Zach Matthews
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You can never go wrong with a fresh Guinness on tap. Next fave San Diego’s Ballast Point Brewing’s Yellowtail Pale Ale or Calico Amber. Good stuff indeed.
Great stuff Mike. Are all of those fish wild, including the ones at the Lodge’s spring creek, or is there some supplemental feeding?
Zach
Hey Grant –
First of all, my understanding is that American Angler, etc., are going to be offering this as a supplement to the paper business; not as a replacement. AA has a talented business team behind it up at Morris Publications. They are getting hammered in the newspaper market right now but they are one of the few companies who are doing well in the magazine side; if you just go through and count pages and ads, you can judge the relative business success of a magazine pretty clearly.
Carl Mullins at Morris negotiated a very smart deal with his printing service where they digitize the magazine using the files they have to print the thing in the first place. Most magazines are created using a commercial product called Quark, although I believe the Morris Group is now using the Adobe suite. At any rate, the final output is in PDF format, so it’s pretty easy to turn it into an online product. The expense obviously comes from having to go through and stick in those hotlinks, and ultimately if they added video, etc., they would need a design team to do that.
However, the search function and page jump features are just inherent in the PDF format; my point is that AA can basically produce this product for next to nothing, while giving the subscriber a huge added value if you ask me. There wouldn’t be any second subscription requirement or any digital-only edition (at least not in the near term). You’d simply get a log in with your subscription so you can access the digital version.
What does AA get out of this? Several things. First, your eyes; readership would theoretically increase with more opportunities to read the magazine at work, etc. Second, your email address, which is a valuable commodity provided you voluntarily give it and opt in to a newsletter program (and as I’ve said before, the newsletter from AA is quite good). Finally, they get experience in the digital realm. For most of the 2000s, the story has been the old media getting its ass handed to it by the nimble new media. However, I sense a shift now.
If you look at, for example, Hulu.com, you can see that old media is finally figuring the internet out. They have tons of content and tons of experience and all they really needed was to get their heads around the newer distribution models. Slowly but surely that is happening. The old Virtual Flyshop administered by Fly Fisherman magazine was a horrible money-loser. But ThisisFly and Catch, while probably not profitable yet, have at least managed to land some real advertisers.
Over time, especially with the rise of portable handheld computers like the iPhone and various tablet PCs and eBooks, I think we’re going to see an almost complete decay of traditional print media–for the ephemeral parts of publishing. Anything that goes away in thirty days really becomes a perfect target for digitization. Books will always be with us but newspapers–like pamphlets and broadsheets of old–are probably done for. Magazines will most likely split with various high concept glossies still putting out paper editions, while more nuts and bolts magazines like the fishing market will probably eventually be completely electronic.
At the end of the day, the magazines are *already* completely electronic, as you can see by this beta test. Everything is laid out on a computer and has been for years; distributing that final product by computer makes perfect sense, especially with the costs of printing going up. Now, I don’t think that American Angler is going to go away from paper this year or next year, but by 2012 or so, at this rate? Who knows. We might all be carrying around little eBook readers like big iPhones by then; certainly no one sitting in 1990 or even 2000 could have predicted that the iPhone would be as advanced as it currently is. With OLED technology, better batteries, and “flat” e-Ink units like the Amazon Kindle, we’re getting closer and closer to the demise of paper. And I don’t think it matters; readership might actually increase. The model for magazines has always been to distribute ads to subscribers. Subscription fees are very low relative to costs of production and would remain low whether the magazine was digital or paper. I just think people have to get used to the idea that the content remains equivalent regardless of what it’s printed on. Frankly, to me, the digital version open in my browser looks even better than paper because it is backlit and bright and vertical to my eyes.
So, to answer your question, at the end of the day the advertisers only care about getting their product in front of customers and convincing them to buy it.
Hey John Michael –
I have some thoughts but I don’t want you to feel like I’m being critical of you. I make a point of only laying out serious criticism here to those who are clearly ready for it. You have a great deal of photographic talent, so I’m not going to hold anything back on you.
First, dark and dreary days are wonderful for photography; all the light is already diffuse. Great for close-ups, product shots, and fish.
Second, everything from a technical perspective about the shots is quite good. You have a good handle on depth of field and obviously the exposures are spot on.
I think what these photos are missing is a bit of familiarity with fishing environments, and a certain spark. I see two main issues here, both with shot selection.
The first set of issues from a shot-selection standpoint is with your subject. The guy is a perfectly good-looking angler, a good subject, but I get nothing out of these shots. They are more like very nice family photos than anything that would end up in a magazine; they don’t convey any sense of what the guy is fishing for or where he’s doing it. He could be anywhere, and frankly, anybody. The one exception is the first shot with the low angle, which is appealing photographically, though still pretty generic from a subject standpoint.
The second set of issues is with your fish shots. You need to learn to coach your angler to hold the fish like you need. This can be really difficult, I know, especially with people who tend to freak out if a fish is out of the water for more than a second. In these shots I’m getting an awful lot of fish belly and overexposed flank and not much character. The fish as a subject is mostly centered on the eyeball, cutting off the back half of the critter and leaving too much space in front of his head.
Shane –
What rod are you throwing? A lot of newer casters, particularly bigger men with athletic backgrounds, find that they get the most out of a stiff, fast rod with a fairly light line on it; both the stiffness of the rod and the lighter line ensure that the rod doesn’t bend too deeply. For casters with a tendency to apply just a little too much power at times, this can be advantageous because the rod absorbs some of the excess energy the caster puts into the stroke.
That doesn’t mean you’re wrong to want a line within the rod’s true rated grain weight window, by any means. Typically, most companies’ lines which are labeled “trout” or “selective” are going to be in the right window. My recommendation would be for Scientific Anglers’ Mastery Trout or Orvis’ Wonderline Trout, both of which have similar profiles. Rio makes the Rio Classic Trout, while Cortland’s 444 Lazerline is an old favorite of many anglers.
These lines are sort of like .30-06 cartridges or 50mm camera lenses: they were the sweet spot of the lineup and received the most development for the longest time; thus they are all just about equally good at being a general purpose line. When you get into the “selective” series, you’re getting a line with a longer front taper meant to turn over a dry fly softly. These can be just a bit harder for a new caster to unroll properly, and also have a tendency to crash with heavier flies (like streamers or weighted nymphs). But they are usually right on the grain window or even a bit light.
Best,
ZachIn answer to the original question, David, I would look at the new Arroyo chestpack. Fishpond’s definition of a “chestpack” could double for one of those pregnancy pouches they make guys wear so they can understand their spouse’s condition. My Dragonfly is large enough to swallow three full sized CF Designs boxes with a fourth box turned sideways. It can hold two water bottles with up to 16 oz. in each, not to mention a bunch of bangles and tippet. Fully loaded, it probably weighs up to 20 pounds, which frankly is more than the straps can take. It took one destroyed bag for me to realize that I have to be more selective about what I carry (which is the whole point of a waist pack in the first place).
I really like the look of the new Arroyo because it is smaller without skimping on the nice lumbar-supporting side straps. You can hang onto the neck strap and use it on other products (the chest pack off the Double Haul backpack, which is actually chestpack sized, makes a great beach pouch carried courier-style with that neck strap). The best thing about Fishpond is how everything in the whole lineup is modular and interchangeable to such a high degree.
Zach
Here’s the net I have: seriously good net.
http://www.wallacebrothers.us/shop.php?productCat=SW&do=showitem&item=43