Cold-Wind and Transitioning Fish

[dtrs5kprs]

 

You, sir, have things in perspective. My thought process on getting back into guiding is to approach it from an educational angle. Of course, there are clients who only want a day's worth of entertainment. But the ones who truly get their money's worth are those who pick the guide's brain and take some knowledge with them when they get out of the boat.

Two words...striper guide!

[Champ188]

 

Two words...striper guide!

My only qualification in that field is that I love few things more than a dead striper.

[Bill Babler]

It is never easy.  Denny and I fished with a very good guide out of Port Arthur Tx.  A few weeks back for Redfish and Sea Trout.  Big cold front came in and we had ZERO bites the first day and 3 bites the second day.  Guide worked hard but reminded me of the photo of Christy in the classic.  Just could not put it together.  Absolutely no fault on his behalf.  He knew the water and tried everything he could think of and it was just not going to happen.

Yesterday on the Rock was as mean as it gets.  I know two of the best lake guides here that struggled mighty.  One had 3 bites in 8 hrs. and the other about a 1/2 dozen.  I had 2 trout trips and it was just miserable down there also.  Sometime they go hand and hand.  We only had 30 trout in both combined trips.  That is 5 people fishing, so it was Super slow.  You do the best that your clients can and give them congrats when they boat one on a very tough day.

[Smithvillesteve]

Bill: My friends and i enjoyed meeting you at the OAF tourney. And like everybody else we always appreciate the valuable info you put on here. Let me ask you a question. If somebody hires a guide to take them out on a lake on a fishing trip, is it ok for them to go fish those spots the guide took them to in the next following days? Or is that kinda considered improper? Thanks.

[176champion]

IMO I would not out of respect for the guide since that's how he makes his living....I think part of the fun of fishing is finding them.

[dtrs5kprs]

Believe I would use what I learned on the trip, along with a map and Google map, to look for similar spots. 

[merc1997 Bo]

 

It is never easy.  Denny and I fished with a very good guide out of Port Arthur Tx.  A few weeks back for Redfish and Sea Trout.  Big cold front came in and we had ZERO bites the first day and 3 bites the second day.  Guide worked hard but reminded me of the photo of Christy in the classic.  Just could not put it together.  Absolutely no fault on his behalf.  He knew the water and tried everything he could think of and it was just not going to happen.

Yesterday on the Rock was as mean as it gets.  I know two of the best lake guides here that struggled mighty.  One had 3 bites in 8 hrs. and the other about a 1/2 dozen.  I had 2 trout trips and it was just miserable down there also.  Sometime they go hand and hand.  We only had 30 trout in both combined trips.  That is 5 people fishing, so it was Super slow.  You do the best that your clients can and give them congrats when they boat one on a very tough day.

you are right about having times that you just can not figure them out, and many times the weather conditions just have them in the shut down mode.  that is one good thing about being able to pick and choose when to go fishing.  back in my younger years, i had to fish when i could, and in doing that, you just deal with what your are dealt.  since, i hardly ever fish a tournament anymore, i try to choose the right days to fish.  night fishing is the same way, and you can tell when conditions are more favorable for active fish.  

example of how when you fish can make a difference would be my last fishing trip.  even though the wind was howling like crazy, there just were not hardly any bass up shallow that we could find to catch chunking and winding, and most everything you saw on the electronics was out suspended around 25 feet deep.  darkness changed the circumstances, and moved the bass up and in contact with the bottom, and we then caught bass with most of the bites being 10 to 15 ft.

bill, i definitely know what you deal with guiding.  you can not choose to go on just the right days and have to deal with those days that i would not even know where to throw hand grenades if i had them.  there are just going to be more times than not that 6 bites in a trip was a good accomplishment.  bass are never going to be active when gathering food is a hard job.  when you can pinpoint these inactive bass, that is when it takes running the gambit of the exact presentation to make one strike.  you have to make repeated casts to where you know or think they are with a variety of lures until you unlock the keys to lure choice, and speed of presentation.  never give up and try different things.  that is how we learn.

bo

 

 

[merc1997 Bo]

 

Bill: My friends and i enjoyed meeting you at the OAF tourney. And like everybody else we always appreciate the valuable info you put on here. Let me ask you a question. If somebody hires a guide to take them out on a lake on a fishing trip, is it ok for them to go fish those spots the guide took them to in the next following days? Or is that kinda considered improper? Thanks.

i would not ever do that because the guide is most likely going to use that spot again.  just take what you should have been learning about location to go find your own places.  if you find a guide's spot on your own, you did a great job in learning something and how to apply it.

bo

[Bill Babler]

 

Bill: My friends and i enjoyed meeting you at the OAF tourney. And like everybody else we always appreciate the valuable info you put on here. Let me ask you a question. If somebody hires a guide to take them out on a lake on a fishing trip, is it ok for them to go fish those spots the guide took them to in the next following days? Or is that kinda considered improper? Thanks.

Every guide is different on this subject.  Some will not allow GPS and consider the day you are with them the day that you have paid for his locations and his expertise on how to fish them.

I'm from the other school.  I don't privately own a single gallon of Table Rock lake water.  If you fish with me, bring all the maps and follow up gear you want.  On most guide trips, we fish lake sections and really a very small fraction of them.  If I fish you on a 1/2 to a dozen locations on a section, you are more than welcome to return to any of those anytime you please.  I know Beck feels the same.  If your going to fish somewhere else the next day on the lake, bring your map and I'll mark where I think you may have some success.

Just way to many variables for client fishing guide locations to make much of a difference to me.  I have over 1.200 way points on my Gen 3.

A hundred clients fishing my locations will not make a difference to me.  I would just grumble that my junk was being covered up.

A huge factor on Guide locations is fishing locations that your clients can have the most success by their ability to not only fish a location properly but have the ability to present and fish baits that will have the best chance.  The guy or gal that fishes a dozen times a year with a zebco or a spinning rod cannot fish locations as comfortably or a thoroughly as a guy or gal that fishes 50 times a year and throws any type of rod real combo you put into their hands.  Age and physical ability also come into play in a guides mind when selecting locations for his or her clients as well as lake locations.  ie, if I fish from a resort at Baxter, Shell Knob, or at the dam, most of these resorts want clients fished in a close proximity to their resort, reasons are obvious.  If possible I always present the plus and minus of each lake section for that day to determine where I will take them.  I will fish any location on the lake on any day depending where I believe they have the best chance for success.

I'll take clients from BC that will say we just want to fish around here.  Lots of times I will say, I can fish you here and we should catch a dozen, or I can take you out of Aunts Creek, or Baxter  and we will catch 30.  About 25% will go to catch more.  Lots will say lets just fish here and have a fun morning no matter how many we catch.  No problem, but I offered you the information.

"I Never Just Take A Client Fishing."  You do that, you are not doing your job.  You durn better have an idea of their ability and have an area that suits it as close as possible or you are just simply not going to do well, even if they say they are happy just being on the lake.

Another point is you usually have a very hard time bending the fish.  You guide on TR and you had better give them what they want.  These fish  very seldom bend.  Yes you can catch some doing most anything and at any time, but day to day you better feed these picky so and so's what they want.

The only time that really bothers us or hurts the fish when clients return to the locations we have shown them is in June-July when the post-spawn thermocline fish get on the ridges, humps and run outs.  This is a time that the lake is in real Jeopardy.  It can be extremely fragile as huge lake sections of fish mass into very small locations.  Folks can do very serious damage by keeping limits of K's during this period.  The numbers if you get on the right place seem inexhaustible.  In reality huge percentages of the bass are in a very few limited locations and they are congregated.  These locations are mostly from point 22 on the White River to point 12 on the James to the Kimberling City Bridge.  Were talking about a 30  mile mid-lake section that 70% of the Spotted Bass are going to be on a couple of dozen locations.

Most guides will not set a spot long, just long enough to catch and release  a few and move to the next locations.

Long winded answer to I don't mind if you return to the locations we fished during our guide trip.

Good Luck

 

 

[Hunter53]

All the guides I have been with have always said they had no problem with us going back to spots while we were there. We mostly  just do our own thing and try to find other places like we were shown and then expand on that and even try some stuff/techniques we were not shown. We don't have big lakes up here so we enjoying running the boat all over and fishing different areas of the lake. While we are there for 2 weeks you can bet we will be anywhere from Shell Knob, up the white and all the way down to long creek. Probably just sent Dave into convulsions thinking about the gas and oil we use. LOL

Heck we even had one guide after our trip was over; out of the blue offered to load all his waypoints on my graph!  That really caught me by surprise to say the least. He was obviously confident enough he could find fish even if we did happen to be on one of his spots.