Fishing articles’ team effort only goes so far

It’s something I’ve picked up on lately. I go out to photograph one of our experts for a Trout Fisherman feature and at the end of the day I find myself incorporated in one of the more unlikely uses of a collective noun.

“We had to work hard for our fish today, Jeff.”

“We struggled this morning, Jeff but we managed to pull it round after lunch.”

“We got some good fish for our troubles, Jeff.”

We?

I was taking photographs. The only thing I pulled the trigger on all day was an F16 exposure at 1/250 second.

You cast. You caught. You brought home the bacon trout.

But I’m grateful for your generosity. These are more inclusive times, after all and I can think of one man who’d lap up the ‘we’ thing and probably push it a notch further.

So I’ll take it. I was standing pretty close to you, after all…

Why they make me sit on my own

To you, they’re a handful of words scattered across a magazine’s cover.

To those of us in the magazine biz, they are possibly our biggest source of angst every month.

‘Teasers’, we call them.  Three- to five-word lines that sum up the main articles to be found between the covers, every last one of them sweated over by editorial staff and management alike, down to the last syllable, because expert opinion has it that the success or failure of an entire issue can hinge on the calibre of those one-line come-ons.

I’m not an expert, so I wouldn’t know. I only know that I never read them when I’m buying a magazine, because my idea of being teased depends on what I see when I actually flick through the pages in the newsagents.

At a subliminal level, though, maybe they work on me more than I know, because when Moldy Chum recently posted this reminder of the days before teasers, I was blown away by the contrasting simplicity of what I saw.

These covers call rather than yell to me, yet I hear them just as clearly. I warm to the idea of a magazine that trusts its subject to sell itself and I can’t get away from the feeling that I’m being pitched to by this rather than by this.

But then I’m getting old and have no training in these things. Maybe such minimalism would be doomed in this info-saturated age.

And maybe there’s a reason Trout Fisherman editorial meetings see me banished to the far corner of the office with crayons and some paper.

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Pic of the Day – Colorado, USA

I hate ‘Perfect Family’ advertising

Here’s how it happens in reality.

Younger Kid has to stop mid-sprint because his coat zipper has jammed half-way up.

Older Kid’s too cool for running, so dawdles by the tide line, effecting world-weariness and quietly hoping you’ll be so distracted that you won’t notice him dragging on a surreptitious cigarette.

And that gorgeous creature who simply insisted on carrying the lugworm bucket? She’s actually in the car because those wave-ridged beaches do nothing for her Achilles tendonitis. And she’s gorgeous in somewhat more subtle ways.

Within 20 minutes, Older Kid hates what the wind is doing to his hair, you’re looking at the bird’s-nest from hell and Younger Kid is wishing that, just once, you’d bring him fishing when the wind’s at his back.

And Subtly-Gorgeous is yelling that we need to be making a move because she’s realised Coronation Street starts in 47 minutes.

Having studied her Timex watch.

“And the Oscar for worst movie/music mismatch goes to…”

I don’t care if you were being ironic; it’s the Pyrenees. That gentle guitar would have been perfect from the start.

And no awards for the the gratuitous sex scene 59s in, either. Rushed and lacking both context and sensitivity.

Otherwise, delightful…

Killer shrimp? Could be worse…

This isn’t to downplay the UK’s ‘killer shrimp‘ problem in any way but in observance of what our grandparents were forever telling us in childhood – “there’s always someone worse off than you” – let us Brits pause for a brief moment of thanks that the cone snail is (a) a saltwater species and (b) several thousands of miles away…

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Pic of the Day

Not so fast with that discarded Christmas tree, people…

Not sure whether the idea will catch on this side of the Atlantic but you may want to have a word with your local fishery manager before leaving your Christmas tree to the mercy of your dustbinmen waste operatives.

“From southern California to South Carolina, fish and wildlife agencies have been collecting Christmas trees with plans to use them in lakes and waterways to create protective habitats for small fish.

In Wyoming, the trees will be dropped through designated holes in the ice at Ocean Lake in late January”

The real breakthrough, of course, will be when we discover that trout gorge on old wrapping paper and new sweaters that no man would be seen dead in…

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Pic of the Day

Not your father’s workplace disciplinary code…

I was prompted to wonder what any of our ancestors, indeed, would have made of my conversation with one of Trout Fisherman‘s regular contributors this lunchtime.

Explaining how he hadn’t been able to access the Korean fishing videos to which I linked yesterday, he told me that his company now has strict Internet filters in place.

This follows discovery by the bosses of a pornography archive among nightshift workers that by all accounts made Hugh Hefner’s mansion look like the Vatican.

In an act of compassion almost unheard of among senior executives, management instituted a two-day amnesty. Lose the filth in 48 hours and you keep your job. No exceptions.

According to my ‘mole’, this sword of Damocles concentrated workers’ minds wonderfully, turning the company car park into a hive of activity normally unknown beyond Hyde Park Corner.

“I knew it were bad,” he tells me, “when one bloke flew back from Tenerife just to clear his hard drive…”

Modern art: different day, same old guff…

“…the Dorchester, Mass., artist has made a life-size white suit of vinyl with a fishing-pole holder in front; a gigantic, pink fly-fishing creel; and a cabinet filled with fantastical flies made from human hair. What this says about masculinity is open to interpretation.” – from a review of the Manhood: Masculinity, Male Identity and Culture exhibition at Vermont’s Helen Day Art Center

Give me Theodore Lane’s The Gouty Angler any day, dating back to a time when the word ‘artist’ pre-supposed an ability to draw.

Has Korea won a fly fishing film award yet?

If not, that time may not be far aware. I was first alerted to the Asian nation’s potential as a photogenic fishing location by this clip, now I discover the Korean Fly Fishing channel, with some HD footage that may soon rival Celtic Chillout as my wind-down ambience of choice.

If anyone reading this has worked on Trout Fisherman features with me and wondered why I like him to wear one bright item of clothing to ‘lift’ the photos, these clips will hopefully demonstrate what I’m getting at. Imagine the anglers filmed dressed in head-to-toe khaki…

A sample:

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Pic of the Day

Official: The Most Interesting Man in the World is a fly fisherman

Who knew?

“You might not think it at first glance, but Jonathan Goldsmith is the most interesting man in the world. The actor has achieved notoriety for his role in Dos Equis beer commercials with the famous last line: “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I choose Dos Equis…

“…It’s an ad campaign that has taken on a life of its own, becoming part of popular culture, and with the lines often popping up in everyday conversations.  Dos Equis saw sales increase as soon as they started airing the ads five years ago and Goldsmith says the work has made him millions…

“…His mom was a model. He loves sailing, reading and fly fishing with his dad’s rod.”

Stay smug, my friends…

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Pic of the Day

Multi-task trout fishing, Korean style

Season’s closed, sun-dappled meadows and laughing brooks are a dream for the next five months and the last thing you want is to join the hordes chasing the sun and fish Down Under or off the Florida coast.

For you, I have just the thing.

Head for South Korea instead, have the word ‘hordes’ redefined forever and pick up two new trout fishing skills into the bargain. Not only can you ice fish at the Sancheoneo Festival but it seems trout-tickling is back in vogue…

“Every January, the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival brings a sudden energy to this quiet corner of the country. Hundreds of thousands of thickly clad visitors swarm over every frozen surface to try their hand at ice-fishing. Barbecues come as naturally to Koreans as baguettes to the French, and the smell of charcoal fires wafts along the banks, ready for the latest catch. For a few visitors, dropping a line through a hole in the ice to catch their fish is just not enough of an experience. Dressed in T-shirts and shorts, they plunge into a pool of near freezing water and learn just what slippery customers trout can be…”

So says CNN, no less, who have named this extravaganza one of their Seven Wonders of Winter, although given that ‘snowbound London’ is another one (London commuters wishing to provide feedback on that round about mid-January should visit cnn.com) the bar may not be all that high.

But if you do go, it strikes me you could also tick the ‘ambassadorial duties’ box on your task list while you’re there: pictures suggest that advice on holding fish for the money shot is at a premium…

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Pic of the Day – Colorado River

Greenfish camera mount just missing the point

Would I be right in thinking that if Greenfish‘s new CPR Mount had a spike attachment to shove into the ground, bank anglers could get as excited about it as their boating counterparts?

I love the overall concept. If you’re fishing alone and not blessed in the contortionism department, trying to film your moments of triumph while some grumpy fish refuses to play ball will usually be a challenge too far.

The boat or kayak angler, however, simply sticks the Greenfish Mount’s leg into a spare rod holder and is assured of everything being in shot, whether shooting video or simply a post-catch trophy-shot still.

“Developed by sustainable fishing company GreenFish, the CPR Mount’s Expansion Lock technology fits most rod-holders…Its universal camera mount fits most digital cameras and the GoPro. The Flex Arm lets you position the camera to film the action from multiple angs—even underwater.“

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Pic of the Day – Trillium Lake, Oregon

Speed me a line

I just know I’m asking for trouble if I try to take it to Capt. Joel Dickey’s level but this clip on line speed certainly reinforces what has been my own flyfishing revelation of the year.

In my ‘New Man’ determination not to fall into the trap of counter-productive machismo while casting, I now realise that I’d gone too far to the other extreme, the result an insipid, flabby stroke that might get me by on streams little wider than a pencil but which was leaving me feeling increasingly impotent on the stillwaters to which I’m more accustomed.

I’m not yet at the point where I can go too far beyond the 11 to one o’clock power arc in my stroke without calamity intruding but I’ve found that if I stay close to those parameters, I can give the rod a lot more oomph than I realised on both the back and forward cast and it’s amazing how much more your line behaves itself when it’s moving at genuine speed.

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Pic of the Day – you can’t do this with maggots…

Maliko’s ‘big toe freedom’ may come at expense of ‘Bigfoot’ gags…

You can’t fault the thinking behind the Maliko “crossover, minimalist adventure shoe.”

On sale next March for around US$100, it boasts “a split-toe design that the company touts as providing ‘big toe freedom’ to help with balance and dexterity,” declares Gearjunkie.

“The Maliko promises in and out of water performance

…It felt solid in the hand — more a trail runner build, less something you’d usually find near the water…It is made of mesh for draining water after submerged, and it has what the company calls ‘octopus tentacle-inspired rubber suction cup’ detailing on the sole. This includes raised rubber stripes with tiny suction cups as well as small slits in the rubber that grab for traction.”

It’s just that I can think of certain parts of Britain and the USA where being spotted in cloven hoof footwear would tend to reinforce a certain reprehensible local stereotype revolving around evolution and in-breeding.

I live in one of them. So I propose to pass.

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Pic of the Day

Pebble Mine devil is shown in the details

A clever campaign video, this. Bristol Bay, Pebble Mine, widespread devastation – these are big concepts; too big, perhaps, for the casual viewer to get his head around.

So narrow it right down and focus on the problem in microcosm – a test drilling hole, a small platform and just a few strands of discoloured water trickling across the vast landscape.

And trust your viewers’ imaginations to do all the extrapolation needed.

They won’t let you down.