Editor's note: This letter opened RS Mag Issue 01, printed in summer 2026 ahead of Keep It Reel Summer Fest on July 18.
Something is happening around here. Not in a hype way. In a quiet, heads-down, things-are-falling-into-place kind of way. The kind you don't really talk about until you can point to it — and now we can point to it. You're holding some of it right now.
We kept meeting people with stories worth telling. Guides, dock walkers, kayak drifters, conservationists, college kids keeping the tradition alive. People who feel more at home around saltwater than pavement. People who've been fishing the same bays their whole lives and still find something new every time they go out. At some point it stopped making sense to keep those stories to ourselves.
So here we are. This issue has some things we're genuinely excited about. A Reel Mouthful is officially part of the family now. Joe Brock has been doing his thing online with the new cooking series and we brought that energy into these pages where it belongs. If you haven't seen the Brockstar Challenge yet, you're late — but you can catch up right here.
And then there's July 18th. Year three of Keep It Reel Summer Fest at Marker 37. Brodie Lane on stage. Mullet racing. Cold beer. Bad decisions. Probably a few stories you'll still be telling next summer. Free. Always free. That part never changes. This year we're hoisting a 60-foot Jolly Roger over the causeway — not because we planned it, but because it felt like something we had to do. There's a difference.
We're planting a flag. Officially.
Which brings me to something I've been sitting with for a while now. The pirates never left.
That's not a theme we invented for this issue. It's something I've been uncovering slowly — through conversations with the crew, with the community, with the people who've been riding with this brand since the beginning. This whole adventure has always been more internal than external. More about who we are than what we're selling. Thirteen years ago I didn't have the words for it. I'm not sure I fully have them now. But the more we dig into it, the more we talk about it out loud, the more real it becomes. The more it takes shape. The more it looks like something that was always there, just waiting to surface.
We're not chasing anything. We're building. And somewhere along the way we realized the flag we've been flying this whole time had a skull on it.
This magazine belongs to the same people this brand has always belonged to. You know who you are.
See you at the dock.
— Andrew Foster, CEO
This story first ran in RS Mag Issue 01, Reel Sportswear's print magazine. Want the next one? Join the Crew and you'll hear about it first.
