About Big Sky Fishing.Com.gif)
 Big
Sky Fishing.Com was begun in April, 2002. It was created
due
to my love of Montana, fly fishing and other outdoor sports,
as well as to fill a much-needed place on the Internet.
After
scouring the web for Montana specific fly-fishing sites,
as well as general sites covering fishing, it became
obvious
that more information should be online to help anglers when
planning a trip to Montana. In short, I wasn't very
impressed
with either the content or the layout of any fishing site
covering fishing in Montana - and most fishing websites
in
general. So, I decided to take things into my own hands by
making this site, which has turned into a massive project
beyond all initial plans.
I designed
this site quite a bit different than other fishing sites
out
there.
I made the conscious decision to allow only one small banner
ad per page (top right corner, sized 234x60 - which has
since been removed!). I hate websites that are
nothing but flashy banner ads so I wasn't about to put them
on my own site.
I don't like colored
backgrounds. All the major websites use white backgrounds,
so that is what I used on this site. After playing around
with dozens of color schemes, I finally came up with the bright
red/blue color scheme used throughout his site.
Coming
up with a good navigation system was a time consuming process.
Realizing
that this site would span hundreds of pages, it was critical
to come up with a good navigation system up-front. I've
found
that the navigation system works exceptionally well - making
it very quick and easy to navigate around this quick growing
website - and has lots of room for flexibility and growth.
For those of you
who hate reading the small text that
is found on so many websites (the text is made small to make
more room for ads and to make the ads stand out better, by
the way), I deliberately used a large type-set for all content.
I then used a smaller typeset for most of the ads. Kind of
backwards from conventional web site design, but it works
very well in my overall site design. Hopefully, you like it
too.
 How
many fishing web sites have you visited that have been
mainly
ads with about 2 sentences of helpful content or is nothing
more than a glorified link library? Lots, I would imagine,
as in my search of fishing websites I discovered that most
of them are just about that - lots of ads and graphics
and
links with no content. As a result, I designed this site
to be exclusively a CONTENT site about Montana
fishing and things related to fly fishing. While you will
find some
links to other fishing sites on the web here, this site is
a content-based site. This site has more content than any
other fishing website you will find, and more than most other
websites you have visited too, I suspect. Best of all, it
will keep growing, too.
Additionally,
there is a complete lack of pictures of Montana on the
Internet,
whether it is its rivers, mountains or national parks. Other
than the Glacier National Park Website, one will be pretty
hard pressed to find a site that offers more than just a
dozen or so photos of the state.
Thus,
armed with a new digital
camera, I set off statewide taking pictures on several
very long trips (I would shoot between 500-1000 pictures
on
each
trip, which take forever to download to my computer!).
Each river in this site has its own photo gallery with
numerous
pictures. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the greatest
photographer around. However, the photos should help
any angler
visualize what a particular area in Montana looks like.
After all, a so-so picture beats showing up on vacation
and
getting
a big surprise! As they say, a bad picture is still better
than 500 words. I also occasionally got lucky and managed
to get some really nice photos, too.
Currently,
more than 1500 photographs of Montana are now online on
Big Sky
Fishing, ranging from river pictures, photos of Glacier
National
Park and even pictures of the various "cities"and
ski areas in Montana.
 When
looking for fishing information on the Internet, a surfer
is likely to have to wade through countless websites. To that
end, I painfully compiled a pretty comprehensive listing of
various books, magazines and videos that specifically cover
fishing and other outdoor topics. Also created has been an
extensive fly shop with a massive selection of fly fishing
gear from multiple manufacturers and multiple merchants -
all right here at bigskyfishing.com. Hopefully you fill find
it helpful as it was very painful compiling it!
Finally, this website
will ALWAYS BE FREE. Unless a site has something very special
to offer (the Wall Street Journal online comes to mind on
this), paid websites by and large stink. Their information
is less than spectacular and their prices unreasonable. Big
Sky Fsihing.Com has started out as a free website and will
always be completely free. Likewise, there will never be a
special members only page available to paying members. The
entire Big Sky Fishing.Com site will always be free,
period.
I work
alone on this website. In other words, I do all the coding
and all
the content and all the photos and all the artwork and all
the advertising, etc…Thus, I spend too much time in
front of my computer. If you like this site, please
contact me as I always love to hear good things about this site (keeps
moral up on those long coding days!).
As of
August, 2004, Big Sky Fishing.Com spans about 4000 pages
- and it
just keeps growing. A Montana
Ski section has also been recently
been added, due to my love of skiing in the winter.
If for
some reason you are bored with my site (hopefully not!),
my friend is in the process of launching a site about fishing
in Alaska called Alaskan
Outfitting. It's still a work
in progress, but feel free to pop over as I know he would
welcome the traffic.
Fly Fishing Gear.Info : A Website dedicated to the sport
of fly fishing and the gear that is used.
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