Shops newsletters, reports and... hotspotting?

ColinShots said:
Yeah, what @mcswny said (I couldn't have said it better).
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Just that there are a lot of streams out there and they are easy to find. But I suspect that the great majority of them that have some sort of fishery never or even rarely get touched. Those that do get touched usually are close to the comfort of roads, campgrounds, main trails etc. A fly shop has every right--Freedom of Speech--to promote whatever it feels necessary to further and sustain its business. Every fly shop, outfitter and sporting goods store in SW promotes the Madison River and indeed it is challenging the resource to the point where the government wants to step in and control access via quotas and fees. Who's at fault--everyone who has fished the Madison for decades to those that want to fish it for the first time. There are I am sure a lot of waters that suffer the same fate. Do we lament the decline of our favorite fisheries?, yes. But do we go elsewhere to relieve the pressure on overfished waters?--maybe.
 
Mike Cline said:
Just that there are a lot of streams out there and they are easy to find. But I suspect that the great majority of them that have some sort of fishery never or even rarely get touched. Those that do get touched usually are close to the comfort of roads, campgrounds, main trails etc. A fly shop has every right--Freedom of Speech--to promote whatever it feels necessary to further and sustain its business. Every fly shop, outfitter and sporting goods store in SW promotes the Madison River and indeed it is challenging the resource to the point where the government wants to step in and control access via quotas and fees. Who's at fault--everyone who has fished the Madison for decades to those that want to fish it for the first time. There are I am sure a lot of waters that suffer the same fate. Do we lament the decline of our favorite fisheries?, yes. But do we go elsewhere to relieve the pressure on overfished waters?--maybe.
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Again, just because they have the freedom to do that, should they or do they need to? Is it necassary for the story? Does it incrementally improve their business? I don't feel like you've answered these questions. If the shop gives the locations out for free--to an email list, thats not really further sustaining it's business. They're giving away the milk for free. Whereas they could say something simple lie "Come in and hear about our favorite spots!

Again, I'm not referring to the Madison, and I'm pretty sure you know that. Quoting @Matt B (but replacing one word).
"There’s a huge difference between the MADISON and the little blue lines located nearby large population centers. When shops talk about small streams I think the best practice is just to call them small streams. E.g., “The west side North Cascades small streams are dropping into shape nicely. The water is still cold so don’t hesitate to drop a Frenchie or Pheasant Tail nymph off the back of your Chubby. Our fly bins of foam attractors and small nymphs are full up and we are ready to make recommendations when you come in! Hope to see you soon! Get out there and fish, the local trout are hungry.”

You just can't compare the Madison to the rivers I'm referring to. These aren't currently overfished waters and I'm hoping they stay that way. That starts with the shops, that purportedly care about the fisheries. Their business depends on it. Unfortunately, if you insist on implying they're the same (The Madison/Yellowstone etc and the tribs I'm referring to), this conversation isn't going to go anywhere.

My question from the beginning still remains the same.

@Mike Cline do you think the name of the river is important to the Trip Report? Is it any less compelling with the name? Then let's all do better and leave it out.

Would my report here be any better if I named the exact lakes and rivers I fished? Would it make the story any better? I understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I don't think it would be. What do you think?

The beginning of the end (of Summer)

Ever since I have been in Oregon I've considered the week before Labor Day to be the last week of Summer, and coincidentally my work historically has always closed for said week. I always go on a last ditch panicked effort to soak in the last of Summer and this year was no different. There was...
pnwflyfishing.com pnwflyfishing.com
 
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This is kind of relevant to the conversation. Many years ago, I was living in Portland, and started reading reports on an internet forum about a zipper lip lake in Central Washington that was producing epic fishing. The folks discussing the lake were very shrewd and careful about not disclosing the name of the lake. Living in Portland, I had no idea about where to start to find this lake. Then one day somebody slipped up and mentioned the name, Beda Lake. Well, the next weekend I was in my car and headed to the lake. I had two amazing days of fishing. A couple weeks later I headed back with a couple of buddies from Portland for some more great fishing. And I probably told a few other people about it (not on the internet). The likelihood of me discovering this lake on my own was zero. Internet hot spotting led me and my buddies right to it during its prime.
 
mcswny said:
Could ya'll imagine what would happen if @Billy posted the coordinates of his bass ponds? Half of PNWFF would be there in a heart beat. I sure as shit would drive out there from Portland.
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Well I know the spots because they're within literally single digit miles of where I grew up. So we could go crash his party sometime and post coordinates to sell PNWFF donations.
 
mcswny said:
@Mike Cline do you think the name of the river is important to the Trip Report? Is it any less compelling with the name? Then let's all do better and leave it out.

Would my report here be any better if I named the exact lakes and rivers I fished? Would it make the story any better? I understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I don't think it would be. What do you think?

The beginning of the end (of Summer)

Ever since I have been in Oregon I've considered the week before Labor Day to be the last week of Summer, and coincidentally my work historically has always closed for said week. I always go on a last ditch panicked effort to soak in the last of Summer and this year was no different. There was...
pnwflyfishing.com pnwflyfishing.com
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That depends entirely on the motivation for your post to begin with. If you wanted others to experience the same waters you fished then naming those waters would be essential—sharing. If you didn’t want anyone to know where you fished then no—not sharing. I am 76 years old and want to share my experiences with others. The ability and opportunity to do that has changed significantly the last 30 years—the internet and an explosion in the interest in fly fishing. I can think of many fishing experiences I’ve had that flowed from me either reading about (print or online) some location I might be interested in. Had no one shared that information, I never would have had those experiences. Although this story is unrelated to the waters we fish today, it is inline with your concerns.

In the late 1990s, I participated in a forum named Alabamariverfishing.org. Now defunct, the forum was lively about fishing flowing waters throughout Alabama. I became friends with one member who lived fairly close to me and he told me about a creek (secondary tributary) of the Coosa River that had very decent Coosa Bass (red eye bass) fishing. This is a diminutive bucket list bass as its range is restricted to the fall line in Georgia and Alabama off the Appalachian range. The creek was called Socapatoy Creek after a small 19th century settlement that bordered the creek. It was a tough adventure to fish as you either had to float it (really tough at summer flows) or navigate up the lower reaches over several cascades. There was no land access and the river had its share of moccasins and copperheads. My friend called it “Deliverance” country. I fished the lower reaches (3-4 miles) at least a dozen times and wrote about it (by name) the first time I fished it in the Alabamariverfishing forum. In the 7-8 years I fished it, not once did I encounter another angler nor did anyone ever ask me about it. Although I recommended it routinely to acquaintances, I don’t think anyone ever took me up on the challenge. The video below gives you a taste of the stream although it is during high water. You have to imagine it at lower, clear flows.

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Mike Cline said:
That depends entirely on the motivation for your post to begin with. If you wanted others to experience the same waters you fished then naming those waters would be essential—sharing. If you didn’t want anyone to know where you fished then no—not sharing. I am 76 years old and want to share my experiences with others. The ability and opportunity to do that has changed significantly the last 30 years—the internet and an explosion in the interest in fly fishing. I can think of many fishing experiences I’ve had that flowed from me either reading about (print or online) some location I might be interested in. Had no one shared that information, I never would have had those experiences. Although this story is unrelated to the waters we fish today, it is inline with your concerns.
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I'm happy to share. Honestly. I am. I have no problem talking about these creeks and rivers. I have no problem taking people to them or even talking about them in PMs. They're not secret and never have been. What I don't want is 50, 60, 70+ people showing up, that's not an enjoyable an/or natural progression/education of learning new rivers. That's not sharing an experience, that's blowing up a spot. Your creek in Alabama sounds really great, but again you still are comparing apples to oranges. In some regards, (while my opinion frankly doesn't matter--I get that), I'd actually have no problem naming that creek (the alabama one) because, like you said it's really F*($ing hard to get to. You still have to do the work (and like you said, most people wont). Whereas, almost all of these creeks that this shop names are right off the road (within an hour of a major metro area). Not only do people not have to do the work to "discover" them, they don't even have to work to get to them. There's unfortunately not a lot of creeks and rivers here in oregon that support fisheries that DON'T have roads right up against them. My favorite river, that I'm backpacking into next week is a 3,000' drop into a Canyon (with zero tree cover). People have made the argument before that even if you name it, most people won't go to it. While I actually agree, I'm still not going to take the chance. It's not worth it. But if a forum member wanted to backpack it with me one of these summers, I'd say HELL YEAH, let's go share the experience together!


tim
 
Mike Cline said:
I’ve always been a bit skeptical as to the impact of so-called “Hot-Spotting”, no matter how the information made its way into the minds of humans who want to fish. Although we always encourage new-comers to the sport, embrace exposing youth to the sport and celebrate angling success; it appears we are collectively loath to share so called “hot spots”. Unfortunately, hot spots have been shared ad-infinitum for as long as human have communicated information via print and via our current digital age. I fish an extremely popular “hot spot” river every season, a river notorious for crowded conditions. I get 9-10 trips to this river every season and usually find the river abandoned. When I do find it crowded, I know when and where to go to where it is not crowded.

It’s been 50+ years since the titles displayed below (750+ pages) were published. Probably a bit dated but “hot-spotting” no less. Information is the life-blood of any society and we currently live in an era overflowing with information. Yet, despite all that information, I find it extremely easy to find quality angling undisturbed by those who think where I fish is a “hot-spot”,
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Damn - one of those pages identifies one of my favorite places to fish. It was in my handle/moniker until I received so much guff from the hot-spotting police I changed it to RCF...
 
RCF said:
Damn - one of those pages identifies one of my favorite places to fish. It was in my handle/moniker until I received so much guff from the hot-spotting police I changed it to RCF...
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Not exactly a secret creek ;). I’ve never fished east of the oregon border and I even know it. But I also get it 🤷‍♂️
 
mcswny said:
Not exactly a secret creek ;). I’ve never fished east of the oregon border and I even know it. But I also get it 🤷‍♂️
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Did anyone know there is a creek named the same thing in Idaho, Washington and Oregon? I have visited all of them. So which one was I referring to?

Not gonna say which one(s) have good fishing either...
 
RCF said:
Did anyone know there is a creek named the same thing in Idaho, Washington and Oregon? I have visited all of them. So which one was I referring to?

Not gonna say which one(s) have good fishing either...
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I’m assuming it’s NOT the one out in Beaverton, OR ;)
 
Willow Creek in MT is highly regarded. There are 45 of them in Montana
 
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