I hear Guides talked about alot and should they be able to fish tournaments. I would like to hear what the differences are between these two.
Both are on the water daily pretty much. Both get paid. Most have sponsorship.
In the simple form, to me, they are about the same. Just curious what others ideas are.

To be a guide all one needs is a License from the TPWD.

To be a successful Pro one must actually possess skills.

A guide will typically be a stick on his home waters. Once he has successfully guided for several years and developed his skills, if he's really good, he can start fishing the larger tournament trails and be competitive.

A pro (like Elites) has already passed this level of accomplishment and can catch them anywhere, any time and in any manner necessary. Most of these guys began as guides.

i think what he is talking about is that if you are a full time guide on a certain lake that you are not allowed to fish tournaments on that body of water, and he is wondering why it isn't the same for a pro. correct me if i am wrong. Most tournament rules say- " Individuals who are serving as a licensed guide or are paid for guiding on tournament waters within the previous 30 day period are not eligible to compete in the tournament"

Probably has to do with the pre fish rules. It wouldn't be fair for a guy to be able to claim he was fishing the lake for money leading up to a tourney while the Pros were at other tournaments and only had a couple days to pre fish.

Most of the true "pros" don't guide for hire. The rule is there to prevent local advantage of guides on their home lakes. Pros who do not guide there and are not on that water every day are not restricted from competing. I don't fish tournaments but if I did, I wouldn't care if a guide or a pro fished the same event, local or not. I'm fishing against the fish, not the guide.

Guides are who the pro's hire to find fish.

I was in a little 3 fish tournement where a guide and his brother (2 teams) came in 1st and 2nd with almost 24 lb bags (within ounces of each other). It was windy as hell that day too.

I'm sorry, but if you want a real chance of winning, competing with guides on their home lake is tough -- real tough.

But had you won wouldn't that have have been a lot more satisfying to know you beat the local pro?To me its about being able to compete and the tougher the better that's what drives me to compete, not knocking your mind set I was just curious as to your thoughts.

The toughest thing a guide can do is tourney fish his home lake. The thoughts are that...if he wins he was supposed to - if he looses then he is not a good guide. The guides that we tourney fished against were always in the top rankings, but rarely won. The approach for guiding and tourney fishing is not the same.

The toughest guys I fished against are the locals that basically fish only one lake and they fish the tourneys each weekend on that same lake -- those guys are tough cause the are in constant tourney mode. There are way too many tourneys when you can sit back and tourney fish your home lake each weekend.

I just laugh at when people whine about guides fishing. They pay their money just like everyone else. In reality, most of the time they don't cash a check. Why don't people whine about anglers who have the luxury of not having to work, IE: retired or financially stable enough to fish 20-25 days a month? What's the difference? I know tons of good anglers that are heck to beat on tournament circuits that fish 3-5 days a week to stay on their fish. But we can't say anything about them winning.

+ 1 i fish a lot but it is hard to beat someone who wakes there fish up every morning and puts them to bed

You know, some of you guys are so predictable. If you were referring to my post as whining, if you read it with out your jaded lenses on you would notice I wasn't whining. It was clear in the rules guides were allowed and I had a lot of fun--but I had no chance of winning.

As far as winning, I have a better chance of hitting the lotto then putting together a 24 lb 3 fish bag. Maybe I could hit big fish, that's about all you could dream of in a tournement like that.

Fish draw tournaments, that separates the best from the rest.

It's not whining. When amature anglers want to fish tournaments we ask for nothing but a level playing field. Preventing guides from fishing does level the playing field. We are not out here to just fish and have a good time we want to win. We don't pay an enrty fee to donate to the winner. We love to fish and compete, but we don't have the time or money to spend 25 days on a given lake. Guides in my book are professional because they get paid to fish. These tournaments are not designed for pros.