We’ll be highlighting our Facebook page of the Week regularly (or whenever we get around to it). Here’s #1 in a series. Collect ‘em all — and don’t forget to join up!
Nature photography, at least in my book, should have the capacity to shock and amaze the viewer. Not in a Jerry Springer-ish fashion, mind you, but in a more vicarious thrill-of-the-wilds-from-your-desk type of experience. Wildlife photos should elicit some variety of atavistic rumblings deep in the medulla oblongata, a brief spark of urge and instinct that bounces around in your refined, upright-and-well-groomed hominid skull.
While I am not suggesting that you build a campfire, draw crude pictures of animals on your cubicle wall, and drag the boss’s secretary around by the hair, I will suggest that you take a look at the work of Alan Corbett. Former Barrister, ex-tropical dive guide, now professional photographer and bear guide, Alan has travelled the length and breadth of Alaska to photograph the natural world. Having discovered flyfishing within the last few years, I am willing to bet that we will see some awesome fish photos from this guy pretty soon.
Give him a look-see at alancorbett.com and drop him a line if you like his work, want to take him fishing, or just need to know how to make a bitchin’ curry and naan bread dinner.
This sort of douchebaggery should be painful.
You watch, some Saturday afternoon humanity will be wiped out by ridiculous alien invaders, and it WON’T be because they want our planet or our women or our precious bodily fluids, oh no. It’ll be because we’re bigger jackasses than them. Nice going, Skeeter.
From Monday’s Anchorage Daily News comes this fine tidbit:
SOUTHWEST ALASKA — The nation’s second-largest jewelry retailer on Tuesday
joined the opposition to development of a gold and copper prospect in Southwest
Alaska.
Zale Corp. said it will boycott precious metals from the Pebble prospect if it
becomes a mine. Zale also said it supports permanently protecting the Bristol Bay
watershed from large-scale metals mining. Pebble is situated near the headwaters
of two of Bristol Bay’s salmon-spawning rivers. Five Bristol Bay rivers collectively
support the world’s largest wild-sockeye salmon fishery.
The Texas-based jewelry giant has 1,930 stores in the United States, Canada and
Puerto Rico.
Conservation group Earthworks and partners have now enlisted more than 30
jewelers to oppose Pebble development.
Canada’s Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. and London-based Anglo American
have formed the Pebble Partnership to work the Pebble prospect. John Shively,
chief executive of the partnership, said Zale coming out against Pebble is
nothing more than a meaningless publicity stunt.
“It is pretty easy for a company to come out against buying gold that doesn’t
exist at this point,” he said. “We are years away from construction. The
people managing that company now will probably be gone. Big deal.”
Field & Stream has picked up the “big deal” comment and run, but
(surprise, surprise) the Hook n’ Bullet crowd that comments over there has
somehow figured out how to turn it into a political condemnation – as if this issue
didn’t exist prior to 2008. Amazingly enough, the comments at ADN are
startlingly lucid.
Apparently, Shively couldn’t handle the pressure of not being an asshole in the
same league as Gail Phillips and Bruce Jenkins.
Be careful what you wish for, John…
Warning: The following contains subjective opinion, biased findings and unscientific surveys.
TC at the Trout Underground has a pretty good analysis on the direction of the FF industry is taking; namely moving away, at least partially, from the exclusive dealer network and towards a direct sales model. Obviously, the brick and mortar fly shop can get hurt badly by this, or it can adapt and differentiate itself by offering service. Yes, service, that lip serviced word that gets bandied about in any industry, but so often gets shuttled to the background.
Although poor customer service can happen in any industry, the FF online retailer seems to have taken the idea to a whole new level. Outside of a few “big” names like Patagonia and Feather Craft, the idea of serving your customers seems to be lacking. I will say that this is based purely on my limited experience and I know you’ll chime in about the totally kick ass service you’ve gotten from a mom and pop and you know what? Post that in the comments because companies that “get it” deserve support.
Here’s just an example of what I mean. I placed an order in September 2008 with company XYZ (I’m leaving them anonymous just to cut down on the fan boy BS) for an “upgrade” part that they are the sole source for. Their website looks circa 1998 and the online ordering system is a form like what you’d fill out for mail or fax orders. So I submit the form and have to wait for them to call me for my credit card info (yes, it was 2008 and they were using a non-secure web sales mechanism). So I wait about 2 weeks, and then I call them to find out what’s going on. Long story short, 5 days of phone tag reveals they lost my order, but they were sold out of inventory anyway (there was no back order or out of stock notice on the web page) and now I’m back ordered until they get another 100 orders in to make a production run. 6 months later, the part appears on my doorstep.
I’d like to say that it was a one time thing, but I’ve had enough other dealings with different vendors to determine that the prevailing industry beliefs are that a) They still aren’t sure this internet thing is here to stay, b) “customers” will always be around c) what do we have to worry about? That’s the perfect recipe for going out of business, even in so called “good times”, never mind the here and now when what used to be fun money is put back and not spent. By way of contrast, I ordered some motorcycle stuff from Lowbrow Customs, which is a two to three man operation. I placed my order online at 3 pm, and at 3:30 I had a tracking number for the box that just left their shop. I was blown away by that since I’m so used to 3 day waits for order confirmation and then 2 weeks to ship.
Anecdotally, I’ve heard similar horror stories from FF shops about manufacturers cocking up stocking orders, etc, so the problem is probably broader than just web based sales, but it doesn’t bode well for the future if the direct sales model becomes dominant. A couple of companies do it right, some are just plain horrible but the majority falls into the wasteland of the undifferentiated middle, which is a bad place to be. A company with piss poor customer service can get away with it if they are the sole source for a particular item that is “in demand” although I wouldn’t count on it as a long term success strategy.
The company that is hit or miss isn’t doing much to pull away from the pack and will probably be the one to lose out on the great migration to direct sales. It doesn’t take a lot to move ahead though when the competition is so bad- link your inventory system to your web sales software so that back orders are known up front, confirm an order within an hour and ship within 24 hours. If you can do that, congrats, you’re almost a top tier retailer in the FF industry. Couple that with answering the phone and not taking customers for granted and you have truly differentiated yourself.
Over to you in the comments
“Just as I started going over the next wave I saw something jump just off to the side of me, and sort of had to clench me bum cheeks for a few seconds and then I looked at it again and it was a dolphin comin’ up outta the water. Apparently there’s supposed to be no sharks where there’s dolphins but we soon proved that myff wrong…”
Update 1: The web forum, driftlesstroutanglers.com, is not coordinating the push to overturn the regs; it was the forum members listed below who were using a sub forum of the main board. The forum itself isn’t behind the push. Just putting this out there so the owners / mods of the board don’t get harassed.
Update 2: High internets drama over who backs what and who owns what. Forget the handbag fight and focus on the importance of defeating this measure. The info from Hap is that these DNR votes can be won by very few votes. The initial vote to strip blue ribbon stream designation passed by only 200 votes and the overturning vote two years ago passed by 700 votes. Those are statewide numbers. The important fact is that you have to be present at the DNR meeting to cast a vote.
This just came over the transom from Buster pal Hap. This is nothing we haven’t seen before- twisting facts, assuming a position that sounds “great” but is really designed to either settle some personal vendettas or line one’s own pockets. Fucking great:
Three years ago a small group of local ill informed agitators managed to have a five mile C&R section of a Wisconsin blue ribbon stream removed through the Conservation Congress voting process. Two years ago the vote was effectively overturned in the same Conservation Congress voting process and the vote was ignored by the state. This has emboldened the parties and they are now attempting to organize on a state wide basis the repeal of the early season catch & release season making it catch and kill and impose a single statewide regulation for all the waters in the state.
The online center of this activity is a new fishing forum located at: http://www.driftlesstroutanglers.com
The regulations thread is located at: http://www.driftlesstroutanglers.com/yaf….-Proposals.aspx
The principals behind this new board are:
LenH – Len Harris – you all know who he is. In case you don’t, he is a universally acknowledged asshole on the Drake Board, which is quite an achievement.
Mark Dahlquist – fishing protege of Len Harris
Sage2 – Roger Kerr, a former WDNR Land Agent that was forced to retire or be fired in the late 90s and has spent the last 15 years organizing fisherman against enlightened management policies.
Not sure what to do yet as the Conservation Congress and vote is a week from tonight, but thought this might be of interest to you all.
From this morning’s inbox:
“Wondering if you’re in a position to go to BC with us…. We’re leaving tomorrow or Wed for two weeks….”
Does my staying at home and tending to “responsibilities” mean I’ve got a mangina?
Make an assessment.
…And brown of flipper.
Photo courtesy of a cool chick in the Wildlife Dept. at ADF&G
Whaddya think the big Bull on the left side is saying?
“Ah crap, Alice…there goes the Neighborhood.”
