A hearty attaboy and kudos to Tudor and his team for dropping their 5th Year Anniversary Issue this week from their home base in South Africa. They’ve run a classy and professional shop from the very beginning, and have a great “global” view of the fly fishing world so often missed by we Yanks.
A few words from Tudor on their FB page –
“I’d be lying if I said we knew what we were doing five years ago when we launched The Mission Fly Fishing Magazine. Brendan Body (Session and The Lake), Conrad Botes (Bitterkomix) and yours truly (GQ, Best Life, Men’s Health etc) all had experience in publishing, but we had never put together a magazine quite like this.
For starters, it was going to be not just niche (e.g. fishing), but super niche (fly fishing). We were also intent on not just producing a bog ordinary fly fishing mag, but one we actually wanted to make. One we would want to read.
Rule-book meet window.
Then we made it not just digital, but also in print. This was at a time when futurists told (and continue to tell) us that print is fucked. The funny thing is, everyone else tells us they prefer a print copy…
Oh, and we decided to make it free too.
As conventional wisdom around starting businesses goes, we did A LOT of things wrong. Like… launching the mag without having formed an actual business. We might have had a bank account, but we definitely did not have a website.
In a way, I’m glad we did it like that. I think it was the right way for us, because asking three creatives to do the admin at the start would have killed our enthusiasm and robbed us of our momentum. At least on the content front, it helped that we had the crew at Feathers and Fluoro with us every step of the way.
We soon retro-fitted the missing bits around our first issue and steadied the ship. Then a la Field of Dreams and the ‘if you build it, they will come’ mantra, along came the fans.
It’s been hugely gratifying to realise that we are not alone, that there are people out there who fly fish (or who are curious about fly fishing), who appreciate our take on this brilliant sport/hobby/calling/clown show (or however it is you classify it). Along with the fans, came many brave brands who wanted to be a part of the circus.
30 issues, 5 years and a shitload of stress, fun and adventure later, The Mission continues to kick ass and we plan on doing so for many years to come.
Thank you to Bod and Conrad for your incredible skills, for putting up with me and for having the same vision for this wee beastie.
Thank you my wife Ingrid for all her sterling work behind the scenes, my mum Gill for expertly subbing the magazine (decades after she retired from the media industry) and my dad for that wise owl wisdom.
Thanks to all our contributors, without whom we would not have all these incredible stories to tell.
Thanks to all our advertisers for their support and belief in us.
Most of all, if you have ever clicked on one of our digital issues, picked up a print copy at a shop, an airport lounge or a club, or even recommended us to someone you know, we really do appreciate every bit of support.
It’s been an amazing ride so far. Thank you for joining us.”
Attaboy.
