Shallow Water Angler magazine, “The Magazine of Inshore Saltwater Fishing,“ is a magazine for adventurers who sit in essentially stationary boats less than 100 feet off the Florida coast. For the magazine’s cover, they managed to capture perhaps the only woman in history that ever actually engaged in this sport.

Quick observations: the shallow water angling world apparently has only a couple of decent photographers, more lucky than skilled, and zero graphic designers. I mean this in the nicest possible way. A couple of the enclosed ads were well-designed, however, especially a logo for Dolphin Boats.

One small fact I learned right off the bat: Red microfilament line is “invisible” to fish underwater, making the lures appear to be alive and unattached to anything potentially dangerous. Of course, this could also be due to the fact that fish have the brains of a…well, a fish.

Lesson 1. Shallow water fish, lures and bait have really funny, often colorful names, some of which sound like what Count Olaf passes out for Halloween:

Redfish, Whitefish, Bluefish, Lite Bite Tippets, Black Drum, Paddle-tail Jig, Red Drum, Crippled Crab, Bonefish, Super Spooks, Weakfish, She Dogs, Catfish, Skitterwalks, Kingfish, Finger Mullet, Stripers, Walking Plugs, Albies, Jigheads, Speckles, Spinnerbait, Flatties, In-line Spinners, Snooks, Safety-Pin, Shad, Willow-leaf Blades, Croakers, Indiana Blade, Flounder, Colorado Blade, Pompano, False Albacore Strike Tins, Ladyfish, Spanish Mackerel, Tripletail, Tarpon, Bunker, Jack Crevalle, Speckled Seatrout, Jigging Spoons, Samoan Palolo Worm, and everyone’s favorite, Snagless Sally.

Lesson 2. You could probably write a horror movie based on the pull quotes and captions alone.

A few disturbing samples:

“There it was, a maroon creature paddling madly to the Atlantic.”

“Anglers gather at the height of the hatch, when palolo worms and worm-crazy tarpon flood the Lower Key channels.”

Lesson 3. The names of many products sold to shallow-water fisherman (and that one courageous woman on the cover) suggest that they think their lives are much more exciting than they probably really are:

-- Quantum reels
-- Power Pro microfilament
-- Calcutta fishing line (slogan: “Pirate in the Blood!”)
-- Bomber lures
-- Shakespeare fishing tackle
-- Riptide lures
-- Action Craft
-- Rebel Bay boats
-- Renegade boats
-- Maverick boats
-- SpiderWire microfilament
-- Piranha pliers
-- High Roller lures
-- Action Optics

…although there was at least one shining example of truth in advertising:

-- Slo-Mo Boats

In conclusion: A Shallow Water Angler ad for a Florida Keys fishing lodge (their tag line is “Fish. Eat. Sleep.” which pretty much sums up the male experience, doesn’t it?) shows a man asleep in bed, snuggling against a shiny-gilled, scale-encrusted example of piscatorial pulchritude. Lest a shallow-water fisherman mistake his wife for a worm-crazy tarpon, the ad's sub-head reads: “Try not to get them confused.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.