With April now upon us, spring stripers are appearing in new areas every day, Opening Day of trout season has come and gone and many species are now active and willing to strike a variety of lures or baits in both fresh and salt water. This translates to more anglers getting out of the house, shedding the cobwebs, working on their boats, prepping their kayaks and flushing the spiders out of their waders. As fishermen, an urge sets in that we can’t ignore, spring weather evokes memories of past fishing experiences and reminds us all that there are a multitude of species that are – almost certain to be – biting well.
This also means a steep increase in the opportunity to capture your catches and experiences in the form of a photograph. These days, a large percentage of us rush to post our photos on whatever social media platform we might prefer. And once that’s done they just sit there on our, ever-expanding, camera roll in our iPhones and Androids where they serve as occasional scrolling reminders of a great day spent fishing. I’m writing this editorial to inspire you to do more with these memorable photos!
Here at The Fisherman Magazine, we take special pride in featuring the catches and experiences of our readers and their families and friends. Our job is to show how enjoyable the outdoors and fishing is and how important it is that we make regular time to get out there and do just that. From the standpoint of an editor, reader photos do so much to make the magazine feel more complete, our Reader Galleries and ‘report section’ photos inspire our readers to get out there and fish. And I feel that this is the core function of my job, to inspire as many people as possible to get out of the house, catch some fish and take some pictures to record their day.
And there are a multitude of reasons to send these photos in to us. As previously mentioned, you’re very likely to find your photo in a Reader Gallery or in the reports section. If your photo illustrates a particular method or captures the essence of targeting a certain species, you may find your photo in an article. If your photos is particularly clear and well-composed, you may be surprised to find your photo on one of our digital or even print covers.
Some of the keys to having your images used in articles or on the cover is to compose your shots, think about the background and lighting. For instance, if there’s a garbage can in the background, ask your subject to move before hitting the shutter button. If the sun is behind your subject, use the flash to fill in the shadows or turn them so the sun is illuminating your subject and their fish before shooting the pic. It’s also of the utmost importance to send your photos in ‘full resolution’ – do not resize them, do not compress them. The bigger the better.
Timely photos are also likely to find themselves in our New England Fishing Forecast videos that drop every Thursday on YouTube. So make sure to send them in soon after taking the shot and feel free to provide a report to go along with it. And make sure to specify that you’d like your photo to be entered in one of our photo contests, I give away handmade lures several times during the season to anglers that send in great fishing photos.
One surefire to have your photos featured in the magazine is capture images of children enjoying our great sport. With tablets, phones and social media stealing so much of our children’s free time these days, photos of kids getting out to fish have become increasingly rare, but we hope that featuring as many kids as we can in the magazine and online will inspire more young anglers to get out there and enjoy what the outside world has to offer. You only get one childhood and we don’t want to see them wasted sitting on the couch with headphones blocking out the sounds of reality.
Email your photos to [email protected] or text them to 203-417-4831.
