Fishing Online
Hard, clear ice you can see though is like the best writing on fishing you’ll find on the web. Writing that, instead of being self-conscious of its status as “content,” puts you on the spot while you read.
The Web is Like a Landscape
To write about fishing online, more specifically the work I do as a blogger on fishing, might not seem relevant to my Literature and Philosophy category, but if philosophy is—in some respect—an overview of existence, then an overview of my blog posts as they appear on the web isn’t too far removed from that. Even though I’ll offer up a relative few examples. After all, if a map designates places in existence, then certainly the internet is like that map. At least, it is with regard to locations, and fishing is largely about where to go.
While writing for Litton’s Fishing Lines, I began to notice that not only big-name places in my home state like the South and North Branch Raritan, Lake Hopatcong, and Merrill Creek Reservoir gave particular blog posts residence. Especially, relatively small spots continue to give me the distinct sense of the internet as being like a landscape.
Little Nooks are Worth Serving
It felt special to me, not only that my post “Three Bridges to Higginsville” ranked on Google, as it still does after almost nine years, but that a very few people click on that post and perhaps some of them read it. In the last 10 months—since I bought my own domain for Litton’s Fishing Lines—the post has had five clicks. Google Search Console informs me of how many clicks I’m getting on a per-post basis. In addition to the date of each click, GSC shows how many impressions each post gets. An impression happens when a post is visible during a search but not clicked on. I always think, well, at least they see my name, and it might be that some people who don’t read my posts are going to buy my book. And besides, the truth about my motive as a blogger has almost nothing more to do with writing a book than that my wife thought it a good idea. When I told her I would write one, she insisted I blog. I immediately found the writing worthwhile in itself.
I think it’s laughable to blog for the sole purpose of getting readers to buy books. It is true I created Litton’s Fishing Lines because my wife said I needed a blog, if I was going to get a book published. But honestly, what drove me through almost 15 years of blogging was an interaction between places outdoors, writing, and having a following who began reading each post almost immediately upon publication. It’s not like, every time I opened my Blogger dashboard, I had my book in mind. Never. If you’re writing either a blog or a book and don’t write for the love of it, you’re moved by something other than what moves me, and I don’t understand it.
One source I don’t remember has informed me that websites have lost about 60% of their traffic to Artificial Intelligence—so HIgginsville’s five clicks come about nine years after doing better before AI took over. Even so, that post never got hit hard, which is the beauty of it.
It’s a nice little quiet spot.
Another post almost nine years old is “Roy Bridge.” I never expected it to show up in searches. I wrote it as one of the many posts I expected only my regular followers to enjoy. But it, too, ranks on Google, and a handful of selective readers interested in that Big Flatbrook spot—I’m hoping—are among the few who have clicked on the post and read it. In the past 10 months, it’s had no clicks, and I have no record of clicks older than 10 months. “Bedminster Wild Brown” is from November, 2022, ranks, and has had one click in the last 10 months. It, too, is special in the way of serving specific locale, namely the North Branch Raritan at Bedminster.
A recent post on live=lining pickerel makes a point of the mule barge basin pond attached to the Delaware and Raritan Canal at Lawrence Township. That won’t nestle the post on the web where other posts might rank for Baker’s Basin; I’ve seen none, but within the post itself, it gives the reader a nice sense of place.
Just Because a Website Appears in Your Search Doesn’t Mean It’s Getting Traffic
Many people think that because a website mentions a place like Three Bridges, that place is spot burned, because hundreds of people are motivated by the website to go there. I use the Squarespace platform, and only some 15.1% of Squarespace websites generate any organic Google traffic, not because something’s wrong with Squarespace—my site does generate organic Google traffic—but because it’s inherently difficult to have visitors find your site and have them click on it. Squarespace tries to do its best to educate website owners to generating traffic, but far and away most sites persistently fail. About two or three of a hundred who find a site, click on it. I know this because Google Search Console records when a site is viewed. And of those who do click on it, the likelihood is that only some actually read it.
I’ve got some place-specific posts out there since I began the new website in October, and I’ve had a handful of clicks. “Twin Lakes Ice Fishing” has had four clicks. A Couple of Surprises uses the Search Engine Optimization title feature. Using that, I’ve named the Paulinskill and North Branch Raritan so the post places there, and I’ve done Google searches to see the post is there indeed. Back in January, the post had only eight impressions and no clicks, but now I expect more. Sure enough, as I update the post you’re reading now, the Paulinskill and North Branch post has had over 200 impressions and five clicks. “Round Valley Pond Ice Fishing” names a limited spot and has had two clicks. “Stanton Stretch Yields a Nice One" has had four clicks
Hardly crowds in the hundreds tearing down the banks.
Why Do It?
Novelist Barbara Kingsolver wrote that if she had no means of publication, she’d write novels and just put them in a drawer. But it’s not for everyone to write. It’s not even for everyone to understand that writers who do it for the love of writing may be the better writers. Rather than the ones who get books published, knock on wood—because I would really love to get mine done, let alone published! And just because they’re better writers doesn’t mean they’re read more than others.
I value my audience. I’ve valued them from the very beginning of my blogging, and from before I blogged but wrote for the magazines. I can’t tell you how I grateful I am that Litton’s Fishing Lines had a such a large following who became my inherited audience for the new website. Back when I began Litton’s Fishing Lines in 2011, it was relatively easy to rank on Google, and I immediately begin to draw an interested following. One of my regular readers told me he loves a good fishing story that speaks directly to him. My brother David has read some of the posts and says I put him right there.
Now things are very different. Artificial Intelligence has usurps so many Google searches. And it’s much harder to rank well, now that so many additional websites have come into existence since 15 years ago. Imagine if I didn’t have you guys supporting me, when I changed from the old blog to the new website you read now? You guys gave the new site its authority. And any women in the audience, you did, too. All your visits the Googlebot has registered—every one of your visits has given the site authority it needs to reach more readers. Imagine if I were just starting out with no inherited audience. It seems likely to me I’d be one of the 84.9% of Squarespace site owners who get zero traffic.
Blogging has been very fulfilling. Certain posts exist, like “Fishing Salmon Eggs for Rainbow Trout, Brook Trout,” and “Catching Smallmouth Bass in Streams and Small Rivers” that I have enjoyed as having done outrageously well, but they’re not specific to place like a few others: “Shipetuakln Creek,” “Millington Gorge Passaic River Trout,” and “South Branch Raritan Stocking at Neshanic” make the web like a geography of land and water. A lake like Oxford Furnace or Aeroflex are pin drops on the map, too. And I never forget that no matter how detailed I can get online—as if I have the time to do this all day, no—the places themselves remain wild.