old Fly Fisherman magazines & debates

[PennKev]

Does anyone remember the old VFS forum/website? No site ever came close to that one IMO and when Fly Fisherman magazine got sold, the site died pretty much over night.

 

[JF_]

I have several boxes of old fly fisherman mags from back when i subscribed. Mostly from the 70's and 80's. I believe I may have some of the early issues published, from 1970?? Not sure when it started. Great articles by some good writers, and the ads are interesting to read. I have to go back and check them out.

Unless my wife tossed them some time ago :-(

 

[greenghost]

PennKev wrote:
Does anyone remember the old VFS forum/website? No site ever came close to that one IMO and when Fly Fisherman magazine got sold, the site died pretty much over night.

I do remember. That was a terrific site. The new owners were gutless. They were afraid of controversy... the whole freakin' purpose of a good forum. If I'm not mistaken, that's when the whole Lil' J /D. Beaver controversy was firing up and I think they were afraid of losing advertising revenue. The guys who ran the thing on a day-to-day basis were ticked off over the new ownership for that reason.

 

[Heritage-Angler]

PennKev wrote:
Does anyone remember the old VFS forum/website? No site ever came close to that one IMO and when Fly Fisherman magazine got sold, the site died pretty much over night.

Yeah, that was a great forum.

Made a lot of good friends that I still keep in touch with, even today.

There's quite a few of us on this forum from that old site. And the old FFP forum.....

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Pete, Ray Bergman is my favorite. "Trout" was really the first big fly fishing book I read (upon your recommendation, if I remember correctly), and it was beautiful.

In fact, I may go to the library today and check it out again. Reading for the evenings on my Vermont trip

 

[JeffK]

I started back in the 60's and fished a lot in the early 70's. The old timers generally weren't purists because before spinning tackle the fly rod was the way to fish light tackle, whether flies, lures, or even single salmon eggs. I had a dentist neighbor who belonged to private clubs and only fly fished with flies, but I didn't see that attitude in public waters. I remember tippets being poor quality so a 5x was considered ultralight. Of course that made trico (aka "caenis", aka "the curse") fishing a very tough game left to far superior fishermen like George Harvey.

Although snob feeling was always around to some degree, I think it came on stronger when spinning techniques became more efficient. I have been doing angler surveys this spring and one reason more fly fishermen fish special regs areas is that more than I would expect just cant stand to see spin fishermen - it just ruins their experience. Most special regs areas are artificials only, but are fished mainly by fly fishermen. If they see one spin guy I hear about it for days Of course, nearly all fly guys are fishing with indicators and heavily weighted nymphs or tippets.

One final thought. Back in the early 70's the hot light trout rod in my circles was the Fenwick 756 - the 7 1/2' 6 wt. When was the last time a 6 wt was considered light?

 

[Sylvaneous]

Fly fishing only excludes bait. The only ambiguous element is if you are casting a lure like a rapala that was intended for conventional fishing on a fly rod. Even trolling with flies on a fly rod with a fly reel and line is fly fishing. Other than that, any fishing using a fly rod, reel and line which carries the lure in a cast is fly fishing. So that's a big circle to fit in.

 

[Oregon_Owl]

I saved all my old FF magazines including some arcane ones from the early and mid eighties that were full of stories and literary gems. I can't think of the name of it now, they are boxed and in the attic at the moment. Not sure why I stared saving all the mags, but now I am glad I did. I never read the western articles back then, but now that I am living here, they are fun to read.

 

[pete41]

Ouch,arcane from the 80s-
true though that the sporting magazines are a sad reflection of their best days.FF really went downhill went they started to just carry articles that seemed like reviews and not in depth versions..