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The Fly Fisherman Magazine with Ross Purnell - Fly Fishing, Fly Tying and Travel
Season 7 Episode 333
Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/333
Presented By: Dette Flies, Angler's Coffee, Stonefly Nets, Zoe Angling Group
Sponsors: https://wetflyswing.com/sponsors
Ross Purnell, the Editor of the Fly Fisherman Magazine, shares how he fulfilled his childhood dream by filling in one of the most important roles at the publication. Find out who are the people that inspired him to fly fish and who mentored him to become a fly fishing writer.
Ross describes the process of creating content and how they come up with ideas for stories that make it to the magazine. We also discover who the top contributors are at FFM. Plus, Ross reveals the big topics they're going to feature in the next 2 issues this year.
Show Notes with Ross Purnell and The Fly Fisherman Magazine
03:15 - Jacques Cousteau was Ross's first hero. He used to watch Jacques' videos all the time when he was a kid. That made him become more interested in the underwater world.
04:00 - Tom Tietze was also a big fan of Jacques Cousteau - he was recently on the podcast at WFS 312
08:00 - Ross deal with 2 kinds of stories in the magazine
In most of the stories that run there, he's not personally involved. Somebody pitches him the story idea and he decides if it's a good fit - they write it, and he edits it. That's 95% of the content in the magazine. Someone calls him up and says "this is a great story or this has never been done". If it fits in the schedule and no other experts on the ground, he considers it.
09:40 - Domenick Swentosky was on the podcast at WFS 305. He's got a great blog that covers waters in Pennsylvania.
11:20 - Ross's mom bought him a subscription to fly fisherman magazine on his 16th birthday. He started reading stories from Lefty Kreh and Gary Borger. He also bought VHS tapes about fly fishing. That's how he learned to fly fish.
13:00 - Jim McLennan wrote for the Fly Fisherman Magazine. He owned the local fly shop in Canada where Ross lives. That became an inspiration for Ross to dream of writing for magazines.
16:30 - John Randolph, former Editor of Fly Fisherman Magazine, hired Ross in 1996. John interviewed Ross on the phone and Ross got assaulted. John used his other phone to call 911.
18:30 - In 2009, Ross became the new Editor of Fly Fisherman Magazine. He was mentored and groomed by John to fill in for the Editor role.
21:00 - Ross mentions the dedicated people that work on their magazine like their Art Director, Sales Rep, Digital Editor, etc.
22:25 - Ross describes how their process of writing articles looks like from the magazine to a digital version
23:45 - George Daniel recently wrote for the magazine about Euro Jigging and also has a video demonstration
27:45 - Ross describes their conscious effort to highlight other species aside from trout. They also highlight lesser-known waters so that people would get off crowded waters.
31:40 - John Randolph got Dave Whitlock to do the first printed story for carp fishing
32:20 - I recently ran into Oliver White at the IFTD - he was on the podcast back in March 2019 at WFS 069. Oliver has been writing for the FFM for years.
34:30 - Hilary Hutcheson has been the top contributor to the magazine for the past 3 years. Ross describes how pleasurable it is to work with her.
35:25 - George Daniel was on the podcast at WFS 055. George writes a lot of how-to stuff.
36:10 - Blane Chocklett is also one of FFM's top contributors.
37:10 - Landon Mayer does a lot of work
Published on 3 years, 6 months ago