Sadly, they pay nothing or a pittance for articles written by hunters who merely want their names in lights.

I forgot all about that problem! I think the Internet has increased the number of folks looking for what we used to call vanity publishing opportunities - people who willingly work for nothing or practically nothing just to see their names in print. Only a finite number of jobs are out there and the more editorial space that gets filled by those people, the less there is left for someone struggling to make a living at it.

I also see that as one of the reasons the overall quality of the writing we now see in the majority of magazines is in the toilet. I'll be the first to admit that my stuff requires editorial help, but feedback from editors has convinced me it's far above what they usually get.

Another reason for the decline, in my opinion, is that the great "me and Joe went hunting or fishing" pieces that I grew up on no longer sell - practically everything has to be product oriented these days. That isn't necessarily a bad thing if you resign yourself to do the best job you can with it but it's difficult to get the necessary information across with any personality included (the flavor that used to let us identify our favorite writers without even looking at a story's byline) and still meet the short word counts required.