THE DRAKE magazine - any subscribers, thoughts???

Westfly Refugee

Westfly Refugee

Steelhead
Was about to pay the $38 subscription, but then started exploring the website's tabs. Most of the website's content was very dated, like years old with very little new content or updates. Anyone here a regular, recurring subscriber to The Drake? Would like to hear your opinion.
 
They seem to be one of the only publications still cranking out content in print. They were still going strong when I was buying ad space with my previous employer until a few years ago.
 
I’ve been meaning to email them to see if they need any designers for the magazine.
 
I was a digital subscriber for a number of years but for some reason the renewal stopped and I haven't gotten around to figuring out why. I do see new print issues show up at the fly shop.
 
Had a subscription years ago...let it lapse because other than the photography the articles weren't compelling and, like it's website message boards, largely filled with snotty douche-bro pretentious trout bum stuff.

It isn't the price but rather the poor content that I don't care for.....
 
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I had to look it up,
I never heard of it.
 
The Drake was one of the first magazines to get away from the snooty "River Runs Through It" or "all about gear and tying" presentations for fly fishing media. As someone who came to fly fishing from the skateboard/snowboard/climbing world, The Drake was a breath of fresh air for me back then. Dirt baggy, irreverent, funny. It was the fly fishing version of the skate magazines I'd read for a decade. Hell, it said "Five bucks. $10 for bait fisherman." right on the cover, and that was awesome. The website's forum was always a little over the top for me and the folks there veered too far into "BS for the sake of BS". But the magazine was a different beast and I enjoyed reading it over the years.

I admit that the Fly Fishing Journal is more my speed these days. Some of that might be that it's a locally made product, which I'm always partial to. But some might just be that my dirtbag days are mostly behind me (though I'm still pretty irreverent) and the romantic zen of fishing (realistic or not) grabs my brain more than the need to poke the eye of conformity.

That said, this thread reminds me that I should go grab the most recent copy and see what I've been missing.
 
Josh said:
The Drake was one of the first magazines to get away from the snooty "River Runs Through It" or "all about gear and tying" presentations for fly fishing media. As someone who came to fly fishing from the skateboard/snowboard/climbing world, The Drake was a breath of fresh air for me back then. Dirt baggy, irreverent, funny. It was the fly fishing version of the skate magazines I'd read for a decade. Hell, it said "Five bucks. $10 for bait fisherman." right on the cover, and that was awesome. The website's forum was always a little over the top for me and the folks there veered too far into "BS for the sake of BS". But the magazine was a different beast and I enjoyed reading it over the years.

I admit that the Fly Fishing Journal is more my speed these days. Some of that might be that it's a locally made product, which I'm always partial to. But some might just be that my dirtbag days are mostly behind me (though I'm still pretty irreverent) and the romantic zen of fishing (realistic or not) grabs my brain more than the need to poke the eye of conformity.

That said, this thread reminds me that I should go grab the most recent copy and see what I've been missing.
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Probaby an age thing for me...I'd been flyfishing for over 30 years when A River Runs Through It came out (and I've never watched it...though I've read the book, as well as his son's book).

I tend to avoid watching movies with subject matter I know a bit about...because they do such a shit job.

I'll watch mountaineering documentaries...but not dramas for the same reason.

I guess as an old fart the whole 'edgy' Drake thing doesn't hold much personal appeal.

In my younger days I identified with Animal House Deltas...but nowadays more with Dean Wormer.
 
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A lot of what @Josh wrote resonates for me. I still get The Drake and I still enjoy it but I don't devour it quite the way I used to. I've also been meaning to subscribe to FFJ b/c its local and seems to be getting some of the writers I know and like and encouraging new writers and new voices, which I very much dig; that's my egghead artsy-fartsy side I guess. If someone like Boot is going to publish something fly fishing related, even if its not really about fly fishing but has fly fishing in it or using fly fishing as a device, they basically have two choices for it--FFJ and The Drake.
 
Thanks for the mention of FFJ...I'll check that out.
I do miss NorthWest Flyfishing, both for the content and I know several of the regular contributors. Since it's been subsumed into "American Flyfishing" a lot of the content just isn't relevant to me.
 
I used to buy an issue if The Drake when I'd see it in a fly shop, and subscribed for a year or two, but as others mentioned, I eventually got tired of the content. The change to "bait fishermen" price for all of us didn't help.too, $10 is a lot for mostly great photos and maybe one article I'm interested in.

I agree with the comments that the regional "xxxx Flyfishing" magazines are a loss. I really liked both the PNW and Eastern versions.
 
I'm not a subscriber but I will pick up new editions when I see them. Its always been more about the why than the how and I appreciate that. Oddly the local gas station/bait shop carries it right next to the guns and porn mags. :ROFLMAO:

The message board started off great. Some really cool trip reports that were kind of an artform in itself. Eventually the solid posters starting leaving and then the idiot from Australia went full batshit crazy and killed the place. I still have a bunch of fishing buddies from those early days but haven't checked the message board in years.
 
Ryan Smart said:
$10 is a lot for mostly great photos and maybe one article I'm interested in.
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Yeah, I can understand that.

But still, given that the magazine industry has seen titles die by the hundreds over the past 10 years and production costs have risen, the price increase is unsurprising. They gotta charge what they gotta charge. American Fly Fishing is $8. The Fly Fishing Journal is $15. Back when I first saw the Drake, a Big Mac was $2.50. These days it's around $6. So goes life.
 
Ryan Smart said:
$10 is a lot for mostly great photos and maybe one article I'm interested in.
I agree with the comments that the regional "xxxx Flyfishing" magazines are a loss. I really liked both the PNW and Eastern versions.
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I liked them okay, but for me that format had gotten so formulaic and stale, like the Fish and Tell features, or how to tie Fly X which rarely showed anything innovative. For a while I was subscribed to Fly Rod and Reel, too, and when I realized that all of Gierach’s stories (usually the only thing I liked in an issue) would be in his next book anyway, I let that lapse.

Yard Sale said:
Its always been more about the why than the how and I appreciate that.
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Exactly. I don’t just appreciate it. I insist on it.
 
I faded from the target demographic as Fly Rod and Reel, American Angler, and others followed most of the hook and bullet press into the great beyond. I currently subscribe to American Fly Fishing and Drake. Both provide me with glimpses of angling life I’ve little hope of experiencing, much like Field and Stream or the old Outdoor Life. I still enjoy that. Drake, carried by wonderful imagery and production values, and by the lyrical and compelling writing by Tom Bie, manages for me to satirize rather than celebrate the flybro culture pretty well, AFF seems to be hotspotters anonymous, and its formulaic, but wtf, he’s still publishing. Price? Yeah, it’s gone up, but so has shipping and lunch. When it quits paying, I suppose they’ll be done. I for one will miss them, much like some internet entertainment like MoldyChum and others. Maybe its time to go reread Ray Bergman…I could do worse.
 
I subscribe and still like it. Looked at the message boards once and never again.
 
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