THis is a great discussion. And it shows what such discussions always show... BCO is a generic fishing mag. Tyee is right... and you can't please all the people all the time.
I flyfish and I write about it. I try to give the reader the what, when, where, why and how to about whatever I am writing about... people who don't flyfish won't find it interesting.
I guess some readers need to narrow their magazine search down to the exact type of fishing they want to do... but I can't recall any magazines that only publish articles on fishing trout with crankbaits, or things as specialized as that.
BCO and other mags often try to have special issues that target a specific audience, sucha s a trout or steelhead issue, and they are full of good info too. But if you are a very avid and experienced angler you probably won't get a lot of info out of magazines. Thus it becomes a nice read and the location or "me and Joe" destination/adventure style article becomes more appealng than the how-to pieces.
Anyway, us writers write to the market as assigned to us by the magazines. We do our best to provide as much info as possible on the subject in an interesting way. Readership surveys can be useful in trying to figure out what areas the magazine should target, but they inevitably turn out spread all over the map too.
And times have changed. 20 or 30 years ago adventure style pieces were the way to go. Stories by people about the trips they took. You almost never see them anymore because everyone seems to want to turn fishing into an exact science and catching fish is the only reason they go fishing. Production fishing, quantity not quality. The more fish the better the day. They never stop to look around and enjoy the day out or all the other things about being out doors and on the water.
So, as I said, you can't please everyone all the time.
Bill