How Do I Get My Fly-Fishing Writing Published? With Ross Purnell, Editor of Fly Fisherman Magazine

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

James Hathaway

Bass, Fishing, Bonefish, Wilderness, Flyfishing, Trout, How To, Steelhead, Bluegill, Fly, Orvis, Sports, Salmon, Panfish, Education, Rosenbauer

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Inside nearly every fly fisher is a budding writer, eager to share their passion with the world. I've done podcasts on how to write better fly-fishing stories in the past, and figured it was time to talk to an editor and publisher about how you can get your masterpiece published. Ross Purnell [32:15], editor and publisher of Fly Fisherman magazine, was happy to share his advice on this subject—and no one in the fly-fishing world has more experience in this topic than Ross.

In the Fly Box this week, we have some great tips from listeners, some questions that I've answered before, and some fresh ones that I haven't, including:

How do I deal with leaders that get knotted up when I am ready to use them?
When you have fished a section of water, how long do you stay there, switching flies and techniques? Or do you move on?
From a listener, a great fly and technique for catching yellow perch.
A listener relays his approach for minimalist equipment when fishing close to home.
What is your opinion using balsa wood for fly tying?
My casting with a dry fly is OK, but I struggle with dry dropper and streamer rigs. What can I do?
Do trout get "lost" after being landed in another part of a river?
A listener adds some corrections to the proposed selling off of public lands.
When fishing a double nymph rig, do you put the bigger fly above or below a smaller fly?
How do I keep my dropper from slipping off my barbless dry fly? I don't like using separate droppers on the leader.
If I mess up and tie a dry fly with oversized hackle and wings, will it matter?
How many flies of a given pattern will you tie? What is the minimum number?
Is there an easy way to get beads on a size 18 hook?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast.
0:13.5	This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer.
0:15.3	And my guest this week is my old friend Ross Pernell.
0:18.8	Ross has been in the fly fishing industry for a long,
0:22.6	long time. He's currently editor and publisher of Fly Fisherman Magazine. And, you know, I've done
0:29.2	some podcasts about writing and tips on how to write about fly fishing and to make your
0:35.9	stories better and more interesting.
0:38.1	But then there's another piece of the puzzle. Do you want to get this published? And if you do,
0:43.5	how can you go about breaking into the world of writing for fly fishing magazines or blogs or
0:52.6	even writing your own book? So Ross is my guest today and he's going to tell us all
0:59.9	about the world of publishing and what he looks for in a piece for his magazine, which I'm sure
1:08.0	are similar needs to many, many other fly fishing magazines and publishers.
1:13.4	So hope you enjoy that.
1:16.1	And before we get into the flybox, I just want to tell you about some cool places to fish this year.
1:21.9	Orvis endorses and vets and inspects various guides and outfitters and expeditions throughout the world.
1:32.1	And every week I tell you about three of them in case you haven't read about them on the website.
1:38.9	By the way, if you do want to see all the Orvis endorsed operations, if you go to Orvis.com slash adventures.
1:47.3	There will be an interactive map there that you can pull up and you can see all over the country
1:53.6	and all over the world where there are Orvis Endorse operations, places that we've vetted
2:00.0	that we've been to and fished with and inspected,
2:04.4	and we continue to inspect so you know you're going to have a good experience.
2:08.2	Anyway, first one is a guide, Josh Pfeiffer, and Josh is in the Great Smoky Mountains
	...

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