Reading is Fundamental

When I was a kid, I definitely did not want to go grocery shopping with my mom. It usually occurred when I’d rather be watching cartoons, and the woman was known to compare produce for far longer than you could ever think necessary. Then I discovered the magazine rack, and while certain periodicals were kept behind the counter out of reach, the ones I could access led me to many fascinating places. There were the generalists, like Field & Stream and Outdoor Life, and more fish-focused ones like In-Fisherman and Fishing Facts. For a fish-obsessed kid with no one to guide him, they were magical. Occasionally she’d get me one for behaving. For my ninth birthday my parents bought me a subscription to F&S and a few years later the insert in that magazine led me to Bassmaster.

Magazines were an important on ramp to fishing for me, and eventually to writing about fishing. Today’s kids don’t have that same need. That’s partially because of YouTube and other social media. Across the board, magazines are as a rule suffering. That’s especially true in the fishing sector, where the few iconic ones that remain have shrunk substantially.

When I go to my local supermarkets now, one has no magazine rack at all, save for the tabloids at the counter, and the other has a small selection. They’re mostly Oprah-esque titles, and one-offs. On the rare occasion that there are outdoor-oriented titles, they tend to be about shooting (not hunting) or prepper-type topics. While I still write for some magazines, and consume even more, I figured I was a dinosaur, and that the web had replaced print for all meaningful purposes. 

On Tuesday night, though, I found myself with time to kill at a local Barnes & Noble. Even though I love book stores, that’s increasingly rare for me, too. First off, there are simply fewer of them. Second, the one closest to our house is in a mall, which I generally avoid. Finally, my wife Hanna doesn’t share my same love of them. That made this a special treat, and I gravitated to the extensive magazine racks. There, among Home & Garden and Cosmo and whatever other titles still remain, I found over a dozen fishing-specific issues, including one dedicated to Florida fishing (we’re in Virginia), another to ice fishing (again, we’re in Virginia), and a bunch of other specialty volumes. It was really nice to sit down and engulf them whole. I didn’t even reach for the one bass mag – I’m sure it was fine but I get enough of that in my “day job.” I wanted marlin and fly adventures and distant waters, and there was a ton of it.

What I rediscovered, and what I hope others know to be true – especially people younger than me, who may not have been raised on magazine culture – is the depth of seeing an article on high-quality glossy paper. There’s also value in seeing articles as part of a whole. Even if one piece is talking about smallmouths and the next one is about yellowfin, it’s the difference between getting the single versus listening to the whole album (another concept that may be lost on younger readers). I know that it’s probably futile, but I hope that there’s a resurgence in the fishing magazine industry. Even just a few more titles would be good. Publications like Tail and Anglers Journal provide a good start, but I like to think that we’re thoughtful enough, literary enough, and have a deep enough bench to support even more.