Besides people getting stuff for free online, thereby lowering pay and removing the incentive for authors to write (my pay for my last Fly Fishing & Tying Journal story was the same as a story I wrote for Missouri Game & Fish in 1999), the biggest problem IMO is that the mags all aim at the lowest common denominator. I heard somewhere that the average reader of fly fishing mags fishes less than 10 days a year. This means that magazine stories all focus on the WHERE and HOW rather than the WHY. I have made money on them, but even writing "10 BEST WHATEVER FLY" stories gets old, much less reading them. I'd much rather write essays and Me & Joe stories, but the only way to sell them and make anything is write and self-publish books, because no magazine but Gray's Sporting Journal will buy an essay/story from anyone but their staff "back page guy" except perhaps in a special issue and pay anything approaching a reasonable fee. I made a grand total of $40 off of the essays in River Characters before I self-published the book. I made about that in the past week off of e-book sales.
Owner, Yellowstone Country Fly Fishing
Head Guide, Parks' Fly Shop
Fly Designer, Montana Fly Company
Author, Yellowstone Country Flies and River Characters