Tips of the Guides
- This topic has 15 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated Oct 5, 2006 at 1:55 am by
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I am a guide in Western Montana and these are my tips for clients to insure a great time on the river.
1. Come prepared for changing weather. I pack a few extra clothes for clients just incase they forget something. Your comfort can sometimes make or break your day.
2. Be honest about your abilities. If your casting needs work it is better I try to help you before we get in the boat. We can accomplish a lot more casting on land and it can give you a lot more confidence once we hit the river.
3. Don’t get a big jag on the night before a fishing trip. There is nothing worse than a hung over client!! Not to mention the river doen’t always have the best places for you to do your business.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Guides are teachers by heart and love to share their knowledge with others.
5. Don’t worry about tangles and snags. It comes with the territory. We expect it and don’t mind getting you set up to fish again.
6. Listen to what your guide is telling you. This could keep you from getting tangled in the first place.
7. Keep your expectations real. Every guide wants you to catch fish!! However, somedays fish better than others and we have no control over that. That is why they call it fishing not catching!
8. Don’t get so focused on catching fish that you miss out on the beauty of the river your on. Sometimes you need to stop and look around and see just what a beautiful world we live in.
9. Never help a guide get his or her boat ready. We understand that you want to help because you are a nice person, but we have a routine and if someone else helps it is a good way to forget something.
10. Relax and have fun!!!! That is what you paid for after all and we are going to do everything in our power to make sure that happens!!
Ok those are my top ten. I look forward to see others both from the guide stand point and the guided.
Moosedog
I guide in Arkansas and I have to say that yall have hit about all the nails on the head, but I’ll add a few more in the mix.
A few tips from the (ex) guide:
1. Guides like anglers who are enthusiastic and realistic and make pleasant company. Regardless of your skill level, if you make an effort, pay attention, and let the guide know that you are there to learn something, over the course of the day you’ll have a better experience.
2. Talk. The best anglers engage in dialogue with their guide, especially when the fish are difficult. In saltwater, this is probably a continuous dialogue, as in “I see him, he’s moving right, he just stopped ….” In trout fishing, this may mean just seeking confirmation about how you plan to approach the fish or what tippet to use. Dialogue lets the guide know what you are seeing and thinking and allows him/her to adjust strategy. Of course this doesn’t extend to all non-fishing periods; no guide enjoys constant chatter.
3. Don’t be afraid to use the guide’s tackle, if they bring it. Good guides have balanced and tested outfits that are suitable for the quarry. Plus, their knots are probably better than yours.
4. Ask the guide what flies to use, even if you are certain you know. Don’t insist on a pattern that your cousin Frank told you he caught 3 permit in Mexico on or the one the Fan Creek cutthroats jumped all over.
A few tips from the guided:
1. Always bring rain gear, even if no rain is forecast. If the guide says it might rain, put your jacket on quickly.
2. Don’t wait until you get to the fishing to rig your rod; tie on a tippet and fly and have it ready when you reach the water. If the guide. while rowing, tells you that you are coming up on a sweeper that tends to hold big fish, don’t suddenly decide that this would be a good time to sit down and clean your glasses.
3. Always ask about lunch. Customs vary between salt- and freshwater and between parts of the world. Hungry is not good.
4. If in doubt about tipping, ask the lodge manager. If you’ve hired the guide directly, always tip something, even if it is only 5%, unless you’ve had a rotten day and it is entirely the guide’s fault. Guides in most parts of the world make a large portion of their income from tips. And they remember good tippers.
Marshall
I won’t embarass him too much but I spent some time with Marshall recently and it’s a little like being around a retired rock star.
All of the tips so far, whether from the “guides” or the “guided,” have been tips for customers. How about a few tips for the guides? I’ve been lucky to go on a lot of guided trips over the years. Most have been really great – but unfortunately, some have been bad. Here’s some suggestions I’d like to pass along to the pros, from the customer, based on those rare negative experiences:
1. SHOW UP ON TIME!!! It chaps my behind if I agree with the guide that we’ll meet at the ramp at 7:30, and I get up early to be there by 7:15 (just to be sure), and the guide doesn’t come rolling in until around 8:00. I understand that things happen, but it’s like any other job – there’d better be a good reason for being late. And if the guide is late, then I expect that we’ll make it up on the end of the day – I feel a bit cheated when I pay for a full day but we start 30 minutes late and go in 20 minutes early.
2. Along the same line, maybe I’m off base on this, but if I pay for an 8 hour day, I don’t think an hour of breakfast should count. I don’t mind meeting at the diner to start the day, and I’ll even gladly buy the guide’s breakfast. But if we meet at 8:00, don’t hit the water until 9:00, and the boat is back on the trailer at 4:00 sharp, I don’t consider that 8 hours of fishing. In particular, it seems like bass guides in Florida spend a lot of “fishing” time at the restaurant.
3. Have a good time. If you’re not having a good time, pretend you are. For god’s sake, you’re getting paid to take people fishing. I fished with a tarpon guide once out of Miami who had a chip on his shoulder the whole night. He actually mumbled a few curses under his breath when I hooked a good fish just as he was ready to go in for the night – he didn’t think I heard, but I did. Part of being a guide is having patience – even if you decide you don’t like the client who has hired you.
4. Have respect for the wildlife. This is a big one to me, and I think it’s probably one that even good guides occasionally don’t think about. I’ve been on two trips where the guide intentionally swerved to hit animals on the road during the drive to the river. Once it was a prairie dog; once it was a snake. I’m sure the guides thought they were just killing off a “trash” animal, but I didn’t appreciate it. I didn’t say anything, but that kind of thing doesn’t fit into my ethic for how I regard the outdoors, and it was a negative blemish on the day. Also, on Florida bass trips, when I’ve caught pickerel, the guide has often snapped off the pickerel’s jaws and thrown it back to die a slow death. Seems awfully wasteful and needless to me.
First I’d like to say great advice from BD. I hate when people are late and as a guide being late just starts the day off on the wrong foot. I like to get there early and just check everything over so when the client shows up I can give them my full attention. And if I heard of a guide doing those kinds of things you described I would report them to the board of outfitters. As a guide in Montana we are suppose to follow a code of ethics and certainly some of the things you described are unethical.
Pictureman you should tip your guide as you would a waiter. And it should be base on how hard they work for you and how much you enjoyed your day. It should never be based on how many fish you caught. Your guide has no control over this. Hope that helps.
Moosedog
This thread is interesting. We travel a lot and use guides 3 – 5 times a year. One of the things that I think is critical is to call and talk to your guide in advance. I have found that the busiest guides, the most professional guides, always make time to return a phone call and to give you a very good lay of the land. Communication up front makes a difference.
BD, mentioned a guide being late. That is totally not acceptable nor professional. As to all of the other points that BD raises, I have never experienced guides like that and if I do the mushroom cloud over the river will be one that I set off.
Tipping, I expect the best and we tip well. Generally 20% and $100 days are not out of the question. FWIW – we hire guides on PNW steelhead or Atlantic Salmon rivers world wide generally. Limited experience with trout waters, and that was mixed, and no experience with guides on smallmouth waters or salt.
– David
Great advice here from a bunch of folks. I wanted to add some general advice about tipping (since I am completing an article about it right now).
— You can plan to tip most independent guides just as you would any other service-industry people: 10-20% based on performance/quality of service. Guides in most locations of the world depend on tips to supplement their income; in many places the majority of their income comes from tips.
— The trend in package trips (i.e. booking a lodge that includes guides) is toward a collective gratuity given to the lodge manager. He/she then distributes the tips evenly to all employees. This may sound odd, but it prevents struggles among the guides for access to the best tippers. If in doubt, ask the lodge manager, and it is always a good idea to get tipping advice from the booking agent if you use one. Package tips are generally lower, between 7% and 15%.
— If you can’t afford a 20% tip for an independent guide, don’t think that it is mandatory. The most successful guides (and the best, in my opinion) wouldn’t make less of an effort for someone that regularly tips 10% than for someone who tips 30% if they enjoy fishing with that person.
The last thing I want to add: don’t book a bad guide. Do your homework, get references — preferably from known top guides, and personally assess your guide/lodge over the phone. If you are at a lodge that rotates guides and you have a bad experience, let the lodge manager know immediately. There are too many excellent guides that have open dates or need the income. And at lodges you are doing your compatriots a favor by noting bad behavior.
Oh, and Zach, I am working on the video 🙂
Marshall
I’ve used guides three times and was mildly disapointed each time. But I’ll admit it was probably my fault. I didn’t let the guide know specifically what I was looking for. All three were float trips and I really wanted to learn how to dry fly fish. All three trips were set up for streamer and nymph fishing. That being said, the guides worked their behinds off to make it an enjoyable trip. One even worked with me on casting a dry fly and drifts, knowing full well that we were not going to catch anything.
So what are my tips for the guided:
1. From the outset, be determined you are going to have a good time, no matter what happens. Any trip is an adventure if that is what you are looking for. An enjoyable trip is as much a state of mind as it is the actual events.
2. Be patient. If you are not catching fish, stay with it and enjoy the surroundings. Any decent guide is going to work his tail off to put you on fish. Most of the time they will be successful (sorry about the redfish Zack). But, if not, remember, its a fishing trip, not a catching trip.
3. Any guide worth his salt has something to teach you. Listen and pay attention. Every time I’ve been out I felt that what I learned was worth the price.
4. If you take your wife, just remember, she is going to catch more fish than you even though she’s just dragging a fly through the water. Fish just seem to know when someone really doesn’t want to catch them.
Dunfly I love your advice. Especially about taking the wife along! In my case though it is because my wife is a really good fisherman and she is super competitive. If she catches the first fish she always says one zero or if she catches a bigger fish first and then I catch one a little smaller I hear “oh that’s a cute little fish you just caught”. Consider yourself lucky if your wife just drags the fly!
If you like to dry fly fish you should come to Montana and do some fishing. About 90% of the guides I know all dry fly fish. As a guide myself I only resort to tandum nymph rigs when the client is hell bent on catching fish or is looking to catch bigger fish. I would much prefer to have them catching fish on top as it is much more exciting. I always tie on a dropper when I am doing the dry fly thing as well. I just see it as doubling your odds.Moosedog
I asked a guy that owns a Flyshop that has quided all over the place about tiping. He gave me this advice. A good day 50 bucks. You caught some fish and had a good time. Caught some REALLY good fish and had a great time 75 bucks. Caught the fish of a lifetime and can’t wait to show the pictures to your freinds 100 dollars or more. Had a bad trip and the guide was a jerk tip them 10 dollars so they know you know about tiping but they suck.
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