By Kirk Deeter
Enough. Just… enough.
Madison Avenue has long been enamored with fly fishing, and ad agencies have been attaching everything from insurance, to pharmaceuticals to trucks and SUVs to fly fishing for decades. This, despite the fact that the “creatives” making those ads clearly know nothing about fly fishing and have likely never stepped anywhere near a trout stream let alone in one.
It’s one thing to snicker when you see an actor who cannot cast… or people using surf casting rods in a creek you can jump across… the cliché and dopey the fly-fishing attire… blow-up saltwater fish on river, and more. But now, there’s an epidemic of trucks and SUVs splashing through rivers. And that’s not funny, and it’s not cool. It’s showing the destruction of habitat and falsely connecting that to the sporting ideal.
And someone needs to call bullshit on that, on behalf of fly fishing.
Who?
Let’s start with AFFTA. If AFFTA’s charter is to support the sport of fly fishing, I think confronting a blatant misrepresentation of the sport—one that directly shows degradation of resources that make the sport possible in the first place—is a good place to start. Nobody is positioned to take the lead on this better than AFFTA.
All you manufacturers might pipe up and say something. If we were making ads with people running around and beating up on trucks with hammers, truck people would say something.
Trout Unlimited is offering a free ad in TROUT to the first truck company that shows a truck helping a river, not destroying it. We wanted to stay on the “high road.” So far, no takers.
Maybe if we sweeten the pot… maybe all you other fly-fishing media types will offer the same. A one-time pat on the back for one company that simply has the guts and foresight to do the right thing.
4 Comments
Amen, keep up the pressure.
AND……land Management Agencies at the Federal and State levels need to address this obvious slap in the Face of existing regulations that prohibit this type of messaging…..Its rampant and careless…. Perhaps TU can address, by objecting thru Political avenues and the CHIEFS of USDA and INTERIOR
Gee…I know, let’s pick a fight with the auto industry. First thing we do is get a lawyer and sue them.
Is there some possibility that we (as a community) could ADVISE them about what the image looks like and perhaps how we could help them with alternatives to PARKING in the rivers…..and, a slight possibility exists that there could be a partnership in there that could be good for all of us,
Finding the RIGHT fly is not always easy…but it is rewarding when it happens.
Right on, Deeter! The auto industry has been told about this since my days at Ikes. They don’t care to take friendly advice. Keep calling them out and offer, as TU has, the incentive to do better. With Chris on the AFFTA board, he has the voice and standing to ask for some action. Count on me to help.