The latest site redesign has a lot more user features that I hope everyone will use to their advantage.  The main difference is to allow everyone to participate in more ways and in areas other than the forum.

The new site centers on you, the user.  One of the first things you will notice is that you can login to sections other than the forum through the prominent “Log In” tab.

When you Log In, a little further down the page you will now see a User Menu.  This menu gives you access to start creating your personal content.

You can do a lot from this menu, including checking out everyone else's profiles, journals, and galleries as well as edit your own content.

First let’s look at the link that says “My Profile.”  Pretty much everything you can do is accessible from this link.  When you click, it takes you to your personal information page.  On this page you can tell everyone a bit more about yourself, upload an avatar, manage your trophy room, your journal and see your recent forum posts.  

Within your profile and the “My Information” tab you have several fields you can fill in including: location, web site (if you have one), favorite lake, favorite fish to catch, favorite animal to hunt, favorite gear and a space for your own personal philosophy.  If you were a guide, for instance, you might want to put something in here about your guide services.

Also on the profile page is a tab for “Your Trophy Room.”  When you or other users click on this, they can see thumbnails of what you have uploaded to your personal gallery.  

The next tab over is “Your Journal.”  This allows you to create your own field journal or blog.  You can share the details of your last day out, share a personal technique or anything you want.  Basically this feature will turn you into an author to pass along valuable info and insights to others.

The last tab is ‘Your Forum Posts” and this is simply the last 10 posts you have made in the forum.

Look for more articles in this section on how to manage each of these.  Just go back to the top or bottom of this page and click "About" in the menu.