Yes, sad.
However, I have to confess, I think I can only blame myself and folks who have behaved similarly.
I haven’t purchased a hunting or fishing magazine subscription in years and years. I bought couple of the trophy hunting mags. like Eastman’s and Trophy Hunter, etc. for a couple of years but haven’t even done that in many years.
As a young person I subscribed because I learned stuff about hunting and fishing from them. I read where sportsmen were going to catch fish and shoot different game. I read the articles about dogs, ducks, shotguns, and safaris, in far off places. I took imaginary trips to exotic places in the Amazon and Baffin Island.
I looked forward to the “This Happened To Me” story on Outdoor Life for years. My all time favorite was about a Black Lab that chased a fish down a ice fisherman’s hole.
Over the years it seemed like too many of the articles got into outdoor life politics (important, to be sure, but not as stimulating ). I grew older, I had many of my own experiences, that I drew knowledge from, and started to find some redundancy in the mags. I knew where to go, when to go, what I could afford and in general I owned what fishing gear, hunting equipment, and camping gear I needed. A lot of the articles I was no longer as interested in.
In the early 90’s the Internet started to capture my interest, when it came to searching for information. By the time the Web format came out in about 1994, I was spending almost all my reading time, reading online data, for both business and pleasure. Newspaper prescriptions expired and mags prescriptions expired. Not just outdoor mags, but all my mags prescriptions expired, from Mac World, and Wood Working through Arizona Highways and Western Horseman.
I had timely info, millions of photograph images to see and vastly broader subject matter and the amazing ability to have very specialized subject matter access...... nearly instantly. I could, as it were, wander the world of personal interest, with a simple push of a button.
The paper printed industry has taken a bullet through it’s heart. While I’m guilty of contributing to its decline I can’t say that is a good thing. When it’s gone, which it nearly is, I believe there will be some things we, as a human race, will loose. There seems, at least, to be some pretty significant value in tangible written information, which is another entirely larger discussion.
So, while I haven’t been contributing to the profit margins of these outdoor sports magazines for a long time, I believe, as a society, we are loosing a worthwhile industry. Not that I have the faintest idea how to preserve it, or even if we should..... but my gut tells me we’ll eventually wish we had.
RIP!