In this episode of the TCO Flycast, Bill sits down with Ross Purnell, editor and publisher of Fly Fisherman magazine, the sport's most authoritative publication. Recorded at TCO Boiling Springs, Ross's home shop, on the exact day he hit 30 years with the magazine. You may not know Ross by name, but if you fly fish, you know his work.
Ross walks through the road that got him here: teaching himself to cast with a cheap foam-grip fly rod, learning the sport page by page from Fly Fisherman, buying a Bow River guide business in his early twenties (funded by selling off his comic book collection), and helping build one of the first fishing websites on the planet before the internet went mainstream. That side project eventually landed him inside the magazine he grew up reading.
From there we get into the good stuff. Ross tells the story behind Descent, the film where he rappelled into the plunge pools of Yosemite Falls to fish rainbows almost no one has ever cast to. He breaks down how he chooses his far-flung trips, including a 30-hour boat ride to St. Brandon Atoll for giant trevally, permit, and the biggest average bonefish he has ever seen. We talk about how to actually get published in the magazine, why he made personality profiles a priority, and where print goes from here.
We close on conservation. Ross explains why AI data centers are now one of the biggest threats to our rivers, the fight over the Roadless Rule, the magazine's long history on issues like Pebble Mine, and the simple things every angler can do locally.
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Subscribe to Fly Fisherman Magazine ($15/year):
https://www.flyfisherman.com/
Ross Purnell's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rossflyfisher/
Fly Fisherman Magazine on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flyfishermanmagazine/
Chapters:
00:00 Intro: Meet Ross Purnell of Fly Fisherman Magazine
01:35 Rappelling to Fish Wild Rainbows
05:50 Happy Canada Day: 30 Years With the Company to the Day
07:03 How a Cheap Fly Rod and One Magazine Started It All
09:24 Why Fly Shops Still Matter More Than Ever
11:07 Selling His Comic Collection to Buy a Guide Business
13:26 The Bow River
14:30 From Summer Guide to Journalism Degree
16:54 Building One of the First Fishing Websites on Earth
19:23 The Article That Got Him Hired at Fly Fisherman
22:17 The Dot-Com Bubble and Auction Sites Before eBay
24:04 Moving to Pennsylvania and Climbing the Ranks
26:55 The Longest-Serving Editor in the Magazine's History
27:22 How has Fly Fisherman changed over time?
29:15 The Biggest Change He Made: Telling People's Stories
30:13 The "Secret Sauce" Behind the Sport's Biggest Names
32:52 Why It All Comes Back to Education
33:41 The Pressure of Being the "Magazine of Record"
35:16 Full Autonomy: No Focus Groups, No Corporate Pressure
36:12 Print Isn't Dead: Films, Podcasts, and What's Next
38:34 Why a Full-Page Ad in Fly Fisherman Means You've Made It
40:28 Chasing the World's Most Remote Fisheries
43:22 The Trips That Didn't Pan Out
45:01 A 30-Hour Boat Ride to St. Brandon Atoll
47:38 Giant Trevally, Permit, and Sharks on the Flats
51:12 Next Up: The Beartooths and a Film in Brazil
53:11 How to Actually Get Published in Fly Fisherman
55:06 Finding Fresh Angles on Every Fly Fishing Topic
56:25 Conservation: How AI Data Centers Threaten Our Rivers
1:00:13 Who's Fighting Back for the Watersheds
1:01:27 Pebble Mine and a 20-Year Conservation Fight
1:02:25 Simple Conservation Wins Any Angler Can Do
1:04:03 The Roadless Rule and What's on the Chopping Block
1:04:56 Is the Sport Healthy? Covid, Tariffs, and New Anglers
1:06:43 Fly Fishing's Cool Factor and the Price Myth
1:09:01 You Don't Need a $1,200 Rod to Start
1:09:26 How to Subscribe and Where to Find Their Films
1:12:20 Wrap-Up and Thanks
