Do Guides Fish While On A Paid Trip?

[snagged in outlet 3]

I have hired many guides over the years. Mostly in places when I'm on vacation and don't have a boat or the knowledge to fish safely.

For instance, red-fishing in New Oeleans. I don't have a boat and even if I did, I don't the tides or areas to fish. So I hire a guide.

The only times a guide has fished during the trip were the bass fishing guides. Specifically one at Lake of the Ozarks who repeatedly threw into the cover before me until I told him I wanted to cancel the trip. He said all the guides fish on the trips and it is normal. After watching him catch 4 or 5 fish I told him to pack it in and take us back. I also refused to pay.

I had a similar confrontation at Table Rock with a guide while on a business outing.

So what's your take on this? Let er rip.

Snagged

[fishinwrench]

I have hired many guides over the years. Mostly in places when I'm on vacation and don't have a boat or the knowledge to fish safely.

For instance, red-fishing in New Oeleans. I don't have a boat and even if I did, I don't the tides or areas to fish. So I hire a guide.

The only times a guide has fished during the trip were the bass fishing guides. Specifically one at Lake of the Ozarks who repeatedly threw into the cover before me until I told him I wanted to cancel the trip. He said all the guides fish on the trips and it is normal. After watching him catch 4 or 5 fish I told him to pack it in and take us back. I also refused to pay.

I had a similar confrontation at Table Rock with a guide while on a business outing.

So what's your take on this? Let er rip.

Snagged

I always did, but just enough to test the bite on a given day, and to make sure I was instructing them properly. It always seemed to improve the confidence (and concentration) of the people I was guiding if they could see a few fish caught. I never once had anyone complain, but then again I always left the best water for them.

[eric1978]

I've only used a guide twice, both times on Lake Fork. We had our own boat but used the guides the first day of the week each time just to get some inside info on patterns so we didn't waste half our week down there on trial and error. Both times the guides fished with us.

The first time it was kind of a tough bite...a cold front had blown in and we were having trouble nailing down a pattern. The guide was fishing with us in the beginning, and once he found a pattern and got us on some fish he pretty much put up his rod and let us do our thing. He'd make a cast every now and then out of boredom I suppose, and I didn't blame him.

The second time it was just game on from the get-go. Every spot he took us to was fish after fish on just about every cast. He hadn't started the morning fishing, but after he sucked down coffee and cigs for a couple hours, and saw that we didn't need any kind of assistance, he did pick up the rod and joined the fun. I had no problem with it, there was plenty to go around.

In the case that you cited SIO3, if the bite was a little tough and the guide was hitting all the juicy spots first, I think that would definitely bother me. But in my cases where he was either trying to get us on fish, or it was just a bonanza, I don't see anything wrong with it, so I guess for me it just depends on the situation.

[ozark trout fisher]

I have hired many guides over the years. Mostly in places when I'm on vacation and don't have a boat or the knowledge to fish safely.

For instance, red-fishing in New Oeleans. I don't have a boat and even if I did, I don't the tides or areas to fish. So I hire a guide.

The only times a guide has fished during the trip were the bass fishing guides. Specifically one at Lake of the Ozarks who repeatedly threw into the cover before me until I told him I wanted to cancel the trip. He said all the guides fish on the trips and it is normal. After watching him catch 4 or 5 fish I told him to pack it in and take us back. I also refused to pay.

I had a similar confrontation at Table Rock with a guide while on a business outing.

So what's your take on this? Let er rip.

Snagged

In my opinion, it totally depends.

I have hired guides that did fish, and in some cases I was perfectly okay with that. They were simply demonstrating the proper technique, and it was obvious that they were doing it to help me catch fish, not just so they could catch fish.

A guide fishing for their own benefit is not acceptable, in most situations in my opinion. When I'm with a guide, I'm paying him to take me to good water, and show me the techniques so I can catch fish. If he is fishing to help establish a pattern on a tough day, then that's fine with me. But if you're paying a guide to put you on fish, and he is spending most of his time trying to catch fish for himself, that's a problem.

And there are other situations. One time I was fishing with a guide off the coast of Maine for cod, and there was an excellent bite. We were holding stationary over a ledge, and it wasn't necessary to move. The guide asked me if it was okay if he fished, and of course it was. He'd already put us on fish, showed us how to catch them, and we had all caught some nice ones. At that point, I didn't mind at all if he caught a couple for himself.

[Paola Cat]

If the fishing is phenomenal I'll let the guide fish and let him use some of my equipment .... otherwise I prefer that they don't. Also, I prefer that a guide does not have any of his own equipment with him .... unless it's some flies, lures, or terminal tackle. I have been on a few trips where I used the guide's equipment but most of the time I prefer to bring my own. The major exception is deep sea reef fishing. PC

[Al Agnew]

Snagged, over the years I've fished with river smallmouth guides, lake largemouth guides, trout guides, salmon guides, redfish and seatrout, halibut, tarpon and permit...and very few of them even thought about fishing. Most brought some equipment, and a few made some casts during the day in order to test lures or techniques or demonstrate how to catch fish under the circumstances. NONE, absolutely none of them, ever made the first casts to a good spot under any circumstances, period, or otherwise hogged the fishing opportunities. One of the best bass guides I have fished with, a smallmouth guide on the Penobscot River in Maine, sat in the middle of the boat with a remote control for his trolling motor, and ran the trolling motor from there while I fished up front and my wife fished in the back. In my opinion, that should be the gold standard for all guides in those types of boats. Of course, all the trout guides in drift boats spent the entire day handling the boat, always keeping it in perfect position for the clients to fish.

On the other hand, with good guides that are also nice guys (most but not all of them that I've fished with), I'm quick to tell them to fish, too, if we're on fish and catching plenty. Or if I think I'd benefit from watching them and learn something. But I would not like it if they took it upon themselves to do what your guide did, and I'd have done the same thing you did.

[jdmidwest]

If I had to pay someone to show me how to fish, well, I would probably shoot something off of my body and call it quits.

No offense to the guides on here, I am a Do It Yourself Sort of Person. Mumble thru and learn thru your mistakes. Most good guides are teachers and you should learn something from your experience. Learning how well they fish is not one of them.

[Zack Hoyt]

From a guides point of view......it all depends on the client. For 95% of the trips, I will not fish. I will cast and show techniques. If I hook a fish, the rod goes back to the client. As Al said, as a guide, I am there to position the boat, tie on flies, undo wind knots, give a hand landing a fish, snap pictures, instruct on techniques, etc, etc. I am not being paid to fish, bottom line. That all being said, I have had very few clients who haven't told me to feel free to fish any time during the trip. I still don't feel overly comfortable fishing, but I have at the tail end of a trip.

If I hired a guide and he was fishing more than me, I would cancel the trip right then. There are far too many guides out there to let one spoil the day. Guiding is a business based alot on return and recommended clientele.

[zipstick]

A guide needs to know what the client wants. Then go from there. Some like me to fish and others want me to get out of the way and put them on fish. Better anglers need only that type of help, but others need lots of teaching of techniques and reading the water. Even if the client wants me to fish, I really want him/her to cast to the better places. In a day's float we pass hundreds of likely looking targets esp. in the warm water period. Lot's of fun and lots of action.

[Gilly]

A guide needs to know what the client wants. Then go from there. Some like me to fish and others want me to get out of the way and put them on fish. Better anglers need only that type of help, but others need lots of teaching of techniques and reading the water. Even if the client wants me to fish, I really want him/her to cast to the better places. In a day's float we pass hundreds of likely looking targets esp. in the warm water period. Lot's of fun and lots of action.

We hired a guide last Tuesday. Once he was comfortable with our skill set he fished. All of the time he was giving pointers about the lake and a few tricks kept getting tossed out all day long. We mostly hired him to get a feel for the lake (Stockton). So much shore line, so little time. That's why we appreciate the reports on here but temper those with reality. I'm not too arrogant to feel like I know everything and I love to learn....time and money well spent, imo.