Our good friend Ian Anderson recently launched a new site called Warmwater Chronicles. I asked Ian to send over some info on the new site and here it is:
Warmwater Chronicles went live on May 1st of 2012. It was created to fulfill two needs that the creators felt are lacking in today’s major fly fishing publications (online and in print). The first need is to have more fly fishing information available that is specifically directed at warmwater species. The second is to develop a resource for the average person to have their articles, photos, flies, techniques and stories published to share specific information concerning what is “out their backdoor”.
So, that is the formal/official version of what Warmwater Chronicles is all about. Let me explain how this came about this past winter and it will help shed some light on the concept.
In the past few years I (Ian Anderson) have become more and more acquainted with the other two gentlemen in this project. John (Jr.) Burke and Cecil (Ragin’ Cajun) Guidry have done a number of things for the fly shop I work at; FlyMasters of Indianapolis. They have done fly tying classes, cooking at our annual Crawdad RoundUp, tying demonstrations in the shop and at the Boat, Sport and Travel Show. Thus, we already knew each other.
About Mid-March of this year (2012) Jr. happened to come in the shop one day and mention that he and Cecil were commiserating about how little warmwater fly fishing information there is out in the major fly fishing media. “It’s all trout, steelhead and salmon and we don’t have any of that crap around here”, was the gist of it. Having grown up in Northern Indiana and North Central Illinois I share the same sentiments.
“Cecil and I were talking about starting our own online magazine called Smallmouth Chronicles. It would only be about warmwater fly fishing.” Jr. continued on.
“If that is the case, you need a name that states it is about warmwater fly fishing. How about Warmwater Chronicles?” I said jumping on that train of thought.
I told him I would be glad to get the website up and running, do videos, post things and even write articles, “but I’m not doing all of it”. I suggested that we pull together many of the people we know to submit articles, photos, videos and news and not set a fast pace in producing content. This way, we end up managing the content more than creating it.
Basically, that was the birth of Warmwater Chronicles. I hacked out a preliminary website and we had our first meeting. The basic ground rules and a “go live” date were set. One of the primary things that we will accomplish with this site is to allow anyone and everyone to submit articles, photos and videos for inclusion on Warmwater Chronicles. We are in the process of developing out the guidelines, forms and process for accomplishing this and hope to have it up and running by the end of the summer. As I mentioned, aside from being annoyed that the major publications, web.sites and fly fishing media seem to focus a disproportionate amount on coldwater fish it is also annoying that most of the places they talk about fishing are way far away from where we fish. I am certain many many fly fisherman and women fish ponds, lakes, creeks and rivers that never get mentioned anywhere and are looking for information pertaining to their “kind of fishing”.
The one thing that will set us apart from other websites that attempt to share this type of information is that we have a mindset of a “online magazine”. This means that the content submitted has to meet a certain level of quality in order for us to publish it. Not that we only accept content from people we know are good writers, photographers or videographers, we will certainly look at anything submitted. If it does not meet our standards we will attempt to work with the person that submitted it to make it more presentable. Our view is there is enough bad content out there concerning warmwater fly fishing. We want to add more quality content.
The last thing I can say about Warmwater Chronicles is that we do like to have a little “attitude” in our site. Especially when it comes to dealing with trouty people. Not that we have anything against trout fishing. We love it. Our view is simple, there is much more to fly fishing than just trout. So, with a jab at the coldwater stuff we push the boundaries and information out there to enlighten everyone as to all the opportunities there are in warmer waters.
So, far it has been VERY well received.
