Competition News

Ok here's are the winners of our monthly marker competition

First up is this great YouTube video of a massive steelhead from Chad at the Skeena Lodge in British Columbia http://www.flyfishmap.com/m/1280















Best Business Marker goes to The Land Of Enchanted Guides , a guiding operation in Northen New Mexico.

Check their marker 'Valles Caldera National Preserve' here http://www.flyfishmap.com/m/1297

Congratulations to both of you!



















The new monthly marker competition is now underway and closing date for entries is 20th October 2009. So that's another £50 credit you could win to spend at Sportfish (and thanks to them for the ongoing sponsorship of this comp!) for the Best Marker overall and a free multimedia upgrade for the best Business Marker.


I'd also like to draw your attention to a new competition that we're running on our Facebook page. Its a WINNER TAKES ALL fly tying competition. To enter, all you need to do is to tie a fly of your choice (either standard pattern or your own invention), then upload the picture onto our page. To confirm your entry, you then post your fly to us here (we'll send you the address). Whichever fly gets the most votes (LIKES), wins all the flies submitted.

Here's a couple of the entries so far!











Well thanks all for the continuing support on the site. We've got some great developments in the pipeline and look forward to seeing more of your contributions.

Get in touch anytime if you want to talk to us about anything fishy http://www.flyfishmap.com/contact


Tight lines


Ed

Marker Competition winner!

So here's the winner of our first Monthly Marker Competition winner..
A great marker about the famous Tongariro River in New Zealand. See it on the site here http://www.flyfishmap.com/m/1045


Well done to Damon from New Zealand, who gets £50 to spend at Sportfish! This month's competition is now underway and we have another £50 to give away so ...if you have a great photo, YouTube video or other marker, why not give it add it to our site. This month we'll also be giving a prize for the best new Business Marker of a free multimedia marker for 1 year (Value up to £80). These markers look great and receive a lot more attention than standard markers so give it go.

Closing date is 18th September 2009. Good luck all.

Monthly marker competition

Hi Flyfishmappers, just wanted to let you know about our new monthly marker competition!! If you add any markers between now and the 1oth August 2009, you could win a £50 gift voucher from our friends at Sportfish UK. Any markers are eligible so you can add your Photos, YouTube videos or other any other markers that you represent. Any kind of marker could win a great picture, or video or just a great description of a fishery so lets see what you've got!

If you're new to Flyfishmap, you first need to register then go to My Markers and add your marker. If you get stuck, please refer to our instructions for adding markers here.

Good luck all and look forward to seeing your markers!



Terms and Conditions

1. The competition runs from 10th July 2009 - 10th August 2009 2. Only markers that promoted live during the period of this competition will count. 3. Markers that are currently in the system and not live because they are incomplete, will count once completed. 4. Incomplete markers will not count - if they are business type markers - must include title, description, image and web address and be correctly positioned. 5.New members who join during this period will also be eligible to enter the competition. 6. All marker types count will count -Photo's YouTube etc 7.The cut off is strictly 6pm GMT 10th August 2009. 8. The judges decision is final as to the winner who will be notified by the 15th August 2009. 9. The prize indicated is a £50 Gift Voucher from http://www.sportfish.co.uk 10. The winner will need to create an account on Sportfish.co.uk after which, the credit will be applied to their account. 11. There is no cash alternative or substitute prize. 12. The Terms and Conditions on our site also apply when entering competitions.

Flyfishmap update - Version 2

Hello again flyfishmappers! Well we're a month in now and the site is coming along very nicely indeed. We've had some great markers so far and looking forward to seeing a lot more soon! We've got some exciting developments for the site in the pipeline so please keep coming back and checking what we're up to.

We've just released a new version of the site which will hopefully make things easier for adding markers. We've also released 4 new marker types that I wanted to tell you about. They are :

Warmwater fishery

Indicates locations of non salmonid freshwater species that you can catch on a fly. e.g. Panfish, Smallmouth, Muskies, Carp, Pike etc. If you already have markers that are more applicable to this marker, please change your icon type in My Markers.



Conservation

This marker is for new about conservation or environmental issues affecting certain fly fishing locations. Only to be added by conservation/environmental organisations. Permission is required to use this marker so just email us if you would like to start publishing using this marker.



Events

Highlighting fly fishing fairs, fly tying shows, exhibitions, demonstrations. Also local meetings for specific fly fishing groups and associations.



Articles

This icon is to indicate articles about specific locations. These can either be a full article in the marker or an intro with a link or reference to the full article. These icons are strictly for journalists of websites, blogs and print media. Just email us to get permission to use this icon.

So if you're able to add information under these new types, please do so and if not please forward our site to people who may be interested in doing so.

If you have existing markers on the map, please come back and add new ones and don't forget you can always edit your existing ones. Markers that have a detailed description and a nice picture correctly sized are definitely performing better than markers with small images and short descriptions. It sounds obvious to do this but spending a little extra time when creating your markers will only benefit you in the long run and as I've said to many people, your marker will more likely be found in search engines (ours and web searches) if you write a more complete description.

Finally I just wanted to say a big thank you to our initial members for getting involved. There are some great markers on the map now and its thanks to you. We've got a few nice multimedia markers on the map now too so go take a look at :

Laxa in Kjos, Iceland from the Flyfisher Group

http://www.flyfishmap.com/m/312

and

Urbanflyy

http://www.flyfishmap.com/m/148


Also, I'd just to give a shout out to a couple of great blogs who've given us some welcome coverage.

UrbanFlyy

Casting Out Loud

Up North Maine Fly Castings

Sport Fishing Americas

Fly Fish Addiction

Angling in Iceland


Also thanks to all you guys who've linked back to our site..we really appreciate it. If you've added markers and haven't linked back to us already, we would really appreciate the return gesture. A text link to our homepage is fine and you can also link back to your marker from your contact page.

Here are a few buttons you could use, you can find more in the Banner section of My Markers after you login






Oh and thanks to all our twitter friends for helping to spread the word about us...you know who you are....

Ok I'd better run as I'm seeing a few more markers coming in. Please keep coming back to see our progress and developments and keep those markers coming.

Tight lines

Ed

Marker competition

From Thurs 6pm GMT 23rd April 2009 until Mon 27th April 6PM GMT we will be running a marker competition. The top 3 existing or new members who add or refer the most markers during this period will receive a FREE annual subscription to a enhanced multimedia marker (Value up to £80). This means your marker could include a video, image slideshow of up to 10 images, audio description OR any combination of the three enhancements. These markers look great, slideshows and videos can both be played full screen so are sure to receive more attention.

We will use these enhanced markers in our marketing and PR efforts as examples of multimedia markers so apart from getting a great marker, you'll also benefit from all our marketing exposure.

1. I will be able to see any markers that you directly add during this period. 2. To claim any referrals, you'll need to email a list of markers that you are claiming to info@flyfishmap.com 3. Please enter into the spirit of this fairly and don't claim markers that you aren't responsible for generating. 4. Only markers that promoted live during the period of this competition will count. 5. Markers that are currently in the system and not live because they are incomplete, will count once completed. 6. Incomplete markers will not count - if they are business type markers - must include title, description, image and web address and be correctly positioned. 7.New members who join during this period will also be eligible to enter the competition. 8. All marker types count will count -Photo's YouTube etc 9.The cut off is strictly 6pm GMT 27th April. 10. My decision is final as to the winners who will be notified on Tuesday 28th April. 11. The prize indicated is a FREE multimedia marker for 1 year. There is no cash alternative or substitute prize. 13. The Terms and Conditions on our site also apply when entering competitions.

Look forward to seeing more of your markers and please keep spreading the word. If you haven't already, please consider giving us a link back from your site too. We have some buttons and banners in My Markers for this purpose.

ps. One last thing, I apologize if some of you are having difficulties with the site if using the Safari or Google Chrome browsers. We do not currently support these browsers and recommend that you use Firefox or Internet Explorer when using flyfishmap.

Tight lines

Ed Burgass

Founder/Owner

http://www.flyfishmap.com

Top 10 tips to get the most out of flyfishmap

Well hello again and thanks to all those who've visited us this past week and especially those who've added some markers. We've had quite a bit of feedback so far, which has been fantastic and in the main, extremely positive so thanks for that. We will be making a few amends in the coming days to make things easier for you. In the meantime, I just wanted to give you guys some tips for using the map and creating markers.


1. When you arrive at the site, you can see fly fishing markers by either:

• Clicking on a continent and then on individual markers or yellow marker groupings in your geographical area of interest.
  
• Double clicking on the map to zoom in without the zoom bar.
• Clicking on the links in Most Popular or Recently Added
• If there are many markers in your area of interest, filter out unwanted ones using the filter option, then click Apply
• Reset the map by clicking on our logo above the map
  

2. Create markers by going to Register or by clicking the Add Marker tab on the sidebar.

3. When creating business type markers, try to include as much info as possible, a photo and valid web address. Users are far more likely to go to your website if you create a good looking marker with a good description and photo. We don't want to add blank markers with just a title, or no description or photo. These kind of markers aren't useful to anyone really.

4. Don't create markers for commercial fisheries etc if you don't own, manage or arrange fishing on them. If you're a personal user you can add photos and You Tube videos for these fisheries only really. You can of course add markers for wild fisheries e.g. state or nationally run fisheries. If so, please complete the marker with as much detail as possible and a photo. Include a useful web address so that other users can find out more information about this location.

5. Do Position your marker as accurately as possible please. Zoom in as closely as the map allows drop the crosshairs in place and click Save and Continue.

6. Don't panic if you don't see your marker on the map straight away. We do need to review and approve ALL markers before they go on the map.

7. Do use the Share button on markers if you like what you've found and think a friend would like it too. Just click on it, then select the device for sending this individual marker link to your friends.

8. Do please link back to us or to your marker if you have website or blog. We are giving you a free link so would appreciate one back. We have a number of buttons and banners in the My Banners section of My Markers


9.. Don't use Safari, Opera or Google Chrome browsers. At present, we do not support these browsers when using www.flyfishmap.com. We recommend using Firefox or Internet Explorer.

10. Please keep sending us your feedback. You can do this by either emailing us on info@flyfishmap.com, using the contact form or by completing this quick survey.


Many thanks for your interest to date, please spread the word and keep those marker coming!

Tight lines


Ed

Introduction to flyfishmap...

Well here we are at last. ...and as you can see http://www.flyfishmap.com is now live and ready to be populated by you, my fellow flyfisherfolks. As an avid fly fisherman who's been at it for nearly 30 years (here's me with my first fly-caught trout), I've often thought it would be great to have a resource like this.... to explore new areas and find new places to fish. So the idea of this site really is to create a one stop shop for researching your fly fishing adventures around the world.

This site is totally collaborative, and its success and usefulness largely depend on you. There's only a limited amount of pictures and videos I can personally put on the map, but together we can add thousands worldwide and the more there are, the more useful the map becomes to everyone else. So I'd really encourage you guys to pass the word on to your friends, family and colleagues and get them them to add their pictures, videos, blogs and business markers too.

For fly fishing-related businesses, you should look at this site as a way of developing traffic and enquiries to your site. You can do this for FREE with a basic maker or by enhancing your marker with video, slideshows or audio. With engaging multimedia content in your marker, users will know more about your offering and it's therefore more likely that they'll either go to your website, call you or share your marker with their friends.


Ok, I'm just gonna move on to some usage points now.

Using the map

The easiest way to use the map is by clicking a continent button, then clicking on a marker grouping in a country and then finding individual markers. Then click on the marker to open it. Use the key at the bottom of the map to see what each marker represents.

You can refine your search results by using the filter on the right hand side . Tick/untick the boxes and click 'Apply'. However, you will probably only need to do this in areas heavily populated with markers.

You can also use the Search box to look for a particular marker. Our search system finds results by matching your query to the text in the title of each marker and its description box. That information is added by the marker 'owner'.


Creating Markers

To create a marker for the first time, you can either :

a. Click on Register at the top of the homepage
b. Click on Add Marker on the right hand panel of the homepage.

Either way you will need to create an account when creating a marker for the first time.

On entering the Create Marker page, you will be asked to choose or confirm your marker type. You then need to select a title for your marker (for all types of marker), and write a description (all markers except Photo and You Tube). Your description should include an overview of your business, prices, contact details etc. For blog owners you can either include an overview of your blog and screen shot, or create blog markers to promote individual posts for a particular location. If your text exceeds the available text area, then any extra text will appear in a scroll bar.

Then enter your web address from which your Visit Website button will be made.

You then need to upload a photo. Please try and resize the photo to the exact dimensions specified. If you don't, our system will resize the image you upload in proportion to what you have supplied and the image may appear smaller than the optimum display window.

The share button is automatically added into your marker. Each marker has a unique URL enabling anybody seeing your marker to share it via email, social networks (Twitter, Facebook etc) or social bookmarking sites (Digg, Stumbleupon etc).

When the recipient clicks on the link, flyfishmap launches,
zooms into your marker and opens it.

So its worth spending the time to make it look good!

After you have created the marker, the next step is to position it on the map. You do this by zooming in to the position you want to place the marker, click and grab the crosshairs, and drop them on the location. Try to be as accurate as possible by zooming in as far as you can. When you have positioned the marker correctly, 'click save and continue'.

You will then have the opportunity to enhance your basic marker by adding a photo slideshow, video or audio file for which there is an annual fee as indicated. Just upload the files from your PC or Mac....again please try and supply your multimedia to the specifications we have provided on this page.

Photo or YouTube markers cannot be enhanced in this way.

If you don't want to enhance your marker just leave everything blank and click Save and Continue. The final steps are to create an account name and if you have enhanced your marker, you will need to pay via paypal account which accepts paypal payments or any major credit card.

Once we have received your marker application, we will review it and then approve it to go live on the map. We aim to do this within 48hrs, hopefully much quicker but in some circumstances this could be longer. If you do not see your marker within 72 hrs, please send a message via the contact form and we will get back to you.

After you have an account, you can then login to flyfishmap.


My Markers

Once you have an account and are logged in, you can manage your markers in 'My Markers' which you can see at the top of the page. Here you can manage your existing markers, edit/enhance, update them, delete them and create new markers.

Next to your marker, you will see its URL, you can use
or share this link anywhere on your website (on the contact page for example) or the web.

In My Banners, you will also find a number of banners and buttons which you can use to link back to your marker or our homepage. We'd really appreciate any exposure you can give for these materials, and as we are giving you a free link on our site, we hope that you will return the favour.

Fly fishing related businesses may also be interested to join our network on Linked In set up recently as a forum to discuss issues affecting the fly fishing industry worldwide. Please note, this is only available if you work in the industry.

Personal users can also connect with us via Twitter or join our page on Facebook

One last thing I'd like to point out is that, at the moment, the site is in beta, which means there may well be the odd bug or problem we haven't yet discovered in our testing. I'd be extremely grateful if you find anything that you think is wrong or in error, or think could just be plain better, by reporting it to us via the 'contact us' form. We have a number of plans to develop the site further but would really welcome any of your feedback and ideas too. The more feedback we get, the better we can make this site. And in this regard I'd ask that you have some patience in your usage of this site, which shouldn't be too hard for you as you're a flyfisher!

Lastly, we have created a quick survey for your feedback and first thoughts on using the site.
Click here to take survey

Well that about wraps up our first post. We sincerely hope you enjoy using flyfishmap and we look forward to seeing your markers.

In the meantime happy mapping and tight lines!


Ed Burgass
Founder
flyfishmap.com