Keep producing quality fish for their customers day after day?

I build tops and put them out on the lake and if I haven’t fished for a few months and can find and catch “quality” crappie for about three weeks. After that the bigger crappie seem to get few and farther apart.

I enjoy fishing and spend a lot of time on the water, but still just don’t see how Guides put new customers on crappie day after day.

they work EXTREMELY hard to scout it out and develop patterns. Guides have bad days too but they keep moving until they find the fish.

Fish slow and move quickly....

I'm not a guide but I can consistently catch crappie on any particular day on my home lake. I believe the key would be having enough spots marked so that you can rotate the spots you harvest from. When I fish in the mornings I'm typically fishing spots I've previously marked. Sometimes in the afternoon, however, I'll just go on scouting only runs to mark new spots. If I see fish and can catch one crappie then I save a waypoint and then look for the next spot. For example, last week I went out on 2 afternoon scouting runs and found 13 new brush piles. This week I've caught 35 crappie on those new spots in a couple of short trips including one 15" 2 lber and a lot of solid eaters. I'm not saying I could take 2 people out and catch 50 keepers yet like guides can but I'm improving each month. Given more time to work at this I believe I could eventually get there -- at least on the summer and fall patterns. One advantage I have, and guides will also have, is I can go out and fish several times a week and because my boat dock is in my backyard I don't mind going on scouting only runs without pressure to fill my live well.

I don’t know much but I’ve been with a couple of crappie guides and three different bass guides. The thing they all had in common is that they eat, breath, and think fishing. They love it, they do it almost every day and that’s what makes them good at it. My two cents !

Lots of good stuff mentioned above! I think about crappie fishing every day. I wake up before a trip like a kid on Christmas morning! I love it! That said we have bad days too! It's fishing. I have a mental clock ticking in my head of where I need to be on the counter on a trip and if we fall short of that I'm moving trying to find more fish, or fish that will bite better. Sometimes conditions don't allow for that or despite moving I don't put it together but I'm dang sure gonna give it all I got. I don't focus on spots as much anymore with Livescope as I'm mostly just fishing submerged timber moving from tree to tree; however, the folks that pull up and drive circles around you staring at the graph are pretty comical! Depending on what side of bed I got out of that day usually determines my response if there is one!!!

I have only been guiding for about 2 months but I learned quickly what it takes. It really comes down to homework and adjustments IMO. I have a bunch of locations that hold crappie at some point or another and know before I leave the dock with clients where they should be. I start where I can depending on wind and where they have been. Some days the wind forces me to start in different places or the bite is not the same and I have to adjust to get clients on fish and for them to feel comfortable. I had a trip on Tuesday and this was a prime example. I knew the wind was going to blow from one direction all day and I had plenty of spots to get out of that wind. Once arriving at the lake, I notice the wind is from a different direction than it was supposed to be and is blowing right down the lake. I immediately adjust my starting point to fish some more open cover before the wind gets up more. Then I run to protected areas I did not plan to fish but had to because of the wrong wind direction. I proceed to move from spot to spot with my clients picking up fish at each spot. I finally ran across some fish just sitting on bottom and they really put some numbers in the boat then. If I didn't adjust at the start, I would not have cleaned as many fish as I did for them at the end of the day. While it is hard work, I genuinely enjoy watching others catch fish

everybody has tough days sometimes, even guides. your just not likely to see any guide post that they got skunked or caught just a few fish.
Sometimes fish get on heavy night feed cycles and feed heavily and they just wont bite much. finding the fish is usually not too hard, but if they are not in a feeding mood, theres not much you can do
keep this in mind , very few guides run trips every day of the year.
. having ALOT of spots to fish and running from spot to spot hoping to get a reaction bite now and then is all you can do. on many lakes wind dictates where you can and cannot fish successfully, some lakes are better than others as having wind protected banklines to fish .
Also having several different lakes in a guides coverage area is smart because alot of times when fishing is dead on one lake its on fire at a nearby lake.
Keeping tabs on several species of fish that you can offer as an alternative to fish, if one species isnt biting good is a plus.
if there is a wind protected river that feeds a lake its smart to have some brush and trees that hold fish you can go to if the wind gets too high to fish in the main lake.
some lakes are so tough in winter time, many guides shut down until spring. lots of variables.
Theres one other thing that some guides do, to try and increase the catch rate, but I will not divulge it because I think it is not good for the overall fishability of a lake for most other casual fisherman.
One last thing, I believe fishing and hunting is a very instinctual thing,. something in your DNA, some people have it some dont. its hard to explain but when you have strong fishing instincts you just kind of seem to be able to put the pieces of the puzzle together faster than others.
Its almost like being in tune with what the fish are doing. if you have this, you know u have it.

You mentioned "if I haven't fished for a few months", one thing guides do is stay on the water and when one pattern is going away they are out looking for the next thing. They can network, work with what they know and keep up to date to make your experience worthwhile.

Time on the water is the only difference between full time guides and the recreational angler.

When I started guiding several years ago I quickly found out that my best talent was teaching anglers to find and catch fish, not to just get a limit. That way no matter how bad the bite was they would leave with a lot of knowledge to use in the future. Every trip would include electronics instruction, and several methods of fishing for crappie.

This post need to be stickied..... Awesome info guys and all are correct....
I'd be scared to book a trip with a guide that said he never have a slow day....
I guide one of the toughest lakes to fish in my area and I constantly get told by my clients they learned more on a trip with me than other guided trips they've been on because they see it really is WORK to find and catch crappie.
Move Fast And Fish Slow is very true and like Ernest said there's more to a guided fishing trip than loading the boat with fish. My clients love learning how to read their electronics, info on how to break a lake down and even simple things like setting the hook and working their jig.... And I must not leave out how to tie knots.....
Happy Turkey to all....

Crappie guides I know build lots of brush piles. One Fork guide has put out over 250 piles. Some have old pontoon boats
they fill with brush and use to put out several piles at one time. Full-time guides fish 300+ days a year. In summer they run
2 trips a day. Most keep a daily/yearly journal to track their catches and trends. They have and know how to use the best
electronics available. AND even with all of that I've been out with the best on Fork,...and we struggled. They can find them,
they can see them, they can hit them on the head with a jig and a minnow,......but sometimes they just wont bite...

`

They work hard at it and love what they do!

As stated earlier.... Time on the water

Laner, I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. Yes, time on the water is a big part of if, but…. The reason you spend all that time on the water is because you have a passion for the outdoors, and you like sharing that passion with others, and you are really dang good at it - not everyone can do that brother. Givin a little credit where credit is due my friend