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Thoughts on the naming of steelhead rivers in magazines and social media

4K views 37 replies 24 participants last post by  ENSO 
#1 ·
Just interested to hear a few opinions of this topic. I understand that some river are unmistakable in many photos and need not to be named to be recognized by many. Rivers of legend and rich in history. And have decent sized runs of fish (or used to) to support the pressure brought on by being advertised in a fishing publication. But what about the smaller rivers the ones that have smaller runs of fish and are mostly fished by locals and a few others who put the boot work in to find them. The ones that are whispered rumours and are a gamble to go explore. This recently happened to one such stream in my back yard. I couldn’t bring myself to read the article all I needed to see was the picture of a guy playing a fish and the name of the river on the picture. Is this fair to do something like this to a river that sees a run of 50-100 fish? Should the small sensitive fisheries be name for all the world to see and pictures of a few fish from there waters put in print and made out to be some kind of amazing unknown fishery just to maybe sell a few magazines? Or for the guide that sold out his back yard to get his name in a magazine? We all preach conservation and want nothing more than to see steelhead thrive and keep going well beyond our life time. I seriously question the ethics of fishing publications and now only see them trying to keep there magazines fresh and selling. The naming of small rivers and there sensitive fisheries needs not to be a thing. In this day and age we live in with declining fish stocks and more crowds all over the bigger rivers and people now more than ever are searching for the next great fishing destination. This just seems wrong in so many ways. That’s all I got. I’ll go crawl back under my rock now.
 
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#3 ·
I’ve always kept pretty quiet about specific details of some of my favorite spots (ain’t no such thing as a secret spot in the internet age), but there is a flip side to that.

When I was growing up, there was a threat to several of the waters that fed the New York City water system. - a number of fairly well-known (locally) Catskill streams that were great fisheries within a relatively short drive of the city. Because so many people were familiar with them, there was an immediate and large groundswell of opposition and an alternative was quickly found. My guess is that lesser known waters would be at much greater risk because they don’t have the base of support that can fend off a threat.

It’s a double edged sword, but there are benefits to the world at least knowing your door, if not beating a path to it.
 
#5 ·
.... I understand that some river are unmistakable in many photos and need not to be named to be recognized by many. ....
I can recognize a river from photos where I have never personally fished the river in question. If I can do that, others can too.
 
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#7 ·
I totally understand the downsides to naming a river and empathize completely. But then, I think of all the times I have ever traveled anywhere to fish and been grateful for shop employees and owners, guides, and fellow anglers for pointing me to productive waters. I have read books and magazines about destinations and used that information unashamedly. I suspect I'm not alone. I also keep in mind that "my" personal, special spot isn't really mine. I was sure as shootin' not the first guy to fish it, nor will I be the last. I think John Gierach wrote something about how you can divide anglers into two camps; all the wise men and heroes who were doing it before you, and all the jerks who came along after you. So, I can't howl in protest too terribly loudly when somebody names names.

I think I have come to the conclusion that we all just need to be good citizens and role models wherever and whenever we fish - practice proper etiquette, handle fish with care, keep the stream banks clean, that sort of thing. Establish a new and higher norm by example. If everyone did that, we wouldn't have to worry too much about what other anglers might do if they hear about that special spot. With any luck, they'd treat it the same way you or I would. Of course, I know that's not especially realistic, but I also know that we can change the cultural attitudes and behaviors associated with our sport. Just consider the whole catch and release ethic - virtually unheard of 50 years ago, practiced widely today.

Publicity and mass communication aren't going away, nor are they anything new. My grandpa used to grumble about the destination articles in Field & Stream magazine in the 1940's. But maybe, we can do something to encourage the spread of good behavior just as widely.
 
#8 ·
The double edged sword isn't steelhead river specific. My two home waters, one for wild browns, one for smallmouth bass were ruined by lack of public awareness as to what two separate government "agencies" were doing with the two waters. The brown trout stream is a trib of the smallmouth stream. Both were treasures frequented only by locals.

The army clear cut an entire mountainside (To be fair, that valley is part of the army base's property. But isn't that actually the property of us citizens?) that drained into the brown trout stream, right down to it's banks.

Simultaneously our fish commission was destroying low head dams and building a fish ladder beside another (at how much useless expense to a supposedly financially destitute agency!?!?) downstream on our local smallmouth fishery. Supposedly this was to allow shad to run (which are in trouble themselves, and have yet to make it within miles of the mouth of this particular stream).

The general public (meaning many of us locals) didn't know about either parties actions until the damage was already done.

Couple those separately idiotic, and cumulatively disastrous, deeds with extraordinary rainfall three years in a row. Both streams were destroyed by record flood, not to mention many people's homes and property downstream. Both streambeds were completely scoured and re-arranged. The bank destabilization and silt were terrible. The insect life is having a time re-establishing itself, the fish are all but gone, and the waterfowl are all but gone.

All this happened within a period of about 5 years. It's been 7 years now since the last big flood, and things still haven't bounced back. It makes me sick to my stomach when I compare how good things used to be, and how they are now. My home waters are almost dead.

I can't help but think that some public awareness/action could have prevented all of this (hopefully just temporary) loss of habitat and wildlife. Be careful just how secret you folks keep your secret spots. I'd rather share a healthy river with a few more people that love the resource than lose it altogether.
 
#9 ·
I think it is a terrible practice.

3162 Posts here on Spey Pages
18,556 Posts on The Fly Fishing Forum North America
1,172 Posts on the Salmon Fishing Forum
488 Posts on The Fly Fishing Forums UK.

That's 23,388 Posts and I have never mentioned where I caught a single fish!

I've been finding places to fly fish since before Fly Fisherman Magazine was ever published.

I've been finding access points since before the first detailed Roadside Guide to fishing most states was ever dreamed up and published.

If you are my friend I'll bend over backwards to help you catch fish but the chance of me creating step by step instructions for complete strangers to come fish where I do is absolutely ZERO, that's 0 never ever.

It is possible to write an interesting article about fishing without telling a million people where to go try for themselves.

Ard
 
#11 ·
I think it’s healthiest to acknowledge that it’s just very difficult (if not impossible) to keep anything really secret these days and to focus the potential positive benefits that growing a community of concerned citizens around a beloved resource might bring. If you’re that invested in keeping rivers a secret you’re just setting yourself up for frustration. Find a way to shape the community’s growth in a positive way. Take a kid fishing. Pick up trash and encourage newcomers to the rivers to do the same. Etc etc. (Not saying you don’t do these things, just thinking of examples)

The secrets are going to come out, we can’t stop them, so it’s more important to spend our energy trying to make sure our community’s inevitable growth is to the benefit of the resource rather than its detriment.
 
#15 ·
Is there a particular example of a publication doing this that you are referring to? I must admit I was annoyed by some of the things shared in the most recent Steelheader’s Journal. I’m less concerned with increased mediation further pressuring fragile stocks (I have not seen anything too egregious on this front and would hope a larger sense of ethics, and conservation legislation, would prevent this) and more with just increased traffic. As has been mentioned, the information has always been out there. My annoyance is more that people no longer have to work to find things out (don’t get me wrong, I have benefited from this). But lazy researchers are also (hopefully) lazy fishers so maybe the pull out spots will be a bit busier but the less-trodden routes will remain less-trodden. I dunno. A really interesting question. Good thread.

There’s certainly something to the Scott Howell adage about ‘unknown rivers don’t have any friends, and a river without any friends is unprotected’ but, back to Gierach, ‘the secret places are the soul of fly fishing’. One person’s Notellum Creek is someone else’s Nunya River. It’s more the feeling of being the only one in on the secret than the actuality of it.
 
#17 ·
It definitely sucks when the "media" starts pumping a small local spot, but it
is a bit of a catch-22, also. How would we know where to fish if people didn't talk about it? I wouldn't even know steelhead existed if people didn't talk about it. So, yes, it sucks. But, also, for a newer-ish fisher person, it sure is nice to have some knowledge on a potential adventure to try to go fish, right? And, to take it to the far extreme, maybe it's bad that manufacturers are even making good tools (rods, reels, lines, hooks) for us to even fish with at all?
 
#19 ·
i think there's definitely a related thing about lines and line technology - we're more efficient/effective at catching fish with a shorter learning curve.

But then it's balanced out to an extent by those who choose to make the game more difficult for themselves by fishing only floating lines or dry/surface style flies.

With rivers there's a similar balance between spreading pressure around on more systems, which means lesser-runs get fished more than they might versus keeping heavy concentrations of pressure on only the best known rivers.

My personal approach is that I'll show anyone where I fish, but I won't tell anyone. But I've also worked for a fly fishing magazine, and in that context it feels a little disingenous to write about an experience without saying where it was - there are always exceptions of course. My preference in terms of writing and reading is for the more experience-based content, like Gierach, over the 'we went here, did this, caught this many' kind of stuff.

Generally, I think that as long as we treat the resource and the fish with respect then it doesn't matter how you fish, or where really. None of us got there first after all, and it's definitely not ours and ours alone.

Though I do think that we should perhaps have self-imposed limits on how many fish we catch and release in a day. That said, there was a week a few years ago on a particular Scottish salmon river where the booked rods had a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It sounded as though the entire run of fish came through in that one week. 10+ salmon a day being possible. One angler caught 3 and went to the pub, another stayed and caught as many as he could because he knew he would never see a week like that again. I can understand both trains of thought. In the unlikely event I was ever faced with that situation I like to think I'd be the angler who went to the pub, but until it happens I can't say for sure...
 
#21 ·
I feel that the only time that it is OK to name rivers is when there is a focus on a specific and/or chronic conservation issue ... and where the primary purpose of "naming names" is to raise awareness that applies pressure and/or results in action for a specific conservation concern. Emphasis on specific.

Generic throwaway statements in magazines and reports that state "the fish of this river are special and need to be conserved" do not meet the bar. If there isn't a conservation goal with an actionable outcome, then ...

 
#22 · (Edited)
If you look at my avatar to the left, It says:

"THE INTERNET.....
ruining fishing spots since 1999"

Does anyone even need to know the word DE LORME anymore?

Here's 2 stories, each one powerful; each showing the 2 edges.

First story:
My trips to northern michigan years ago were car drives that typically took me through quiet parts of the state at 2,3 4 am--- like most of us.

I wound up having some headlights behind me for the better part of a half hour on the interstate; this in itself is a bit odd; but as I subsequently exited to smaller roads, then a dirt county road, that same car continued... hmm curious........but got progressively closer. The whole time, I thought a cop was trying to bust me because of my out of state plates.

You can guess the rest.
This car was headed to and eventually come to park in the SAME little dirt lot access area I was. (for you experienced MI anglers, this was the "9 mile" access)

I left the car running and as I half-heartedly started to gear up, the 'good morning' pleasantries ensued, and the fellows (3 of them) had heard there was a push of fish in the lower river the other day, ---from the steelheadsite.com. The site was great in some ways, bad in others. I also am friends today with the dude that started that site and he also agrees --that when it comes to internet discussions, freedom isn't free......lol
So thats one edge of the sword that sucked.


It felt worse than getting low holed.worse than having to sprint through the woods in the dark with my headlamp on in some paranoid fit of getting beat to a favorite spot. Worse than having someone drop in above you and push you downstream in haste.

Those headlights. just. would. not. leave! Following, following.

True story.

Heres the opposite edge:

I personally admit to using the internet *heavily* for the sole purpose of PR. Drawing attention to an ecological matter as others have said. 2 individuals on this site (thanks AKFLY and Boozer)contributed time and effort and were instrumental in raising awareness locally and with a city council who had the fate of a river's defunct dam in its hands. Andy helped me hand out DVDs and flyers visiting people door to door back then. Kory spoke up to the locals he encountered; sharing his perspective. And over time, this cause swelled up; came to bear and the quality of the river is being improved, a dam is slated for removal, and it will open up a big juicy area of habitat and tiny cold water spring creeks in a river that was never planted---but found a way to make naturally reproducing steelhead. Im not taking credit----the point is the internet did reach and get people together and what we participated in was the equivalent of a small spark or striking a match. I Saw it first hand for real at a presentation I did at a local library that was packed. So the rest happened by sheer momentum, some luck and getting some committed DNR & environmental expertise by good smart biologists and land planners a curious audience.

Now that the river is slated to be restored/improved to its natural state, I revert to not posting on it by name any longer.

so there's my "2 edged sword" experience.
 
#25 ·
If you're not going to name a place, then don't write about the place, write about whatever else you're doing, the flies, the swing, the fish, etc.

If a writer is going to start naming and directing folks to a little hole that cannot handle the traffic and generally ruin a place, then they need to be called out and find another profession, because they really don't get it in the end.
 
#26 ·
None of this would be a problem if attractive fishing venues were intensively managed with expensive use fees.

But North American anglers really insist on Open Access. How they square that with being so-called 'Conservationists' is an interesting question. The current approach strikes me as very anti-ecological.

In the meantime, expensive air, boat and road travel are often the principle determinants of angling quality. Emit more carbon and find better fishing.
 
#30 ·
@Scandiman, You asked how I can recognize places I have never been to or fished.

Anglers love to brag and boast. Signaling status and virtue are apparent motivators. With the world-wide web, there are lots of photos and videos available. In my case, this flood of modern information comes on top of reading angling magazines since 1968.

Then there are others who take and post photos and videos. Kayakers, white water enthusiasts, hikers, birders. Hunters less so.

Absent that 'help', some knowledge of geology, terrain and eco-systems can provide helpful hints. One of the things I look for is water colour. Is it clear? Tannin-stained? Glacial silt opaque?

These days it is possible to 'read' rivers off satellite images. I have. Why would others not be able to do that?

The world has become increasingly smaller. North American anglers seem to have considerable trouble coping with the notion of 'finite resources'. For the true conservationists there is always the option of longer road trips, jet sleds or air travel. As a general rule, the more carbon that is emitted, the better the angling.
 
#32 ·
That is a Great Lakes tributary stream evidenced by the velocity of flow and the well eroded Devonian era sandstone bedrock exposed as an out cropping of boulders on the left of frame. I might guess whether it is a north or south shore river if I knew what time of day the photo was taken :)

How'd I do? Remember we are talking steelhead flows so not fair if that's located in the TVA...…….
 
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