I read Western Outdoors: chicks in bikinis catching tuna in Baha....what's not to like? Plus good Pac NW & AK stuff.

But, then, I'm kinda a salty guy...

"Shorter articles?" The reason that I prefer SSJ to STS is that they have more in depth articles. The ones that wanted shorter articles must have short attention spans, like F&H news, and are worried that STS might give away too much info on their fav zipperlip. I don't really care how many ads are in a rag. I do care about the article content. I do agree with Merg in that the latest issue is a bit lame and light on relavant content.

( a bow) a man that can speak better than I. Thank you

Dont get me wrong either. I love dave Vedder. Without being gay or blowing sunshine up anybodys butts. His books are very informal and I love his approach on every subject i have read on. i have read many of his books and he has helped me become a better float fisherman by far. But i love a good discussion. dave made very valid points. I was only stating that as an affiliate of STS he probably has a biased opinion. As a reader of many years i have a totally different point of view on the subject. I probably could have said it alot better than i did . i meant no disrespect to anyone. Like i said before ( tear in eye) i love all you guys. i honestly do. Even Myrens. i love peoples point of view because it helps shape my opinions on everything. it makes me think about daily issues rather than just go along with the flow.

Thank you every one. Be rude, tell me like it is and i will continue to love all of you.
and i hope that no one thinks that i mean any harm or disrespect in my comments. Especially Dave Vedder its all in the fun of discussing.

Merge: I love you too man. Hey, is that the last beer . . ?

Don't worry bout my skin. It's pretty tough. I just wanted to help those who are interested see how the magazine business works. I have written form more than 20 magazines and to my knowledge they all work roughly the same way.

It's really pretty simple. To stay in business a magazine must have ads. To sell ads they must have readers. To keep readers they must provide the content readers want. That’s why STS and most others spend big $$ doing readers surveys to find out what readers want. Problem is some want to where to, some want how to, some want adventure articles, some want longer pieces some want shorter. They do their best to provide what they believe the majority wants.

I can tell you that a letter to the editor will carry a good bit of weight. If any magazine gets a lot of letters saying to do more of this or less of that they will try to respond.

Hope it helped.

Will do thanks, Mr. Vedder

Gawd, I hope we're done talking about this!

I totally agree with Merg, the magazine has become far to plastered with ads.
BUT, my main beef is the pathetic articles found within.
Do we really need more stories on how to pay a person to take you to a river loaded with steel, and the writers amazing talents at catching these stacked fish, c'mon, might as well have the guide write the story as HE found the fish.

Anyone here actually built and used a dreel ??, other than Vhack.

The content has hit the toilet, rehashed articles, rehashed pics, too many ads.

As a very long time subscriber I am very let down by the magzine, obviously the editor needs to review the articles and content better or the mag will suffer.

If a good alternative comes along, readers will jump ship very quickly , with the way things are now.
SSJ could be the mag if they really use what readers want as a basis for their mag.
What ever happened to good quality fishing adventure stories, with interesting turns of events or possibly actions used by anglers to achieve success.
Most stories now are actually just glorified adds for a particular fishery, such as the never ending Alaska stuff.
Does Alaska have big Kings, Holy F , I never would have guessed.

As for Dave V's comments regarding the need for advertising, although partially true, without readership they are useless, no one buys the mag for adds, shitty stories will be the end of the ability to advertise.

I recently had a few guys who post on this site come up for an angling vacation to chase fall steelhead, one of the main things we did in the evening while tying jigs, was have a hell of a time ripping STS and their recent issues and much of recent years content. It was great humor, but behind it was the demise of the best fishing mag I've ever collected.

The fact I seldom look back on recent issues says alot, and I find myself browsing older issues as they are quite full of great articles.

I would rather read a article not so well written by a great fisherman, than a trash article written by a "GOODWRITER".

A mag that can be read in 10 minutes is as useless as a book that can be read in half an hour, because it's full of the same ol crapo as the last one, yes that was a rip.

If I could buy STS without the ads, I'd pay something extra!!!! I basically HATE ads.....its part of the reason that my cable TV bill includes HBO and Encore........no Ads!!!!!!!.

I'm probably 1 of the world's "best channel flippers", flip, flip, flip ...to get away from the ads.......Really burns by butt to flip channels only to have more ads, there.......grrrrrrrrrrrr

Love Comcast......if you wear out a remote control, they give you another!!!!!