Opinions On Guide Guarantees... And Should I Be As Mad As I Am?

[Terrierman]

This is not going to be a popular line of thinking but the times I've gone out with a paid guide have in general been not so hot to really bad with one really noticable totally positive exception with a fellow down on the Tennessee River. I've been burned often enough that guided pay trips are pretty much off the table for this one.

I think you've got every right to be as mad as you are.

[Al Agnew]

Sorry, but I still don't think the guide should be fishing at all except to try some things while the client is trying something different, and really not much of that. If you're fishing yourself, you're not paying the kind of attention to what the client is doing right and wrong that you should be. Like I said before, I've never had a guide yet that fished except for a tiny bit of experimentation, no matter what kind of fishing I was doing. One of the best bass guides I have had used one of those wireless remote controls for his trolling motor, and sat in the middle of the boat running the trolling motor while I stood up front on the casting deck fishing.

Perhaps, however, to give the guides that fish the benefit of doubt, is that all decent guides quickly assess the fishing abilities of their clients. If it looks like it's going to be tough to get the client dialed into the techniques that are going to be working that day and it looks doubtful that they will be catching a lot of fish, the guide might fish simply to show the client that the fish are there and can be caught. No client wants to know that's why the guide fished, though. I've watched the techniques guides use to assess how good their clients are going to be and how much work they're going to have to do to make sure they catch fish. Several guides I've had started me out fishing in an area where the casting was easy and there wasn't going to be any problem with hanging up, and watched me closely. I think they quickly decided I wasn't a newbie angler and soon moved to where they knew we'd catch fish but where the fishing was going to be a little tougher.

A trout guide I had on the Snake River told me to grab the rod and nymph that run as he was getting the boat ready. The run was not much, but it was gravel bottomed and had nothing in it to get hung up on. I watched him watch me out of the corner of my eye as I fished, and he quickly decided I knew what I was doing and told me to get in the boat, he was ready to go.

On the other hand, a bass guide I had on Kentucky Lake on a blustery March day went straight to one of his go-to spots, which was on a big, open flat where you had to make long casts against the wind with a small crankbait. I didn't have the rod and reel set-up to get the distance on my casts that I needed and neither did my partner, so he quickly decided that wasn't going to work and shifted gears to go to more sheltered water.

[Greasy B]

The guide trips I’ve taken have also had this feeling each other out period. Most of the time it started with conversation on the way to the river and after the first hour in the boat we typically have each other sized up. More times than not it was just a matter of relaxing and going fishing once we knew we each didn’t have to deal with an A hole.

[ozarkgunner]

I have had good luck with guides but you get what you pay for and you have to understand it's called fishing for a reason.

[hank franklin]

Interesting discussion. I've never hired a guide personally and don't imagine I will anytime soon.

However I do "guide" my children and friends on occasion. Meaning I do everything I can to put them on fish, help them learn how to fish the lures, how to read the water and where the fish may be. And I take great delight if and when they catch fish.

And when "guiding" in this manner I put my fishing pole down. And keep it there. The only time I pick it up is to demonstrate a technique.

So, if I actually hired a guide for cash money and this guy was fishing all day, are you kidding me? I'm supposed to suck this up and just admire my guide's greatness?

Wow.

I would be furious too.

[Gavin]

Remember a time when I double booked guides for a day in Bozeman...I paid both of them.

[bung]

lol 'he shouldn't have fished without your approval'

gimme a break. unless the client is snagged up, theres no reason he can't fish while on the water

[Al Agnew]

Nope, the guide's job is to put the client on fish. That means that his attention should be on the client, not his own fishing.

There are several problems with the guide fishing, over and above dividing his attention. If he ever fishes water in front of the client, he is potentially taking fish the client should have caught. If he's fishing instead of controlling the boat, the client may not be in position to fish. If he gets hung up and has to go get his lure unsnagged, he is disturbing the hole and taking time from the client's fishing.

I spent part of one summer guiding many years ago on middle Current River, and don't remember ever picking up a fishing rod while in the boat with clients. In recent years I've taken a number of people on floats who "won" the chance to fish with me at Smallmouth Alliance gatherings, so although I wasn't getting paid for it I felt like I was guiding. I have fished during those trips, but I made sure that I kept the canoe in position for them to fish, and that I never casted ahead of them. Still, in retrospect I probably should not have been fishing.