NMA awareness?

[SEAN LEARY]

Saw a guy trying to dock solo late Sunday afternoon. Having had my share of trouble bringing a boat in solo, I offered a hand. Noticed the gear in the boat, Double Cowgirls, Medussa's, heavy rods and reels, and knew he was Musky fishing.

Mentioned this was his first year, and he'd yet to net one. Mentioned some hooked, some follows, etc.

I was amazed here was a guy who went out and bought all the gear, found the hot lures people like to use, had done all the research, but hadn't stumbled upon us. I told him to look up the club, website, and join!

That's not the first time I've recommended joining to a person I see at the dock. I may not be the most active member, but I'm quick to mention it to anyone I see. I wonder if there's something we are missing as far as advertisement, or awareness of the club. I feel like a guy who can find out which lures to buy, gear to own, should find us too. Any thoughts? maybe a Facebook page?

[Stephen Glassic]

Maybe he wasn't from or is new to the area or doesn't like fishing clubs.

[Tony Scime]

Sean, good points.

I've though about this a lot. We do have the following:

1. "Know the difference" signs at many of the boat launches with our website address - this includes one at the beginning of the Tonawanda dock (where you might have seen this guy?).

2. When I do a Google search on the web with the words "niagara" and "muskie", our website is the first site on the list of results.

3. Our monthly meetings are announced in the Buffalo News.

4. We have had booths at the local sportsmen's shows for the past 23 years (except we passed on the Hamburg show this year). 

5. We have had a presence in the Erie County Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs (represents over 50 Erie County clubs) for the past 23 years.

There are a couple things we don't do much of any more. Most notably, I think, we used to give presentations at different clubs, shows and stores. Not so much any more. 

I think that some things have changed since we started this club, most significant being the internet. Prospective musky anglers used to join musky clubs to learn how to musky fish. With the internet, they don't have to join clubs anymore. Most of the info they need is on the internet. 

Some anglers feel they don't want to join a musky club because there's nothing more we can teach them. Some of them because they don't want to share their information. I try to impress upon them that it's not a question of what we can teach them, but of what we can do together to improve the fishery. I think that along with teaching the when, where, and how, working to improve the fishery has become our prominent focus. But a lot of anglers just don't seem interested enough in that aspect of a fishery.

Of course, none of this answers why the angler has never heard of us. Maybe we do need to become more prominent in some social media elements (I'm not really too well versed in social media).

A Facebook page might enable us to more prominently display the things that we have accomplished and what we continue to work on. It could keep things such as the telemetry study and tagging study front and center, which doesn't always happen on the website. Even simpler things such as proper handling of muskie could be a permanent fixture, as well as some basic "how to's". It's definitely something we should reconsider (I think we have discussed it in the past). It could give potential members a good sense of what we're about without the restrictions of membership which the website requires.

[SEAN LEARY]

Tony,

I think there is something to the idea of having a public  facing page on some social media site. Just a foothold to show that we are there for the younger generation perhaps?

I'm remembering two years ago when I was searching for any information I could come across, and recall seeing this site and passing it by because of the sign up requirements, and log in needed. Heck, i've yet to make a meeting due to scheduling.

Admittedly i'm not that social media savvy, but I constantly see other fishing related groups on social media (Fishing Nerds, run by AEOutdoors here in WNY) that have a large presence, and constant activity. I think we'd probably see a run of new members if we were introduced to them on a platform they are already familiar with- Facebook, Instagram, Youtube. It might be easier for them to take the plunge and join having seen us there, rather than having to seek out membership at a meeting, sportshow, or a unique website.

Find an existing member with the necessary skills, appoint them Social Media Director, and see if their efforts can produce any uptick in new member registration?

[John Jarosz]

Sean...I think you hit it right on the spot & I, too, have thought about this quite a bit. What really, really hit me hard was a pic of this local(?) guy holding a 50+" musky vertically & then he said he released it & it swam away OK, so he thought everything was OK. Then he said in a later posting that he didn't know that they shouldn't be held vertically. Who knows what happened later, which had me thinking about education.

I joined Facebook in January & there are one heck of a lot pf people who go on it. If you want to reach the greatest number of people, that is the way to do it because that's where there is the most activity. And ideas flow like crazy. I now belong to four groups (fly fishing for muskies, ff for bluegills, panfish on the fly and carp ff). The NMA is a passionate, excellent, hard-core and serious group of musky anglers who have and are doing more than any other group in this area to enhance & preserve the natural fishery, but we only reach our own members. In order to reach others, we have to go where they are with our message rather than try to get them to where we are.