For the last eight years, I have made my living by selling advertising in print publications. Previously, I sold commercial printing and specialized in publications just like the one you are reading now. For nearly twenty years, I’ve been preaching that print will never die. Well, times are changing. Don’t get me wrong, print is here to stay because there are still plenty of folks like me that want to touch and feel their media. However, as technology progresses and we continue to move toward a digital world, print publications will need to adapt in order to survive.
When we bought the Fort Lauderdale franchise of Coastal Angler, we were required to have a business Facebook page. For nearly three years, we’ve posted, commented and shared to accumulate just over one thousand followers. About a year ago, we discovered that Facebook was basically putting the brakes on our posts and purposely slowing our organic growth. They wanted us to spend money to boost our posts. That’s when we decided to increase our presence on social media by opening an Instagram account and it has become crystal clear that we made the right decision. As of this publication, we are closing in on a thousand followers in a third of the time it took us on Facebook.
Through Instagram, we have connected with others around the world that share our passion for fishing. Just a few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to meet and fish with two lady anglers from Charleston, South Carolina. Mandy, aka @onefishynurse sent us a direct message that she and her friend Sarah, aka @smiles_starr would be in our neck of the woods for a few days. We let her know that we would keep an eye on the weather and do our best to get them out on the water. Turns out the weather was looking great for the four days they would be in South Florida, with the exception of forecasted afternoon storms. Upon their arrival, we made arrangements to meet at the marina early the next morning.
We rolled out of Port Everglades as the sun rose and were greeted with flat calm conditions. After a quick stop at the mooring balls just south of the inlet, we blasted offshore with fresh ballyhoo in search of birds and weedlines to hunt for some dolphin. Upon reaching 700 feet, we discovered an epic weedline and put out our spread. It wasn’t long before we got bit and Sarah was tight with her first dolphin. We caught a few more dolphin and then caught a couple of blackfin tuna. Scratch another species off of Sarah’s bucket list. Mandy couldn’t believe that we were catching dolphin and tuna within sight of land as they have to run thirty miles offshore from Charleston to chase dolphin. It was turning out to be a successful day, but then the storms started blowing up as forecasted. We trolled farther offshore to avoid the storms, but made it back to the dock safe and sound.
The next day, we planned for a later departure to do some deep dropping for blackbelly rosefish. Over the radio, we heard that the Navy was doing maneuvers and the area we wanted to fish was closed. Having caught blackfins the day before, we switched to plan b. After a few hours with no bites, I made the decision to do a few blind drops in 800 feet. On the first drop, Sarah caught a blackbelly and a baby shark. Two more new species for her. She was on fire! After two more drops with no bites, we noticed a small school of baby triggerfish behind the boat. We noticed a nice weed patch about a hundred yards away and repositioned the boat to find it was loaded with bait. After throwing a few chunks of squid and ballyhoo, we had a huge school of dolphin under the boat. It was on! The girls were having a blast catching schoolies while I watched the storms building. As much as I hated to leave hungry fish, safety comes first and this time we ran offshore as fast as we could to avoid the storms. There was no way to head back towards Port Everglades, so we came in Hillsboro Inlet and gave the gals a tour of the ICW.
On the last day, we met at the boat around noon and planned to spend the afternoon on the mooring balls just so our new friends could bend a rod on some yellowtail snapper, blue runners and grunts. Sarah caught her first yellowtail, lane snapper and grunt. Both gals also caught their first houndfish. Once again the afternoon storms blew up and we had to cut the trip short. All in all, it was a blast to fish with our new friends and I’m certain we will be fishing together again soon.
Getting social has not only allowed us to make new friends and connect with others within the fishing industry, but it allows us the opportunity to provide our print advertising partners with added value and digital offerings. Moving forward, we are looking forward to utilizing the FREE FishAngler app to further increase our social media presence. FishAngler has raised the bar by offering just about everything a fisherman needs in one app. Find and catch more fish with fish mapping technology, real time weather forecasts, tides, wave and wind conditions, as well as solunar fishing forecasts. You can even share your catches and memories with over a million anglers around the globe. Go to FishAngler.com or download from the app store. Get social with us by following us on both FishAngler and Instagram @camftl.
~ Gene Dyer