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.