10.01.23 Have fly fishing shows "Jumped the shark"?...

    For years there have been things I look forward to as fall turns into winter. One of them is The Fly Fishing Show. My first shows were in the early days in the 1990's when it was held, in what I think was the best place, Somerset. I know things can't go on forever and times change but there has been a craw in my jaw for years when it comes to what The Fly Fishing Show (TFFS) has become. 

     For many years TFFS was THE place to be, and it seemed like the Somerset show was THE one to make. Yes, the other shows got their due but Somerset was kind of the midpoint for exhibitors and attendees to meet in the middle. The New Englander's would come south, the PA folks east, and those from the south, like around the Chesapeake, would come north. For the Jersey and New York anglers it was a short ride, although in the good old days getting a room or bumming a corner in someone's room was routine. 

     Now to be fair, the world has changed. The good years were when we didn't have the internet, iPhones, GoPro's, drones, apps, and all the electronics you could ever imagine in order to find spots and fish. You had to do your homework. You came to the shows for a variety of reasons. For a lot of people and before fly tying shows creeped up it was a place to buy materials. If you needed gear then the big 

manufacturers were there to display and have you test out their stuff all the while local fly shops would offer them for sale. There was plenty of swag to buy, clothing, fly fishing themed stuff, books, hats, bags, wallets, and of course flies. You could pick up flies from your favorite tyers if they would part with or sell you one. You could also pick up in bulk cheap flies often tied by grammar school children in some fly tying mill from overseas. 

     Now I have bitched about TFFS for years, and maybe I do each year, but I'm just too tired to go back and look through to see if this is a cyclical thing. If it is, then I liken it to stopping to rubberneck at an accident scene. 

     And to be more fair, things, and people, are getting older. There might have been a heyday in fly tying and fishing, especially saltwater, and TFFS was the place to watch demos and presentations to learn more about one's building passion for the sport. And then there was the fly casting. You could watch masters of the cast empty their spools into the casting ponds. It was there you could wait your turn and put into your hands on the latest fly rods and try them out before you made an investment. But the legends are getting older, maybe have even passed on, and they just don't have the energy or interest to make the trip anymore. The casting pond still exists and is one of the few big draws to the shows. 

     Covid was the worst thing that could have happened to TFFS, and maybe many of the other convention type gatherings. People were concerned for their safety and shied away if the show wasn't cancelled altogether. It was also a time for companies and individuals to really assess if the weekend, or many weekends if they traveled around with the show, was a good investment in time and, more importantly, money. I think Covid gave many a pause and once it passed they just tapped out altogether. When one major company bailed, others followed. So the vendors have changed. When I saw the gutter guard type vendors there, along with the massage and insurance brokers, I knew things weren't looking good. Companies, including local fly shops, went from multi-booth spreads, down to just a single booth, or then just made a quiet exit stage left altogether. On the internet people would review the show and often you would read, "Where's Orvis, Simms, yada yada.....?". If the bigger companies weren't putting resources into the show than why should people go. 

     Each year people looked forward to catching up with old friends, look to having the chance to meet new friends, and maybe meet the movers and shakers in the industry. You could belly up to a booth, meet someone new, extend a hand, or a fist-bump during Covid, make a purchase and enjoy putting the face you read about or saw online into a solid meet and greet. I still go and do that, but it's now all booth oriented. Long gone are the days of hanging at the bar at the Edison show. I can remember waiting for Chuck's countdown to each day, knowing it was just a matter of time before the bar would be packed with the legends of the sport. It was there where the heart of the show took place. 

     Edison is a tad different. Large. A little confusing. Curtains and drapes separate the presentations. It's pretty much a enter, walk through, stop here and there and leave. I have found myself lingering around like a creeper waiting for something to happen or change. I think for me, and maybe lots of others, it has become a one day and done event. You could spend a few hours and be good. There are very few picky booths, the ones where you could really score some obscure tying stuff or things vendors just wanted to blow out and make room in their shops. Last year it looked like everyone was moving waders. There must have been 30,000 pairs all stacked up for sale. Unless you went there for waders then you most likely just scanned across the booths and moved on. And remember the rod collectors? It seemed some days everyone was walking around with a rod. Either one handmade or a model or two older then the latest and greatest. 

     The alcohol flowed pretty freely back in the day. Not that you needed alcohol to make it a great show. But the hooch at the booths, always away from the watchful eyes of show management, or at the bar or back in the rooms we used to reserve for the weekend made for some great hangs. When the bar hang was over it continued late into the night back at someones over capacity room in one of the hotels on Davidson Avenue. Now the hotels are a drive away. Kinda different than the old days. 

     So that brings me to this week. The cover shot to Jim Freda's article in Fly Fisherman magazine shows now TFFS president Ben Furmisky holding up a large fly rod striped bass. I remember years ago he could be seen at the fly fishing book booth, The Angling Bookstore. Now he is the President and CEO as his dad and founder Chuck has passed along the baton. Back in the day books were the shit, I'm not sure how it is now with Kindle and so much content available online. I am sure when legends like Popovic's pen a new book the sales must go very well. 

     After I saw that issue, which has a picture of the "tank" accompanying Jim's story, I received an email from TFFS. It was an invitation, or an order, to meet the deadline to submit your desire to be a presenter at the TFFS. That's kinda where the craw started to dig into my jaw. It's something that has bothered me for years. It's not just TFFS, so I don't want to discriminate, but any outlet where original content is recruited, used mostly for their own gain, and goes without compensation. I know I bitch and

and moan about this far too much, sorry, "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to". I see that all I would have to do is; " You provide an engaging and informative talk", oh, okay, that's all. They provide the space, screen and chairs. Do people really know what it takes to be a content provider, influencer ( I hate that word), photographer, author, or speaker? Let's just say I am going to do a talk on fly fishing for striped bass from the jetties. Let's just say that's my jam. Now if I've been part of TFFS in the past I may have given that talk before, maybe even years ago. Back long ago film images or digital pictures of film images may have worked to illustrate a point. That may have included fishing in spots that no longer exist, or fish that really aren't around anymore. If someone saw my speal, and I haven't updated it to make it fresh, then why would someone do a revisit with me? In order to really present a topic well you have know it, fish it, capture it, and then present it. That takes months if not years. 

     To create content, even in something as simple as this blog forum, takes an incredible amount of time and energy, and cost. You have to be out there. You have to fish. You have to be up on the latest. And you have to document it and present it to the latest standard of acceptable delivery. Now, years back, a GoPro strapped to your chest or hat was the shit. Well, no longer is straight RAW footage of interest. The folks with the big money with the big backers have raised the bar so that posted videos now or the ones part of The Fly Fishing Film Tour are cinematic wonders some worthy of an Oscar. 

     I guess I could get sucked into the above statement from TFFS. It's a "chance to impress" where I "will likely book trips" or "sell a product" and will "absolutely make valuable new contacts and renew old ones" and the best "don't cost you a penny", well now the really bestest, "give you added exposure". Exposure? How about "..don't cost you a penny?", I bet you still have to pay the entrance fee, which is more expensive if you do it online before you go. (How that happens I really don't know.) Wow, where do I sign up? C'mon man. This is like people, obviously not in the mindset to make money in this business, who will offer content to others, like shows, clubs, magazines, for just a mention or a byline, which, makes the other party money. It's not, and shouldn't be awkward, to demand to be compensated, it's business. Big business. Let me tell my mortgage company that, while I don't have this months payment, I do have a lot of recent exposure, and have impressed a lot of people......

International Fly Tying Symposium 2023 seminar lineup

     Let's look at both The International Fly Tying Symposium and The Fly Fishing Show. Both are northeast shows. They are both held in New Jersey. We have a lot of people in the New York metro area, and if you add Philly, Boston, it's even more. And among those millions of people are fly anglers. The best and the brightest. Fishy ones, who fish. As far as fishing- we have world class fishing here. From the New Jersey salt, which, in my opinion, has eclipsed Montauk and is the best on the East Coast, to the Upper Delaware, where some may say that has Jumped the Shark, to the Great Lakes tribs, to New England's canals, okay Cape Cod Canal, and the islands off Massachusetts, or where ever sharks and seals haven't set up shop yet. There is a tremendous talent pool of anglers with incredible experience, insight, opinion, and CONTENT, that they could share which would make shows, in general, more current, relevant and, here you go, attended. These folks are draws, and could be big draws, if the right people just realized that and saw the value in them. They may then be smart enough to tap into this undiscovered resource. And yes, they would, and should, have to bust out the checkbook to take this whole thing in a different direction. 

     If you look at the upcoming shows you will see the same people talking about the same things pimping out the same stuff, at each show, in back to back years. Yes, some things never get old. Bobby tying up a Beast, Pat Cohen spinning deer hair (when he did), King, Taylor, Stryker, and Nelson at a vice in a booth or giving a talk. I'm sorry if I haven't included the tons of local and Catskill tying ladies and gentlemen. People, including me, will sit there year after year, even if they're wearing the same clothes, and saying the same exact thing. They are just a big draw. 

     If you look at the location of the show in New Jersey, you are talking about being like two miles from striped bass fishing. I'm just talking striped bass because that's my jam. You know at one time I was all about trout and the Upper Delaware. New Jersey and New York are surrounded by fishy striped bass waters, including the two big natal rivers in the Hudson and Delaware. Add to that Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland and Virginia and is there any other need to talk about any other fish? Well, of course, not everyone is into striped bass. But there is limited draw and presentations about the Upper Delaware and big lakes tribs and other fishy waters that we ply our efforts in pursuing. Trout, steelhead, salmon, pike, muskies, carp, snakeheads, smallmouths, even just some good old panfish. All within driving distance of the fly fishing shows. 

     As someone who tries, well lives like, and sees this passion through the eyes of an (The) average angler, the show misses that mark. Now, most people are struggling to survive, and new rods, waders, vices, guided trips, and boats are not on the families agenda nor in their bank accounts. While we all like to have an unlimited budget to feed this passion, most of us fish with what we have, in places we can freely access, and go when we can. We're talking DIY walk and wade fishing. Now, the thing that gets 

in the way of that, as far as presentations, is the spot burn, so there is a fine line between education and dissemination. As far as night fishing, like mousing the Upper Delaware, isn't just a thing, it's how a lot of people fish, because that is when the kids are asleep, they've already clocked out of work, and the wife, or husband, has granted them the go ahead. Where is that represented at the shows? 

     What is pimped, pushed and pedaled is the instant gratification of blitz or hatch type fishing that unfortunately we have become to accept as normal. There is still the big fish picture thing going on out there, but we have reduced those awkyard angles that produced giant sausage fingers wrapped around a fish looking images. Going fishing these days when the Hendricksons aren't coming off, or any other big draw hatch, or the peanuts aren't being pushed up onto the beach, and you'll find fishing participation is limited, like hardly anyone is fishing. When word of a bite hits the airwaves or whatever waves people pour out of the woodwork. How sad. How sad so many people have missed what this is all about. I know people are busy, but....

      Years and years ago I used to listen to Howard Stern, before he morphed into whatever he has become, and before he was granted immunity from all the things he said and did that offended people. He had a guest on regularly named Jon Hien. He penned the term "Jumped the Shark", which was in reference to an old episode on Happy Days. For you tots, Happy Days was an extremely popular TV 

show that ran from 1974-1984 starring Henry Winkler, who is, by chance, a fly fisherman. Anyway in one of the later episodes Fonzi, his character, water skiis his way across some body of water and jumps a shark. It was like the end of Happy Days. If this is what it had come down to, well then it's over, it had "Jumped the Shark". Hein would go on, and still does, voicing his opinion on everyone and everything that has reached it's maximum level of creativity and relevance. It's like just kicking a dead horse waiting for it's heart to re-start and get up. It's over Johnny. 

     There are a few expressions I use in my daily life. I guess it's things I say to other people. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut. But, "Stay in your lane", and "Know your audience" are things I say when people venture outside of their own space or out of their own and into other peoples lane. People who attend TFFS most likely, in good numbers, aren't going to book a trip to trout fish in Ireland, nor salmon on the Restigouche, not arapaima in South America, or even a $1,000 striped bass trip along the Jersey Shore. 

     This isn't the old rich white male Orvis crowd from years ago. While their money was and is good, it's not the heart of the sport anymore. Now when Orvis tried to tap into the young broke-ass trucker hat PBR drinking trout bum crowd they realized, well, they ain't got no money. So that means no H3's, no Mirage reels, no dog beds, and no destination trips for them. Now while targeting them may not be a good business move and revenue maker, outside of a few overpriced $29 trucker hats, TFFS has an incredible, well may have had, an incredible opportunity to expand their audience, attendance, and revenue by staying local, "average", by being current and relevant. 

So, I don't write this to be a keyboard tough guy. I go every year and will continue to do so. But my three days passes have become mostly an early Friday visit, grab, and go. I wish I would shut up or someone in the know who runs these kinda shows would read what I say and just tell me to shut the &$#@ up because I am wrong. Or, maybe they'd agree with me and see it all from a different perspective.

So the questions is, in your opinion, have fly fishing shows "Jumped the shark"?   

     This year the International Fly Tying Symposium will be held November 11-12 at the Double Tree Somerset Hotel and Conference Center, thank you Jesus, and The Fly Fishing Show January 26, 27, 28th, 2024 at the Expo Center in Edison.