The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Wouldnt it be nice to go back to to the carp fishing of the 70s?. Reasonable rods and kit but still with some discovery and mysteries to be resolved.

Made the mistake of buying a carp weekly mag and it looked just like my wifes dog showing magazines- fish after fish all named and all and sundry knowing when it was caught before, by who , on what etc etc. it seems the norm now to come straight into fishing, buy the gun emplacement and fish for carp without any of the learning process of flaot fishing for Perch in ponds and then progressing on knowledge and skill till moving to the harder species

Its expensive and risky to launch magazines nowadays but surely theres enough of us to justify a classic type magazine- based on the Ball, Stritton Morris type era?

Perhaps it would be better to "freeze" the era in the 80s so we could have the hair!

Ian.R.McDonald wrote:Wouldnt it be nice to go back to to the carp fishing of the 70s?. Reasonable rods and kit but still with some discovery and mysteries to be resolved.

Made the mistake of buying a carp weekly mag and it looked just like my wifes dog showing magazines- fish after fish all named and all and sundry knowing when it was caught before, by who , on what etc etc. it seems the norm now to come straight into fishing, buy the gun emplacement and fish for carp without any of the learning process of flaot fishing for Perch in ponds and then progressing on knowledge and skill till moving to the harder species

Its expensive and risky to launch magazines nowadays but surely theres enough of us to justify a classic type magazine- based on the Ball, Stritton Morris type era?

Perhaps it would be better to "freeze" the era in the 80s so we could have the hair!

I managed to publish an article in Coarse Angler in 1989, and I dug it out the other day, and I really enjoyed the whole mag..
I agree, there must be scope for a more traditional magazine, and there must be a demand for it. It needn't be all about carp, either.

I would love to see one but the big stumbling block is attracting the advertisers to generate the money to pay the contributors. How many tackle companies would want to advertise their wares to anglers not wanting 'new gear'?

Being part of the Steering Committee of the British Carp Study Group I see the expense of producing our own magazine twice a year without any form of advertising (group policy) and okay we only produce a limited number but these end up costing us more than £10. per magazine printed.

FarliesBirthday wrote: I managed to publish an article in Coarse Angler in 1989, and I dug it out the other day, and I really enjoyed the whole mag..
I agree, there must be scope for a more traditional magazine, and there must be a demand for it. It needn't be all about carp, either.

Isn't that Waterlog? Has a few carpy articles in from time to time. (Everyone loves carp - except me.)

I don't know the economics of magazine publishing but I do know that contributors are paid a very modest amount - and in real terms is much less than some years ago. But there are so many carp mags now - a waste of china clay in my view - that it's a packed market out there.

I cancelled my subscription to Waterlog a couple of years ago . Personally I found there were just too many articles about sea fishing and fly fishing. Most of those were interesting articles but they were often about fishing overseas in destinations that most of us will never have a chance of fishing in.
I felt it tried to cover too wide a field of angling.
I would certainly subscribe to a similar magazine that dealt with just traditional/classic coarse fishing ( it could even have one article per issue on fly fishing or sea fishing).

Bluedun wrote:

FarliesBirthday wrote: I managed to publish an article in Coarse Angler in 1989, and I dug it out the other day, and I really enjoyed the whole mag..
I agree, there must be scope for a more traditional magazine, and there must be a demand for it. It needn't be all about carp, either.

Isn't that Waterlog? Has a few carpy articles in from time to time. (Everyone loves carp - except me.)

I don't know the economics of magazine publishing but I do know that contributors are paid a very modest amount - and in real terms is much less than some years ago. But there are so many carp mags now - a waste of china clay in my view - that it's a packed market out there.

I've published several articles with Waterlog, and I love it: but it's a journal that comes out four times a year, of course, not every week, or every month...

The traditional all-rounder Julian. I haven't counted them but I think there are more articles about coarse fishing and related things. The articles I dislike, apart from those elbow-in-the-ribs kind, are those about old reels and other tackle. I find them boring to be honest. Probably most here quite like them.

Shaun Harrison wrote:I would love to see one but the big stumbling block is attracting the advertisers to generate the money to pay the contributors. How many tackle companies would want to advertise their wares to anglers not wanting 'new gear'?

Being part of the Steering Committee of the British Carp Study Group I see the expense of producing our own magazine twice a year without any form of advertising (group policy) and okay we only produce a limited number but these end up costing us more than £10. per magazine printed.

Unless you can attract advertisers you would be unable to sustain the costs of producing the magazine.
Also, I would imagine finding a distribution company like WH Smith might prove a stumbling block.
The problem at the moment even magazines like Carpworld are struggling in todays climate.

Would there be that many people out there that would be interested, I dont buy magazines anymore due to the advertising and regurged articles on tackle and tactics, the carp magazines seem to be the worst for it, so any magazine that contained ad after ad I wouldnt bother with.

Add to that the forums like this one and various blogs, is there a need for a magazine.

Ian,

"Perhaps it would be better to "freeze" the era in the 80s so we could have the hair!" . . . Do you mean on our heads or the hair rig ?