The Global FlyFisher has changed! And in a major way. The content is the same but the look and the system behind is very different. We do expect some glitches in the beginning, so be patient.
We have a long history. That story has been told many times and needs no repetition here other than saying that we have content back from 1994 and have been adding new articles and features to the site for more than 20 years. Welcome to the new and upgraded GFF of 2015!
Welcome to the new and upgraded GFF of 2015!
Over the years the site has been patched together from numerous different parts, most home made and programmed by me, but some - like the forum and the video section - were based on different Open Source software adapted to suit our needs and integrated with the rest of the site. We now run a single and consistent system over the whole site.
'nuff talk! What does this mean for you?
Well, not much, actually except for a new look and a slightly different menu. All the old content has been transferred apart from a tiny bit, which may or may not come, depending on whether someone misses it.
- The articles are all there.
- The comments are there.
- The Forum is there.
- The user submitted pictures are there.
- The videos are there.
- The wallpapers are there.
...and not least...
- All the previously registered users are there
So if you were a registered user before, you still are. The username and password is the same as before, and you can log in here. If you forgot your access code, you can request a new one by entering your email-address on this page. New users can register on the registration page. It only requires a username, an email and selecting a password. The registration will give you access to some features on GFF like
- Posting in the forum
- Uploading your pictures to our user Pix gallery
- Commenting on everything
- Adding videos to our video section
...and more will come.
Some articles need love
I have actually added a field in the editing form for the articles that's called "Needs love". I mark articles for some tender love and care when I find errors, missing images, odd fonts or whatnot. All this is left over from numerous incarnations of our article system and some articles were made a couple of decades ago and have been in need for some TLC for a long time. Now I can find them based on the mark and give them some attention one at the time.
What didn't make it...
In the process I chose to let some things die, which haven't been overly popular or successful.
- The News Section - it started out fine, but keeping an eye on the market and writing regular news stories is too much like real work. I decided to drop it.
- eCards - this was an old function that saw a little use, but was too cumbersome to move over. I might make a new eCard function... and then again, I might not.
- The calendar - it was running out of events anyway, and keeping it up to date is a lot of work. It might reappear, but I'm not sure it will.
- The hitlists - They were custom made from Google data and internal data from the old system and will need to be remade, which will be done ASAP.
- The store - it was built on the shopping site Zazzle's API and rather shaky. You can still go to our shop on Zazzle and buy mugs and T's. I might reinstate the shop at some point.
- The slideshows - few people noticed them, but they still presented a major pain because Chinese robots had fallen in love with them and sometimes carpet bombed them with traffic. Not a big loss.
A few more odds and ends had to go. Most is still saved behind the scenes and might live again when I get the time to look at it.
But for now WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get... and that's actually quite a lot!
Global FlyFisher timeline
1994 |
|
| Aug 01 |
Fishing Denmark newsletterMartin starts sending out information on fishing for sea trout in Denmark in emails for to people inquirering about the subject |
| Aug 19 |
Midwest FlyTyer goes onlineVia the URL: http://www.interaccess.com/~sbs/ (now defunkt) |
1995 |
|
| Jan 01 |
MWFlytyer.com goes onlineSteve creates the MidWest FlyTyer home page on http://mwflytier.com (now defunkt) |
| Oct 10 |
Fishing Denmark is bornMartin's newsletter-like mail document on fishing in Denmark, which he has been mailing to people, gets transformed into a web page online at http://idg.dk/mj/ (now defunkt) |
1996 |
|
| Apr 01 |
The first GFF blog startsCalled "Fishing now" and most likely the first fishing blog on the web and one of the first blogs at all - before the concept of blogs was really known, actually |
| Nov 15 |
Martin and Steve meet for the first timeGFF's founding fathers meet at the International FlyTyers Symposium in New Jersey |
1998 |
|
| Jan 01 |
Raske's New England Streamer page is bornHistory, patterns, swaps and tricks - all about NE Streamers |
| Aug 10 |
Martin visits with Steve in Chicago, ILThey both tie at a local fly show |
1999 |
|
| Jan 01 |
Raske creates the Streamers list at MintThe mailing list still exists. It now runs as a Yahoo! group. |
| Apr 20 |
GFF Grand OpeningThe announcement is made. GFF as we know it is born. |
| Nov 01 |
Raske joins GFF with the Streamers pageHe is on the lookout for server space. GFF provides it through the partnership |
| Dec 15 |
Bob P joins GFFBob has already contributed articles to all three sites and is a natural fourth partner |
| Dec 25 |
First GFF E-greetings service on the airIt would later die because of technical problems |
2000 |
|
| Jan 01 |
The wallpaper page airesThis is the single most succesful activity on GFF |
| Jan 08 |
GFF is heading for 1000 visitors a dayWe're roaring! We usually have a bout 6-700 visitors a day, but these last days we have slowly grown to close to a thousand! The 5th was 928, the 6th 911. Let's get it up there! A thousand a day - every day! |
| Jan 19 |
All four GFF partners meet at The Fly Fishing Show 2000Until this day (mid July 2005) the only time all four have met physically |
| Feb 01 |
GFF venture into banner ads - and out againAdministration vastly surpasses potential advantages - not to speak of income (or lack of same) |
| Mar 20 |
Steve Visits Martin in Denmark for the first timeAnd goes to Bornholm |
| Jun 23 |
The first GFF newsletter goes outNumber of subscriptions grow to 300 |
| Sep 08 |
Martin visits with Steve in Parker, COFishing and GFF planning is done for a couple of weeks. |
| Nov 29 |
The last newsletter leaves GFF - subject is: Newsletter GlitchesThe newsletter shuts down due to technical problems |
2002 |
|
| Jan 22 |
We get the first order into our online shopWe sell caps and shirts |
| Apr 02 |
Steve Visits Denmark for the second timeAnd goes to Bornholm again |
| Nov 17 |
A new automated system goes onlineConsistent section front pages, keywords and sitemap is introduced |
2003 |
|
| Aug 15 |
GFF's weblog goes onlineWe also want a blog - now we have Blog Creek |
| Sep 18 |
We get the last order into our online shop, which has actually already closedIt's hard to make money on the web. Our expenses, particularly to postage, are significantly larger than the income. |
2004 |
|
| Jun 08 |
GFF now has an RSS feedWant GFF on your site? |
2005 |
|
| Apr 10 |
A new server is installedThe old 350 MHz Pentium retires |
| Jul 12 |
GFF Celebrates its 10th birthdaySomewhere around this day GFF crossed into its 11th year of existence |
| Aug 01 |
GFF Pix launchesWe open a section where users and visitors can upload their own pictures to share them wit others |
2006 |
|
| Jan 14 |
Kasper becomes a partnerKasper Muhlbach, a Dane living in Sweden is let in to the inner circle of GFF |
| Jan 16 |
GFF Podcasts startMartin starts creating sound reports from his fishng trips |
| Sep 14 |
GFF Summit 2006The first GFF Summit takes place on Fyn in Denmark with a whole bunch of crazy fly-anglers joining from all over Europe |
2007 |
|
| Sep 22 |
GFF Summit 2007The second GFF Summit is arranged. Again on Fyn in Denmark and with lots of fish and anglers |
2008 |
|
| Sep 12 |
GFF Summit 2008The third and until now last GFF Summit again held on Fyn in Denmark |
| Sep 18 |
Another server move startsGFF is now on its way to a web hotel with the large US web provider Hostgator |
2009 |
|
| Feb 18 |
GFF on TwitterGFF now tweets new articles on this short-text-style social network |
| Jun 25 |
1000 articlesGFF reaches the one thousand article mark - and that doesn't even include a number of older articles |
| Dec 10 |
Video section opensThe GFF video section opens offering online fly-fishing and fly-tying videos |
2011 |
|
| Jul 08 |
GFF on a virtual serverThanks to immense growth in size and traffic, GFF has had to move to its own server again - this time a virtual one, but with enough capacity to handle the load |
| Aug 10 |
2000 articlesGFF rounds 2K articles in the article system, but 800 of these are videos, which are registered as articles for technical reasons |
| Oct 28 |
GFF redesignGFF gets a redesign after having looked the same for a decade |
2012 |
|
| Feb 16 |
GFF on FacebookYes, GFF goes on Facebook, mainly to post articles to whose who want alerts through this large social media site |
| Mar 28 |
Visitor recordOn this particular day we have 13,544 visitors during 24 hours, a record which still stands late 2012 |
| Oct 01 |
GFF store opensThe second ever GFF shop opens - now with mugs, prints, T-shirts and more |
2014 |
|
| Jan 18 |
GFF starts showing banner adsIn an attempt to recoup some of the expenses we have on running GFF, we start running banner ads - both Google ads and some "home made" ads sold directly by us. |
| Mar 01 |
We stop running ads againThe whole banner ad thing brings in very little money and doesn't look very good on the site. It's also a hassle to administer and selling ads is not our idea of fun. |
2015 |
|
| Sep 22 |
Work on a brand new system and design startsGFF is closing in on 20 years, and it's about time with a new content management system and a new design. |
| Nov 06 |
New GFF premiersGFF has now been moved to the new system and launches on the new server. Things run smoothly and there's no looking back. |
2016 |
|
| Feb 15 |
New newsletter ... againWe had a newsletter way back, but discontinued it, and now - with the new system in full order - a newsletter is possible again, and design and tests have started with no specific plan for when the newsletter will be available for the public. See the archive here. |
2017 |
|
| Apr 04 |
50,000 elements in the systemThis day the system behind GFF passes 50,000 entries, counting articles, pictures, videos, reviews and various other bits and pieces of content. |
2018 |
|
| May 06 |
GFF starts accepting money donationsWe set up several options for readers to contribute money to the site through various donation schemes - basically by request from users who want to support the site. More here ... |
| Dec 12 |
New Tips videos section under developmentWe start working on a new video section with short tying tips together with US tyer Wayne Luallen and Norwegian author and tyer Runar Warhuus. |
2019 |
|
| Jan 24 |
GFF celebrates 25 years onlineSometime during January 2019 the site passed its 25th year online in one or the other incarnation. Back then it wasn't GFF, but material from back then is still found on the current site. Read the article 25 years online! |
2020 |
|
| Nov 28 |
Streamers365 joins GFFThe popular streamers site streamers365.com is closed down ansd its content is merged into GFF. |
2023 |
|
| Dec 11 |
No more statsI stop using Google Analytics and let users roam the site without being tracked. |
2024 |
|
| Feb 04 |
GFF turns 30!Three decades online for an amateur fly-fishing web site ... not bad, not bad at all! More here ... |
2025 |
|
| Mar 06 |
GFF is upgraded againThe publishing system is now the Open Source system Drupal 11. The design is basically unchanged. More details here. |
Hand picked for this article
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good upgrade
worth the time and effort. great job!
Thanks Fritz! I'm pretty
Thanks Fritz! I'm pretty satisfied myself.
Martin
website design/colours
I have tried. Yes, I have really tried. Unfortunately, I am not enjoying the new website design, and particularly the colours. The glaring white is almost 'clinical' in its look, and does not radiate warmth. Perhaps someone felt it's the way websites are now, and is attempting to make it look 'cleaner' or sharper. But for me it's too 'clean', and where it's not white, it has this insipid washed-out green colour, which again is not attractive (to me). Of course there will be others who find this attractive. But for me the design does not make we want to linger, as i find it 'uncomfortable' and 'not pleasing'. I have been an almost daily viewer for years, but visit less frequently with this new design. This is probably disappointing for the staff to read, as i am sure a lot of effort has gone into this. However, as much as i love the content, I thought you should also hear that at least one of your viewers does not appreciate the website colours.
New design
G.S.Marryat,
I'm sorry to hear that the new design doesn't become you well... I know it's question of liking and taste and that it's difficult to create something that everybody likes. You are the first person to criticize the new design - not that it makes your critique less valuable.
Oddly enough I did get several remarks about the old design being old fashioned, too colorful, messy and other remarks, and looking at it right now I have to say that it's just as glaring white as the new one (the dominant white background is the exact same white background we have now) and the washed out green was in stead a washed out yellow supplemented by a lot of different colors chosen individually for every single article.
I'm truly sorry to hear that the design will keep you from visiting daily as you used to, and I hope that lots of new content can convince you to reconsider that. I'm probably going to leave the new design as it is for now, but I'm certainly not totally locked on that and might consider changing it if more protests come in.
Thanks for your honest comment. It's highly appreciated.
Martin