So far I have only written 3 articles, and whilst all the pics were reflective of the topic they were not taken on the same day unless the article was a "fishing report" type article. The first one I wrote was about how to run your own mini fishing comp and all the pics were taken on the day of the comp as that was reflective of the topic. However in the next article which was more about being adaptable to the circumstances I used several shots from a trip Adam and I did together where the photo's reflected what it was I was trying to get across, but I also used a few pics from ages ago that depicted the point I was making about jigging for Dhuies and other jig takers off metro waters.
Where I think your parents are spot on though is that there a few "questionable" shots that I have seen in various mags where an angler crouches in his boat to take a pic of a fish caught on some new soft plastic, but the pic is poorly framed and you can see the reflection of his garage in his sunnies and trees and branches over his shoulder. The pic is an obvious set up, using a long dead fish back in his driveway with a soft plastic creatively placed in its gob to make it look like it was caught on plastic. Now the interesting thing is that that fish may well have been caught in such a way, but the blatant fake set up photo doesn't do the fish, the angler or the article justice. I figure if you can't get the shot on the boat or on the beach etc never try to doctor it up to make it look like it was something else. It only serves to create fodder for those that think like your folks do and that is that "there's no way that guy caught that fish on that home made popper" or whatever.
I think that in this day and age where marketing dollars play a big part in magazine and television program content there must be a huge amount of pressure on the guys onscreen or regularly writing articles to feature the latest and greatest product of the sponsor, just ask Flywest, who is by far the most experienced "pro fisho" amongst us. He has seen plenty of sinnanigans going on over the years.
I don't know any of the other guys that write for any of the mags so I can't comment on their ethics, I just know that they would be pretty short sighted and stupid if they thought they could get away with decieving the public. Sooner or later they will be caught out and when they do their reputations would be shattered. Adam and I have had a few conversations about this topic and I think we both agree that the more you are in the public eye the more careful you have to be of how you handle a fish, how long you leave it out of the water before releasing it, how you hold your rod while you fight a fish etc etc. The public out there likes nothing better than to pick the faults in things we see on TV, in magazines and on web sites. You only have to go back a few months on this very web site to see several attacks on anglers for various handling techniques, rod holding techniques etc etc. So I think all the mag writers are very much aware of the critical eye that joe public casts over their work (remember the infamous Dhuie article in FWA) and if they are not aware they soon will be after making one such mistake. So in that respect I think that the evidence points to a very small percentage of "dubious" articles due to the ramifications of being found out.
The other thing you have to consider is that when you send in an article for a magizine you generally send up to 10 photo's with the story, the editor may only choose 4 or 5 of them, due to space, format etc, so whilst you might have labelled one pic as one thing the editor may choose to have it support something else from your article, or indeed someone elses article alltogether. It probably does happen, but the trick is to take away from the article as much knowledge as you can. Worst case scenario is that the article inspires you to try something different and whilst it may not work for you everytime, you just might catch a few more fish in the process. That's how I see it. And for the record Jay, all my pics are legit, ecxept where I have photoshopped them to make Adam's fish look bigger than mine. (Hehehehe)

I would say it depends on the author and the article.

Foor example - many great photo journalists keep a library of images from trips that might not get published, initially from a certain trip.

Now when writing a "how too" article (or book) they might resport to using unpublished images from previous trips, to fill out the article with things described, or fish species mentioned...

Then again....some writers who are trying hard to make a living with publishing articles might resort to such tricks as you describe..

I well recall many many years ago I got interested in hunting and guns & eventually deer hunting. I used to buy and keep many many years worth of Aussie Hunting and firearms magazines, and read every word I could find of one particular prolific author of the era.

On a trip to Tasmania hunting deer a couple locals commented about the strange behaviour of this individual author during a hunt where he was lucky (good) enough to bag a nice buck (Stag as the Taswegians call a fallow buck). According to the story, it was photographed about 100 times until rigor mortice had set in - the guy dragged out a weeks worth of various sponsors clothes & hats and about a dozen different rifles - and was photographed in about 100 different locations with the same buck wearing different clothes and a different gun each time!

Well - I thought this sounded a bit fishy - but kept the comments to myself and over the following years took up deer farming myself, and continued to get said magazines...

One thing I learned after 20 years farming deer is that, like chinese people - they don't all look alike! They all have their own individual unique patterns, colourations, facial features etc and even their antlers each year are unique...(I still have a box of antlers from same and different deer all unique even from left to right!).

After a while - you learn to recognise "individuals".....by their features the same as we can recognise our friends in a crowd by how they look!

Well - as I used to sort thru these old hunting magazines giving advice to fledgling hunters on firearms etc etc - I did start to notice a few "deer" on covershots - sometimes up to 5 years apart - from this one author, that seemed strangeley "similar" in appearance...

So I studied them up close with a magnifying glass and started circling "unique features" of the animal, with red biro and putting the two photo's alongside each other from mags up to 5 years or more apart in publishing date and sure enough, the same animals started to appear in regular sequences.

Now a tyro, new to the game, might assume the guy shoots at least a dozen deer a year in oz to keep up with all the articles & photo's and covershots etc - but my research led me to believe thats not the case, maybe a quarter of those numbers and the rest as they say is "window dressing"!

The articles are produced to suit the sponsor, and published where they will achive certain predetermined outcomes..and yes the same animal is used over and over again, with diferent clothes & different rifles and different back grounds etc etc!

I think in something specialised like deer hunting a lack of deer and opportunity perhaps makes that impossible to avoid, but in fishing, maybe if theres enough fish available it is unnecessary!

However it is a VERY touchy subject..

Recently, for example...someone well respected published a covershot of a fish, & I recognised the vessel having fished on it for some weeks on a couple occasions - watched it being built even.

So I was having a chat to the skipper as occasionally I do, and he mentioned in passing how skittish the fish are getting now they have been caught & released on fly so often.....and that it had been necessary to "sweeten" the fly with a herring head inside the skirt to get the fish to come close enough for the actual in water photo!

Thats fair enough - I've seen em that skittish and know exactly what he meant - they caught good fish - they had the photo's to back it up - everyone who fishes there does, and they just wanted a good live fish photo in the water, so used whatever method was necessary, to get the shot. I don't see anthing intrinsically wrong with that! I've done as much myself to get a good pic in the past.

So I commented publicly what a nice cover pic it was, and privately - how hard it can be to get such shots without sweetening the fly since the fish are getting so spooky now!

Well - you would think I had put my hand on the queens butt cheek!:Rollseyes"..

I've had emails from the editor and the writer all denying any involvement with sweetened flys etc etc..suggesting I've somehow impugned their jouralistic and fishing integrity, for goodness sakes!
:more Rolls eyes:

So heres the dilemma...

I've known the Skipper maybe 15 years
I've knowm the writer Maybe 5 or 6 years!
Both are great guys.
However one at least ius thus a lier! (Or maybe both are)... ;o)

But the thing is, they would sooner attack me personally and puclicly - than admit they did what it took, to get a photo, - which I fully understood anyway, - to me there was nothing to defend in the first place!

So now - I am forced into a position of deciding which of the people involved, is the liar and why? I'd sooner not know to be honest!
I don't have a lot of respect for anyone involved in the incident to be frank...and not for what they did - but for how they deal with it!
I wasn't there and frankly I couldn't care less!

They were repeating something achieved by us 10 years beforehand anyway thats already been on TV a few times, it was old news and old hat and a couple guys seeking glory for something well past it's use by date IMHO.

When confronted with their own methods - they would sooner attack the messenger than admit to their methods!

Thats the trouble when you don't tell the truth - it has a habit a rearing up and biting you on the azz!

Hey - if ego's at the top of the industry are that fragile (and they are, believe me!) - they can go to hell in a handbasket kimosabi! as far as I'm concerned because, I frankly don't give a rats azz anymore!

That I guess makes me a little different to the average bear hey booboo! ;o)

But to question such thing publicly won't win you any friends - whether your right wrong or indifferent!

No names no packdrill!

There is only one difference for me, (from yourself perhaps) in that such delicate egos, can if they choose - use leverage with advertisers and publishers to deny you your right to free speech to say what you know (by having you banned for example from a website forum lets say!) :wink: and will go out of their way to spread malicious goosip about you far and wide, to further their own ends.

The danger however, for such people, is that these days I choose to have my OWN website and forums so I can say whatever I dammned well like, and the delicate ego's in the induistry can go flock with themselves, as far as I am concerned!

Cheers!

"Piscator, non solum piscator" - "A fisherman, not just a catcher of fish"

http://www.flywest.com.au

i dunno...its to hard to tell if they are lying or not...ive bin trying to put articles together, and i wouldnt think of lying in them. maybe the story was just to boring with out the lies lol..? neways i think i would rather remain gullible when i read articles..its more fun that way :D

Right-on Andy and Flywest.
If you live long enough and the three of us have I rekon, you realize that almost everyone will steal a yard if there is money or cred points in it for them.
I've witnessed cast deer antlers (collected from an international deer park by the staff and matched into pairs) being mounted by a top taxidermist onto a false head for wealthy clients.
Birdwatchers blindly stating that the rare bird the 100s of 'twitchers' are recording for their 'life-list' had flown, walked and eaten, when the damn thing was just a stuffed speciemen planted by a Ranger in the early hours.
Hotshot angling writers photographing a single speciemen fish from dozens of angles and in all sorts of various cloths, and later appearing in angling mags as different fish.
So-called journalists 'conning' charterboat owners into giving them a "free" holiday/trip/charter on the promise of some 'free' publicity.....which never appeared.
I've had photographs of fish I've caught, sold to magazines by photographers who were present at the weighing, and my own club being offer a donation for copies of the same photographs, and shots of marlin jumping on the line near my boat are at this moment publicising a guys charter operation up the coast.
If we get into record chasers I could fill a book, sufice to say I never met a captain yet who has sworn the record fish that was caught on his boat complied to the record rules 'exactly' as they were written.
Its the world we live in you young guns....forget it and just enjoy the fishing and your mates, thats what really matters after all.

Thanks for the words of wisdom Flywest and Andy, was a good read ;))

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Jay Burgess
jayburgess_14@hotmail.com

Mick B, I agree. Snake Oil has been sold since Noah and as human beings we love it. If you've got a good story tell it, embellish it and repeat it. True or false if it reels people in and they want to believe it its good for all involved.

No your arse doesn't look big in that!!!