About BC Outdoors

BC Outdoors

Overview

BC Outdoors is a British Columbia magazine devoted to fishing, hunting, shooting sports and conservation, published in print six times a year alongside a continuously updated website. It bills itself as "Your BC fishing and hunting authority since 1945" — a claim rooted in a genuine eight-decade lineage that begins with a small regional digest printed in Quesnel in the final months of the Second World War. Few Canadian consumer magazines in any category can trace an unbroken identity back that far, and none in the outdoor field west of the Rockies is older.

The magazine speaks to British Columbia's large community of anglers, hunters and sport shooters. Its pages mix practical instruction — where to fish, how to hunt a particular species, how a new rifle or rod performs — with destination features, wildlife and fisheries conservation reporting, profiles and opinion. Because British Columbia's geography runs from Pacific salmon rivers to Interior plateau lakes and northern big-game country, the magazine's remit is unusually broad, covering saltwater and freshwater fishing, fly fishing, waterfowl and upland bird hunting, big-game hunting and the shooting sports in a single title.

BC Outdoors is published by Outdoor Group Media Ltd., the Vancouver-based company that also publishes Outdoor Canada, and it sits at the centre of a small group of related properties that includes the BC Outdoors Show consumer exhibition and the BCO Sport Fishing TV video brand.

History

The magazine's own 70th anniversary history, published in 2015, traces its origin to January 1945, when the Cariboo Digest was launched in Quesnel, British Columbia. Sold for 25 cents, the first incarnation was a 32-page quarterly edited by A. Sahonovitch, with a wide regional focus spanning politics, agriculture, mining, personal stories and local news from the Cariboo country. It grew quickly — expanding into the Cariboo and Northern BC Digest and passing 100 pages before the end of 1946 — as it documented a resource frontier region in the postwar boom.

In August 1967, under editor Art Downs, the magazine changed its name to BC Outdoors and began its long pivot toward the sporting field. Community history and local personalities remained part of the mix, but hunting and fishing content came steadily to dominate. For much of the later twentieth century the title was owned by OP Publishing, a British Columbia magazine publisher, and it settled into its role as the province's principal outdoor magazine.

In the spring of 2000, under OP Publishing, the magazine was split in two: BC Outdoors Sport Fishing and BC Outdoors Hunting and Shooting were published as separate titles, each serving one half of the audience. The split lasted roughly a decade and a half. Mike Mitchell, a veteran fishing writer, took over the fishing title's editorship in the fall of 2007 and became the magazine's most familiar editorial voice.

The modern era began in the mid-2010s, when the title passed to the newly formed Outdoor Group Media and the two halves were reunited. Announcing the change in its 70th anniversary year, the magazine said it was going "back to its roots," putting "the fishing magazine and hunting magazine back together, back where it belongs, in one big magazine." Outdoor Group Media, which also acquired control of Outdoor Canada in stages between 2015 and 2018, has published the reunified BC Outdoors ever since, on a six-issue annual cycle anchored by a spring fishing special and an autumn hunting special.

Content and Coverage

A typical issue of BC Outdoors is built around seasonal opportunity: what is running, what is open, and where in the province the best chances lie. Fishing coverage spans Pacific salmon and steelhead in coastal and Interior rivers, lake fishing for trout and char, saltwater fishing off Vancouver Island and the north coast, and fly fishing techniques and destinations. Hunting coverage includes big game such as deer, moose and bear, waterfowl, and upland birds, along with the regulations, draws and conservation debates that surround them. Shooting sports and firearms reviews form a third strand, including an annual gun review in the hunting special.

Features are written in the voice of experienced practitioners rather than generalist journalists. The magazine's recent editorial calendars, published in its publisher's media kits, list contributions such as fishing writer and photographer Aaron Goodis exploring the Thompson River, resident firearms expert Mark Hoffman reviewing new rifles and optics, and assistant editor Michaela Ludwig working with government biologists to produce the annual hunting forecast. Conservation is a standing theme rather than an occasional one: habitat, fisheries management and wildlife policy stories — such as explainers on mule deer biology and migration corridors — run alongside the how-to material, and the magazine maintains a dedicated conservation section on its website.

The balance between the two founding audiences is managed through the calendar. The March/April issue is a fishing special, the September/October issue a hunting special, and the remaining four issues mix both disciplines. This rhythm follows the province's outdoor year, from spring fisheries through the autumn hunting seasons.

Audience and Reach

British Columbia has one of Canada's most participation-heavy outdoor cultures, and BC Outdoors addresses the provincial segment of the national angling and hunting population. The publisher's media kits describe a readership that overwhelmingly does both sports: in Outdoor Group Media's 2022 media kit, 86 per cent of the magazine's audience fished and 83 per cent hunted, 61 per cent took part in target or sport shooting, 80 per cent fished freshwater, and 41 per cent fly fished. Those figures are the publisher's own audience research, offered to advertisers, and should be read as such rather than as independent measurement.

Print distribution is by subscription and newsstand sale across British Columbia, and the title has long described itself as the most-read outdoor magazine in the West, a characterization that dates from its own anniversary history. Its digital reach is more precisely stated in the publisher's 2027 media kit, which reports an average of roughly 8,200 unique visitors and about 39,100 page views a month for bcoutdoorsmagazine.com, alongside an email newsletter list that the publisher put at about 7,000 subscribers in its 2022 kit. Social audiences listed in the same 2027 kit include roughly 12,200 Instagram followers and about 7,460 YouTube subscribers for the magazine's channels.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website, bcoutdoorsmagazine.com, extends the print title with news, seasonal tactics, gear coverage and conservation reporting published between issues; its article feed was active through the summer of 2026, including features dated late July 2026. A free e-newsletter promotes new content and keeps the title in front of readers between its six print editions.

Video is handled largely through the sister BCO Sport Fishing TV brand, which maintains its own social following, while the print magazine's brand extends offline through the BC Outdoors Show, a consumer exhibition for the province's outdoor community; the show's 2026 edition was held March 13–15, 2026 at Chilliwack Heritage Park. Together, print, web, newsletter, video and the show give the title a year-round presence well beyond its six issue dates.

Ownership and Organisation

BC Outdoors is published by Outdoor Group Media Ltd., based at 802–1166 Alberni Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company describes itself simply as "the publisher of BC Outdoors and Outdoor Canada." Outdoor Group Media took full control of Outdoor Canada in 2018 after acquiring a half stake in 2015, and it operates the two magazines as complementary national and provincial titles, selling combined advertising across both.

Editorially, the magazine is produced by a small Vancouver-based team working with a wide bench of freelance contributors across the province. Mike Mitchell, editor since 2007 on the fishing side, has been the title's longest-serving modern editor, and the current masthead structure reflected in the publisher's editorial calendars includes an assistant editor and named specialist contributors for firearms and photography. Production and advertising functions are shared with Outdoor Canada through the publisher's Vancouver office.

Contact and Availability

BC Outdoors is published six times a year — January/February, March/April (Fishing Special), May/June, July/August, September/October (Hunting Special) and November/December — and is available by subscription and on newsstands in British Columbia. The publisher's 2027 production schedule shows the cycle continuing into 2027, with the January/February 2027 issue closing for advertising in November 2026 and reaching newsstands in late December 2026.

The magazine's website is bcoutdoorsmagazine.com, where readers can subscribe, sign up for the free e-newsletter and read current features. Outdoor Group Media Ltd. can be reached at its Vancouver office, 802–1166 Alberni Street, Vancouver, BC V6E 3Z3, by email at info@outdoorgroupmedia.com, and the publisher's advertising production line is 604-559-6154.