Fly by nite guides

[mixermarkb]

Ham- I know there are great fishermen who don't fish derbies. Some of them would probably make great guides, but this particular situation stinks of who you know more than what you know, in my honest opinion. 

I believe Champ is dead on right. Guiding is an expensive seasonal business, with thin margins, if indeed you are providing the level of service that I would consider "professional".

In that respect it's very similar to the concert staging and production industry I'm in. We see guys try to start companies all the time by underbidding to build a client base, and it simply can't work. 99.9999 percent of the time, those guys either go out of business, or raise their prices, because after they have been in it a short while, all the hidden costs crop up and they see WHY the rest of us charge what we do. The net effect is still there though, and that's downward pricing pressure in the market, which hurts everyone, because as soon as one newbie has learned the hidden costs and raised his price, the next poor dumb bastard who thinks it seems like a fun way to make a buck has already hung his shingle and tried to buy his way in by undercutting, keeping the vicious cycle going. 

Guiding is about people skills more than fishing. For a guy to just pop up, having laid no networking groundwork by talking to the other guides in the immediate area, by getting to know fishermen, working social media, (I'm putting derby fishing into this networking category) is suspect in my opinion. Doing it by pulling other local guides business cards off of area bulletin boards and replacing them with yours just seems amateurish and unprofessional.  

I'm not impressed so far. Time will tell I suppose. 

[fishinwrench]

Doing some guiding on the side should be no big deal. It didn't used to be so why is it now?  Just because it isn't your main source of income shouldn't mean that you can't do it at all.  

[mixermarkb]

As long as you don't set out to undercut the guys that do it full time, and carry insurance to protect yourself and your clients, I don't see a problem with guiding on the side.

[Ham]

I'm sure the idea of being a guide is VERY different from the reality of being a guide.

i suspect you'll have some great clients , some good clients, and some absolute turds. 

The costs involved and the time involved probably make the $400 guide fee = just a little bit more than minimum wage at the end of the day. 

I could guide trout on the White River right now. There are days I could guide on BSL, but a lot more days where I would be scratching my head and apologizing profusely. 

By the time I know enough to guide, I'll be too old to do it. 

[fishinwrench]

26 minutes ago, mixermarkb said:

As long as you don't set out to undercut the guys that do it full time, and carry insurance to protect yourself and your clients, I don't see a problem with guiding on the side.

I'm only carrying on in this discussion because I once was that guy.  I charged less than the full time guides, but only because I had a less comfortable (less fancy) boat, and I fished areas of the lake that the other guides wouldn't even go to.  I didn't set my prices based on being cheaper than anyone, I based them on my expenses which were far less than the guides from the Lodge and TT.  Plus all of my clients were already pretty good fishermen, I wasn't having to babysit anybody's teenage kids or anything.

 Was I "insured to the hilt"?  Nope

Did I accept checks or take credit cards?  Nope

Did anyone, including other guides, ever complain or feel like I was hurting them?  I don't think so.  They were already booked solid and couldn't have taken another trip anyway.....So who did I harm?

[mixermarkb]

Did you take down full time guide's business cards and replace them with yours? 

[mixermarkb]

Cash on the side, by word of mouth, I don't have a real problem with. Trying to launch a business to compete with another established business, by undercutting price and childish behavior, I think is silly. 

[1farmer]

Have thought about starting a guide business. My only consistent area of expertise would be drum, if client didn't want to fish for them we could target gaspergou or sheepshead.

[Bushbeater]

i'm with you on the drum. I can catch them on a bass rig, crappie jig, catfish rig etc. I have my best luck when fishing bass derbys, although my best walleye fishing is always during a bass tourney.

[fishinwrench]

2 hours ago, mixermarkb said:

Did you take down full time guide's business cards and replace them with yours? 

I didn't even have business cards. Referrals came from bait & tackle stores, restaurants, bars, motels and resorts who just knew me as a guy that was friendly and was always out catching fish. ?     And that's all it took to generate 2-3 trips per week from April to October.  

Not making any assumptions here....But if a full time guide gets upset because a stack of his cards disappeared from the Hop'n'Go then he is only PRETENDING to be a full time guide. ?