Indianapolis Star's Fishing Coverage

[Slowretrieve]

Don't you wonder why the coverage of the piscatorial sports in the Hoosier State is so lame? Not only is it shallow coverage, it appears only occasionally, and as a writer, Skip Hess probably better suited to the obituary page. Pick up a Sunday paper from Chicago, Louisville or Columbus, Ohio and you will see what I mean. The reading interests of Hoosier sportsmen are being ignored, and I believe it is time the Star tried to do better in that arena. There are papers in Greenfield, Fort Wayne, South Bend and Evansville that offer blroader and more interesting coverage of fishing interests that the Star. What gives? It is not like nothing is happening in that arena.

[lov2fish]

I think coverage is terrible. I have done a few articles with Skip. He is a free lance writer and not an employee of the Star. I have often thought about starting a rag for Indiana, a serious rag not one of those peices of sh*t we have now. Ever pickup Indiana Game & Fish :( I know plenty of people in the fishing world to make quite a nice rag. I would just have to get the sponsors in order, which I have a few since I have contiplated this scenario before and went as far as getting printing cost figured out. I am just not sure how well it would be received in our state.


Ray Rigby

[Roothead]

I'll second the thought about the Outdoors coverage in the Indianapolis Star. I've called a few times with relevant stories for Central Indiana and have gotten no return call or e-mail. Seems like the outdoorsmen are forgotten here. Yet we're thriving and still doing our thing!

[Slowretrieve]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Apr-19-06 AT 07:34AM (EST)[/font][p]If the message boards are any indicator of general interest, I'd say it would be well received. I used to subscribe to Game & Fish, but after a time I found the writing too standardized. The stories are predictable, and the same ones seem to come around seasonally. If you look at their publication as a whole, you notice that they write virtually the same story for every state they appear to represent. It is sad. Bowling gets better coverage. I believe if there was an informative, accurate rag on the shelf at the bait shop, it would probably be read. The sponsorship might even pay for it.

[Celten]

Well, if anybody on here wants to start such a publication, I've been an editor for the past thirteen-plus years. :)
(I haven't posted much at all on here, but I've been checking out the posts for the past couple of years.)

[lov2fish]

Louis, please e-mail me, I am very interested. I have quite a few contacts and a ton of really nice and well written articles I have been sitting on for some time :) I was just waiting to put them to use!!!


Ray Rigby
[email protected]

[OldMcDonald]

From the looks of things the Indianapolis Star must of listened to everyones complaints about the fishing reports.
They now have up-dated fishing reports in the Sunday edition of the newspaper.
I'm very impressed !!!!!

[Moose1am]

I need to find out if I can read the Indianapolis Star online? What's the web address of that paper? Do I need to register there as well to be able to read that paper online?


Regards,

Moose1am

[HoosierDon]

If anyone thinks the fishing coverage in the Evansville Courier is better than the Star then you had better look again. This time of year there are usually two outdoor stories in the Sunday edition ONLY and one of those will about hunting. This last week one was about turkey hunting and the other was about the writers daughter getting a new fishing rod to fish with some of her friends at IU. They will give a fishing report but they don't amount to much. As far as bass fishing is concerned there is very little mention. More about catfish, crappie and bluegill.

[TI]

Moose,

www.indystar.com and there is no registration.

TI

[Topwater2004]

It has to be better than the Terre Haute Tribune's Outdoor article.

You never even know if they are going to put one in on Sunday, then it is almost always about turkey hunting. In January, turkey hunting. In August, turkey hunting.

topwater

[Moose1am]

Don is right about the outdoor articles in the Evansville Courier Paper. I don't know about the Indianapolis Star but would think that it would have more coverage than Evansville's paper since INDY has such a much larger population. After all INDY is closer to Brookville and Eagle Creek as well as Lake Monroe, Indiana's largest reservoir.

Phil Potter and Steve Ford are the two outdoor writers and Steve in not writing articles all the time. We get one or two outdoor articles each Sunday.

Once in a while the paper's writers interviews a bait shop owner who tries to tell us what's going on. But the owner is not fishing and only talking to fishermen who come in to by minnows and live bait. That's probably why he only tells Phil and Steve about the crappie, sauger and catfish results. Not many bass fishermen are in the bait shop buying live bait. Most reports are old. For example the local paper is writing articles about the hot crappie fishing based on what I told the DNR survey guy, Alan Jones, two years ago. Not sure anyone has talked to Dan Carnahan of the District 7 DNR office out of Sugar Ridge. He is the one that will know more about the fish populations in Southern IN as he is the only fishery biologist working this area. Well he does have some helpers that work with DNR. Or they could talk to the DNR property manager of Hovey or Sugar Ridge.

I don't turkey hunt ...yet. But if the turkey populations grow I may get a shotgun and join them in the pursuit of wild turkey.

The article that Steve Wrote about his daughter wanting to get a fishing rod and reel was interesting. I like to see the woman getting into the outdoors and especially like to see them out fishing.

Phil wrote a very good article about preserving the environment and protecting the fish that we all like to chase. He surprised me with that article. I ran into one of the old outdoor TV personalities at Dick's Sporting Goods Store last week and even he said he was surprised that Phil wrote that article. But when you really think about it, protecting the environment is a win win situation. Reducing the amount of mercury emissions helps protect the waters and the creatures that make those waters their homes. It also protects the children and wives of the fisherman that fish for supper. That to me is a good thing.

Protecting the wildlife's HABITAT should be a priority for all outdoors people.

I would really like to see more articles of this type in all the newspapers. Maybe someday the editors will wake up and realize that there is more to live than building another parking garage or trying to bring people to the downtown. Maybe someday they will finally realize that Downtown died back in the 1960's when the shopping malls were first built and the downtown will never recover.

Regards,

Moose1am