Publication fills void left by magazine’s ‘death’

It wasn’t much to look at — much like a low-tech newspaper, in fact — but for many diehard fishing and hunting enthusiasts in this part of the country, the August demise of Fishing & Hunting News was like a death in the family.

For better than five decades the twice-monthly magazine had been detailing how and where the state’s sportsmen might enjoy fruitful fishing and hunting. For many of them, News correspondents like Leroy Ledeboer, Joel Shangle and, yes, Yakima’s own Rob Phillips were like buddies they’d never met.

Then Outdoor Empire Publishing announced the August edition would be the News’ last.

“We all knew we were for sale, but the shock was that nobody picked us up,” recalls Andy Walgamott, the News’ editor since 2004. “That magazine that had been out there for 54 years died on my watch.”

The impetus that drove it, though, didn’t die with it. A few weeks later, one of the News’ advertising reps, Mike Smith, e-mailed Walgamott with a suggestion: Talk to Jim Baker, who heads up Media Index Publishing, which publishes a wide range of consumer and trade magazines, from Sports Northwest to Washington Film Magazine.

Walgamott called Baker and talked over some ideas. The next day he had what amounted to a job offer. A new magazine, with Walgamott at the helm and written largely by those familiar F&H News correspondents, was born. The first edition came out last week.

The name: Northwest Sportsman, coincidentally the same name as Rob Phillips’ column in the Herald-Republic. (Phillips will also be a regular contributor to the magazine, as he was with the News.) The name also pays homage to The Northwest Sportsman, a 1930s publication put out by Ken McLeod, generally considered the founding father of the state’s game department.

The new magazine has a totally different look — glossy, lots of full-color photos — but much the same content as the News.

“We’re definitely looking to tell guys where to go this month, the best places in that area, and what to do, whether it’s side-drifting for steelhead or sitting on a saddle waiting for muledeer to come through,” Walgamott says. “It’s the same basic idea: trying to give guys smart information about where to go to find fish and game.”

Of course, for some outdoorsmen, that’s too much information. F&H News at times “gave away what I considered my secret spots,” says Gary Fairbanks, owner of Fairbanks Outfitters. “I like that magazines give information for people who are trying to get out and hunt and fish, but I don’t think they have to give out every bit of information to every person, you know what I mean?”

George Holman, a Yakima hunter and fisher, feels even more strongly on that point. Holman stopped reading the News years ago and also says he also no longer reads the Herald-Republic’s Outdoors section, because he blames a Phillips column for “screwing up my hunting area.”

“He wrote an article saying there are no deer in (Game Management Unit) 368, and that everybody needs to go to (GMU) 382,” Holman says. “The next thing you know, Jesus and everybody was there the next year. I’m not kidding you, they were there.”

Holman prides himself on doing his own homework — scouting ahead, knowing the land — and doesn’t like seeing his favorite hunting and fishing haunts filled with people whose research was provided in a newspaper or magazine.

“A lot of the publications are way too specific,” he says. “Have a little discretion as to, ‘Hey! All the animals are here!’”

Northwest Sportsman plans to do some of that, though. That’s how it plans to stay in business, in fact, by providing helpful tips to hunters and fishers — even those who, say people like Holman, should be doing their own legwork.

At least, though, Sportsman’s insights will be honest ones, as the News’ were in recent years. The latter had come a long way since the late 1970s and early ’80s, when its reputation ebbed amid too many stories quoting fishing resort owners or guide services whose livelihood depended on cheery reports — even when the fishing was lousy.

“Most of the people I know used to call it ‘Hunting and Fishing Lies,’” Fairbanks says with a laugh. “It did get to be a better paper, though.”

Yes, it did. And many people — not all, though; right, George? — will miss it. But perhaps the new kid in town will fill the gap created by its absence.

• Outdoors editor Scott Sandsberry can be reached at (509) 577-7689 or ssandsberry@yakimaherald.com. Northwest Sportsman, for which Sandsberry does not write, will be available at more than 2,500 Auto Trader racks around the Northwest beginning with the November issue.

Filed under All, Outdoors