No idea it worked this way

This is a bit of a rant, I guess I am just naive on the way of the worlds with guide fishing. I started looking into guide services and saw a handful of videos with guides and their clients. I was absolutely shocked to see the guides at the front of the boat FISHING!!! I had no idea they fished along with you. Is it me or does this seem like a D bag thing for the guide to do.

Your paying them for a service and they are fishing with you? Not to mention in the videos the guides were catching most of the fish. No way in hell I would be happy with that kind of service.

You don't pay a mechanic to work on his car
You don't pay a chef to eat your food
You don't pay plumber to fix his toilet

I guess I'm missing something here, in my mind the guide is supposed to 'GUIDE" you on where and how to catch fish, not to let you watch him catch fish.

Kungfoogrip

Are you from Minnesota by chance?

The guides job is to locate fish and find out what they are biting so that he can put his clients on them. He can locate fish on electronics but can't trust his clients to know how to properly present the bait/lure to catch them since it varies from day to day, hour to hour. IMHO it is in the clients best interest for the guide to fish.

In the few times I have been with or around guides they asked the clients if it was ok for them to fish anyway.....

That makes more sense. I would be more open to it if they asked Thanks for clarifying

Kungfoogrip

If the guide is standing next to you on the front deck catching fish, odds are you are too.. Last time I went with Caldemeyer he caught a chunk panda, I was more excited than he was..

Shoot w/spot lock and remote control I find myself in the back of the Boat quite a bit, and the guys just watch the head of the trolling motor do it's thing just shaking their heads.

***Sorry Tournament Anglers I usually don't mess with Unders***

I think it would be weird if the guide didn't fish

I would not want it any other way..When fish are being cuaght it lifts everyones moral..plus if you are both throwing differnt baits you have a better chance of finding out what the fish want..To me it would just be wierd if he did not fish..most guides have a boat that is big enough that at some point in the game you will both be fishing off the front targeting active fish..then you feel like you are in it toghther. He is not ripping you off it is the way most trips are conducted. I am sure if your requested your guide not to fish he would comply but how much fun would that be?

I think the idea of guide these days has kind of changed. I could be way off base, but I feel, for the very casual angler, yes you would want to be the only people catching fish I guess, but I don't see why you wouldn't want to all have fun? But now more than ever, people are hiring guides to learn, not to catch fish. Most of the time you can't learn without being shown or watching. Seeing someone else catch fish on a technique you are trying to learn, in turn shows you it works, but also gives you confidence that fish can/are being caught. Unless I'm going on a casual vacation with family, I want to go out to learn what these guys know from their years of experience and not just catch fish doing the same thing I always do.

When I guided on Lewisville, I had a guarantee, that you or I would catch a bass, if neither of us caught a bass, you got that day free, $250 of MINE and another free guide trip. Just so they knew I was doing the best job I could to locate fish to catch. Never had to make good on that guarantee on 102 trips. I was not a full time guide, but was a referred guide if any of the 3 guides on Lewisville was booked and had another client that wanted to book that weekend or weekday. That way I was not a threat to any of them and we had a good working relationship. It is the guides JOB to locate fish to catch THAT DAY, THAT HOUR, THAT MINUTE and as you probably know, it changes all the time throughout the day on what they will bite on. Hope this helps. Tight lines, keep safe and good luck.

Thad Rains

When I take the high school kids fishing on their tournament, I don't fish. That's kinda like guide trip. Don't want to catch fish they may. Im there for them, just like you pay for a guide to TAKE YOU and YOU catch the fish. Sure if they find the pattern then they need to put there rod down and YOU catch the fish until something changes. If I'm paying you $400 for a day of fishing and you catch all the fish and the biggest fish. I'm not a happy camper but with all that being said, I have never been on a guided pay trip and will not for that reason...

I guess I am different from a lot of people as far as guides. I have been with a lot of guides especially in my early days on Fork. Each time I wanted the guide to fish because I hired the person to really teach me how to use certain baits and learn certain techniques for the time of year, structure etc and I found the best way for me to learn was to watch someone who was a lot better than me. So I seemed to always be asked by most guides beforehand if I had a problem with them fishing. Some of my best trips would be studying someone like Ronnie Byrd flipping a jig, or Mark Stevenson fishing tree tops in the spring for spawners, or John Tanner throwing small RatLTraps in a snow storm in early spring, or Mark Pack throwing his swim jig or M Pack Shads on shell beds, or Tony Clark ripping big spinnerbaits off the bottom of humps and drop offs. I was always using a guide trip to learn to make myself better and I can't think of any trip I didn't feel like I got my moneys worth and it never was dictated by the number of fish I caught which most of the time was better than I expected it would be. I am still wanting to get with James Biggs on one of his instructional trips because I am wanting to learn more about swim bait fishing and I can imagine how good of a trip it will be watching him teach that technigue.
Just an old goats 2 cents on guide fishing at least for bass. Now a guide for hybrids, sandbass, catfish, crappie etc would be a totally different trip.

Jay Greishaw down at Falcon never grabbed a rod.... he literally sat on his cowling and drove the boat with the remote and told us where to cast. The best guide trip I've ever been on.

I do see the flip side of the coin too..... many clients need a casting lesson more than they need a guide trip so you risk coming in at the end of the day skunked because of the lack of skill of the clients. There's value in knowing the fish are there and that they are catchable even if it means getting front ended.

The one and only guided trip I ever went on, the guide didn't even own a rod and reel. He had a mason jar full of "hooks". I caught fish on almost every cast. I started to feel bad for the Inuit guy since he was removing my fish for me. I started to reel faster when I saw a smaller fish coming for my lure.

At the end of a 5 day trip I gave him a Team Lews Pro reel, a Shimano Stradic Ci4, and two browning three piece rods. He gave me an illegal "bird feather" that I was scared to death sneaking through customs.

Being the only guide I've ever had, I don't have a basis for comparison. But I think he was good. I won 5 Canadian Master angler awards in 5 days and he never held a rod in his hand. And he made my lunch every morning and packed it into the boat.

Curious as to what service you are looking for? Do you want to learn something, be shown spots, use a boat?
There is a lot more to a guide trip than the things I just asked about... if you doubt that - for a small fee - I will tell you some spots, tell you some baits to throw, tell you where you can rent a boat and I'll sit at home in the A/C while you go out and try to make what I've told you work.

I hired a guide a couple years back when I met my wife in Florida at a nursing conference she was attending. I flew down there and had all day while the wife was in class two days of the trip. I hired a guide because I had no boat and very little tackle with me and no one I knew in the area. I asked him to consider himself my partner for the day and fish and have fun. In other words I paid a guy with tackle and a boat to be my friend and partner for the day. We both had a great time as I basically chose my tackle, tied my baits, landed my fish, etc.. and he did the same. He got to fish for a day and I got the use of his stuff and knowledge of the lakes, win win big time for both of us!

I have also hired guides several times to take me out during times when I struggle like mid winter. I pick their brain, watch them make lure presentations, watch where and how they position the boat, study their lure choices for the situation, in other words take advantage of their TOW and experience and try to learn something so I can improve on my own.

I think many people go with guides with the attitude that they are going to catch more and bigger fish than they have ever caught and going to come back with a gps full of new spots and anything less is a disappointment. If you approach a guide trip with the attitude of I am going to school today to learn all I can from a professional your experience will be much more enjoyable!

I expect any guide I hire to fish, not front end me and catch every fish, but teach me and demonstrate to me what to do in a given situation. If they don't then I feel like I am missing a good portion of the class!!

To each their own opinions but after guiding novice friends and acquaintances from church or work for free on several occasions, I really respect what these guys do, it is work!

Sounds like you should save yourself and a guide a lot of grief and just not hire one.

A good guide does his job by putting you on fish and keeping your spirts high. Sometimes this can be done from the back of the boat with a remote, sometimes it requires him being up front to navigate stump fields or make precision casts. It's usually extremely apparent who's best interest they have in mind. I've never encountered one who was just out to hook fish himself. They wouldn't stay in business long. Nobody wants to get front ended all day, but it may be necessary for a short period to locate fish.

I THINK he's gettin it!!
Live and learn is what I say!!

Yep, I think you might be disappointed whether he fishes or not. If I'm gonna pay him $400 he dam better fish, that way I'll know for sure there are fish there and how to catch'em and I sure ain't interested in running the trolling motor.

If the guide doesn't get bit, chances are the client won't ither!

In my experiences the guide has usually fished using a different bait or technique until we really dialed in the bite for that day, then he stopped fishing or just continued to do something a little different to stay ahead of the ever changing pattern.

Here's a thought. A guide would be able to tell in an instant whether a guy could cast adequately and maybe had any sense of touch. If so he could tell him where to cast and what was down there, variations of how to work his lure and why they were fishing that spot at that particular time. If he wanted to run two different presentations on the same spot, he could fish as well. Or if the spot/ area was pretty big he could be searching along with his client to find them. If they had it dialed in he could back off to some degree and let the client catch the fish. The situation would be that he would educate verbally and by example, not that he could catch more fish fish than his client.
.

I always want the guide to fish also.

I liked it better back when the trolling motor was attached to the stern and that's where the guide was as well. The last guided trip I was on had the guide fishing in the front, my brother in the middle and I was left to fish from the rear. They had a great day! Me, not so much.

WAS THAT A SHOT!!

another cheap minneesoda shot, you texans are all a bunch of wild animals.

On the other hand. We don't have people ask dumb questions like this up here.

[quote=Mark Perry]Sounds like you should save yourself and a guide a lot of grief and just not hire one. [/quote

maybe you should stick to video games and always wear your life jacket I'm worried about you.

I have been out with quite a few guides over the years. I agree that I normally want the guide to fish. I have been shown on many occasions that the fish were there but I wasn't feeling the bite etc. That being said I have also been with guides that "front ended" me all day. They would point out structure or cast targets after they caught a fish from said location. They are generally more skilled and will wear you out if they are of a mind to do so. It puts you in a tough position -if you complain you are going to make the rest of the day a little tense. If you don't you may regret the fee to watch him catch fish. Best guide ever Bob Uhler.. fished from the back of an old ranger. He still would out fish you..

Thanks to 98% of you with your input. The other 2% can troll elsewhere. I appreciate your points of view on the subject. From the little footage I saw it appeared the guide was front ending the 2 clients on the boat. I was sympathetic to their situation is all. I am more optimistic to using a guide now. Tight lines gents. Really appreciate your feedback.

Kungfoogrip.

Don't know which video you are referring to but as a former guide I have been on both ends of this scenario. I have fished with guys that couldn't hit the water with their cast. I have fished with guys that had equal or better skills than I. The guides never know what they're gonna get.

The analogies you used above are not exactly apple to apples. Some days the fish are more aggressive and will pretty much hook themselves. Other days, the fish have to be finessed.

There are some excellent guides available especially on Fork. 99% of them want you to catch the fish and have the best day possible.

I fished with a gentleman once on a Coon Creek Lake Shelton near Athens TX. I knew about the legendary Coon Creek and had high expectations of our day. The man I was with had the reputation for being the best fisherman on Coon Creek. We hit the water at daylight, ran up the lake to some grassbeds he had been fishing. We started with topwaters and boated a 4-5 fish. This was in September.

He told me the best fishing had been in the deeper brushpiles on T-rigged soft plastics but that was after the sun got up. I thought, makes sense to me. Once the topwater bite subsided, we ran back down the lake and started throwing worms at brush piles in 8-10' of water.

At 10 am we had 3 fish on our worms. They just weren't biting the worm so I dug around in my bag and pulled out a pack of 4" Storm Wildeye swimbaits in shad color. Coon Creek doesn't allow outside boats so I didn't have a lot of tackle with me. I tied on a shad colored swimbait and started catching fish. After five fish, I gave him one and we both started catching them and catch them we did.

At 1:45 we decided to go eat lunch. He kept a fish counter on his belt and every time we would boat a fish he would click it. When we loaded the boat to go eat he showed me the clicker. It said 107. So between 10 am and 1:45 pm we caught almost 100 fish, many of them 4-5 pounds.

I tell this story to make a point. There is no doubt in my mind that had we kept throwing a worm we may have finished out the day with 15-20 fish. By doing something different, we killed them. Swimbaits were not in his arsenal.

You want the guide to fish when you hire him. The bite changes from day to day. The technique that crushed them the day before, may not work today. Unless you fish every day, you cannot develop that sixth sense that many of the pros have about what to do for any given situation.

When I guided at Fork, I would fish pretty hard until we had the pattern dialed in then sit my rod down and unhook fish for my clients and help them retie and coach them. If they hung up and broke off I would hand them another rod while I re-rigged theirs. I made them drink water and put on sunscreen too. For a nominal fee I would rub it on them.

That's what a good guide does for their clients. Of course this is only my opinion. That and $6 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.....

I want my guide fishing, he's paid to know where to fish and I want him trying everything in the boat to see what will catch them. I fish with Dannie Golden a lot and if we aren't catching he will be throwing every random bait he can find until we are catching. Can't tell you how many times we've ended up catching good fish on a bait we never thought we'd use that day. Now catching more and bigger fish than I do is just plan rude.

let's get chasinbass' input on the issue...

I like it when the guide fishes. no worries here.