CFF used to be a great read!

[getterdun]

The CFF used to be a great place to read about peoples catches or the day they had, but now it's only about the CFF tournaments, 1 reason I believe people don't comment is because they will get accused of padding their comments so they may want to fish in a tournament, not so for everyone, that's one reason I haven't been on here in awhile, the other reason is what's stated in the beginning! this may not be in the right forum, sorry!

 

[finbully]

There's several of these forums that have diminished. Florida Sportsman is another that I can think of that recently ceased to exist. I attribute much of it to what I'm going to call "social network burnout". It seems that many of the forums devolve into nothing more than pissing matches, people only on them to buy or sell something, same questions being asked over and over (not taking time to search for an answer) and folks who just want to stir the pot by making troll posts. Posting catch reports, especially with pictures lead to the spot or spots overrun with folks who can't or don't want to make the effort to find fish on their own. Not saying any spot is owned by anyone (they are not) but many people are just out to catch and don't take time to enjoy the hunt.

 

[31airborne]

Yep, this phenomenon is not unique to this site. It's happening everywhere. Sites that have been active for decades are going silent. Plenty of lurkers, fewer and fewer people who post. Finbully's comment about people asking the same question without having attempted the most basic of searches kinda hits home - in this day of access to data on everything from everywhere, we still have a [large?] group of people who are too lazy or too inexperienced with social media to perform a search. A friend on a local Virginia site shared a funny story about posting. His thinking was that if he didn't post and let the site go dormant, people would think the lake was dead and wouldn't come. The opposite happened. People assumed the silence meant lots was going on, so they showed up in droves. Think about that for a minute. The Chick (and every other prime time fishing destination) is crammed full of fishermen. The lurker-to-poster ratio grows.

 

[rsimms]

As the 3rd person who joined CFF in April 2005 (right behind developer DHaun and his daughter), yes, I have seen it evolve tremendously. It began as what amounted to a "Family" of area fishermen. We actually organized picnic gatherings for members and their families. But in 18 years it has evolved into something totally different. It has not happened by design. It is simply "the nature of the beast."
Internet Forums are basically a "life form" and evolution is bound to occur. It seems now the most active class of folks using it are tournament anglers. Again, not by design, it's just the direction this particular life form has evolved based upon the largest audience.

 

[trbr81]

interesting topic - one really good forum up here on the Chesapeake is a shadow of what it once was. I think its social media and smart phones have done it in. Bass Boat central is one forum that continues to grow though