
Just curious how people here feel about young authors selling out your favorite trout water just to get their name in print? Personally it really gets on my nerves! Some places need to remain secret in my opinion. As a guide I want to get my people on fish. It is my job. But I would never take anyone to my “special” waters if I knew they would go there on their own.
One of my favorite authors is Greg Thomas because he has the integrity to not sell out these waters and still writes a great article that makes one want to do their research and find their own special waters.
How do the rest of you feel?
Joel
Just curious how people here feel about young authors selling out your favorite trout water just to get their name in print? Personally it really gets on my nerves! Some places need to remain secret in my opinion. As a guide I want to get my people on fish. It is my job. But I would never take anyone to my “special” waters if I knew they would go there on their own.
One of my favorite authors is Greg Thomas because he has the integrity to not sell out these waters and still writes a great article that makes one want to do their research and find their own special waters.
How do the rest of you feel?
Joel
Joel,
I have mixed feelings.I tend to agree with Jeff. I like to think of fly fisherman as
belonging to a large fraternity. I always like to help out
my brothers when I can.Just curious how people here feel about young authors selling out your favorite trout water just to get their name in print?
Joel
Feed them to the wolves.
>:(
There is no reason that a book or article can’t be written with enough information to be helpful , without leaving a popcorn trail. I’m as willing to help out another angler as anyone but the way someone
Just curious how people here feel about young authors selling out your favorite trout water just to get their name in print? Personally it really gets on my nerves! Some places need to remain secret in my opinion. As a guide I want to get my people on fish. It is my job. But I would never take anyone to my “special” waters if I knew they would go there on their own.
Joel, if you take a long-view, all of our public waters have been sold-out as you say many times over. There is probably not a stream, river, lake or pond that has public access that has not been written about, mentioned or otherwise promoted by sporting authors, government agencies and other media at sometime in the past. There is at least 150 years of stuff out there on our fishing waters. The collective “Wisdom” of our predecessors is pretty extensive, and is everyday getting more accessible via the internet, especially when you think about the aerial mapping that’s now available.
I think if you went into Borders Books or Barnes and Noble in Bozeman and surveyed the “Montana Fishing Literature” that was available, your favorite trout water is probably sold out many times over in one form or another.
It is disappointing to see any place or stretch of water over-hyped, bringing in crowds of “fashionable” fisherman. However, to deny “Authors”, whose job is writing the right to write about interesting places (and thus make money), because those places are “your” special places doesn’t seem fair.
I have a larger question for you—How did you find out about those “special waters?” I suspect you did some research, read some maps, and did some exploration! The places you found were un-crowded, productive and became your special space. We all have them, as did our predecessors before us, and god-willing, they will become other’s “Special Places” long after we all are gone.
I dont mind helping people out on streams or pointing them in the general direction, however I think the habit of spoon feeding people information is
If an acquaintance happens to offer to take you to their gem – offer to pay the gas, provide the flies, or bring the beer.
As usual I find myself somewhere in the middle.
About 6 years ago or so Fly Fisherman did a piece on my favorite river.
Our local TU chapter recently published a story on the front page of the local Twin Cities newspaper about a river that was being threatened by urban sprawl.
Mike I found my special waters by exploring. I look for lakes, streams, and rivers that DON’T have trails to them or easy access points to them. I fish them and fish them hard to find out for myself what fishes good and not so good. I am not aposed to sharing my secrets with others but I will never share them with the whole world because I don’t know if the whole world and I share the same values even if we are part of the same fraternity. Let’s face it even some fly fisherman like to leave their garbage behind for everyone else to see.
Joel
Several internet fishing communities I frequent have bitched their way through this issue in the most contentious manner.
Due to the heat and the draught, trout fishing is marginally “okay” in only one of the Georgia watersheds. Everything else seems be becoming a warm water fishery. The waters I used to frequent for trout now are full of shoalies which is not all bad.
To some, it is more than “JUST FISHING,” and to me, pimping places that have been shown to you in trust is the ultimate sin.
I fish.
Lando, I hear you brother, it doesn’t matter where in world you are. there is some bastard ready to big note themselves over spots they were given in confidence… Trust they will never be given again!!!
Catch 22 imo.
No matter the location, every inch of water is someones honeyhole.
Joel, have you considered the probablity that your taking clients to someone else’s “honey hole”? Might the clients go there themselves again, or tell their closest friends about it? I wonder how those who consider the stretch their “honey hole” they feel about that?
Lando I completely agree with.
If you take or share with someone a little fished gem who then “uses” that information to profit from it without making ithe intention to write about it upfront…..They then should be nuetered 🙂
*********I enjoy to an extent reading about them. The reality is I may only get the chance to fish a few of them in my life. Most of us probably do enjoy them. From my pov I’m reading about a place I’ll never get fish.
Funny though, how we get worked up when its our “gem” and our “backyard” that gets highlighted.
The Grand River and Credit River in Ontario are perfect examples. We in Southern Ontario love to fish them and consider them “our gems”. Both the well known area’s and not so well known. We enjoy reading “Canadian Fly Fisher” and all the articles about systems in the West, East and Great White North.
Not long ago, they highlighted the Grand ( and are still with a series). The reaction from some people was not so kind..
The publishers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Lastly (atleast here) alot of these places are in need of constant or more Conservation efforts. Well if they don’t get the publicity (including the naming of places and access points) thats going to be harder to generate.
Pretty hard to save or conserve “fragile” systems if only a few know about them.
**********The “paranoia” surrounding the Grand and Credit by some, is such that posting pictures of big Browns or Brookies with recognisable backgrounds is asking for villification.
Browns tend to hang out in the same pools, runs. The logic being post an image of a 25inch Brown where the Pool ( most are named) is recognisable and everyone who reads the net will be there shortly POs alot of people (including Guides).
I took a little “flak” for this image
because anyone who knows the River, would recognise the BG and now knows there was a 27 inch Brown there.
************As in all things, a little care should be taken.
I know some good Brookie streams, spots that are “fragile”. Would I ever write a detailed report? Nope. Not because I fear what respectful anglers would do with the information, but because I fear what the idiots would do.Would I name the river? Talk about the river, the conservation efforts, the Atlantic Salmon stocking, how great a gem it is
Sure why not.Now go do your homework to figure out where the Brookies are.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.