Adding to Our Experts

Today, a personal note to our readers, advertisers and corporate members.

Ten years ago, I had no reasonable assurance that The Outdoor Wire would be around through the end of 2002. I never dreamed it would grown into The Outdoor Wire Digital Network.

But here we are, a decade later. And many of you are no longer strangers or business associates, you’re treasured friends.

And the Outdoor “wires” are no longer uses the “imperial we”. You know, things are written using the plural “we” because it sounds like there’s more than one person working.

The wires are no longer a one-man band. We’re actually larger than an quartet, but smaller than an ensemble, at least for now.

Everyone- readers, corporate members and advertisers – are to the good because of that growth. After all, none of us is as smart as all of us.

Today, “we” includes recognized subject matter experts in hunting, fishing and recreational shooting -as well law enforcement and combat/military training. There’s also more than a smattering of business-specialized and general news reporting experience, from the local court house to Wall Street and the United States Supreme Court.

In the next few weeks, we’re adding even more wires, covering niche areas that have plenty of participants, but not much in the way of timely information services.

We’re no longer the only group distributing daily news and information electronically, but we work to bring some perspective, insight and context to our services. Most of the others aren’t much more than well-designed vacuum cleaners, gobbling up and regurgitating “stuff”. In essence, they’re more about collecting “clicks” than providing information. That’s just not our deal. Neither is collecting your names to peddle to anyone who wants to sell you -something.

Frank Sargeant

On this Friday, I’m pleased to let readers of the Outdoor and Fishing Wires know that we’re adding another expert to our team. Effective Monday, Frank Sargeant will become editor of The Fishing Wire.

Frank has been one of America’s most successful outdoors writers for more than 30 years. He’s held staff positions on several of the world’s largest men’s magazines including Outdoor Life, Boating, Sports Afield and others. He’s won more than sixty national awards and is past president of the Florida Outdoors Writers Association.

In 2011, he was named the Homer Circle Angling Communicator of the Year by the American Sportfishing Association. That’s, the top national honor for fishing writers. He’s also a former winner of the National Marine Manufacturers Association’s Boating Writer of the Year award.

He’s currently outdoors editor of the Tampa Tribune and the Huntsville Times, as well as a contributor to Bass Times, Florida Sportsman, Game & Fish Publications and many others.

He has authored 10 outdoors books including “Boating For Complete Idiots” published with Alpha (now in third edition). And he’s founder and host of Florida’s largest outdoors show, the Tampa Tribune Outdoors and Boating Expo Hosted by Frank Sargeant, now in its 21st year.

Now, he’s joining The Fishing Wire to take over from the guy who’s been serving as “caretaker editor” for some time now: me.

There will be some changes ahead for The Fishing Wire as Frank gets into the job. One change is that the “caretaker editor” may actually have some time to go fishing.

We’re growing, but we’re not wavering off the promise I made what seems like only a few days ago: As always, we’ll keep you posted ™.

Yep, that ™ thing’s new, too.

Have a great weekend. Get outdoors -and take someone new with you.

–Jim Shepherd