Never Fished w/ a Guide

[Torn Thumb]

On 11/12/2016 at 7:50 PM, soflabasser said:

Make sure to choose a guide that gives you a 100% money back guarantee that you are going to catch bass.No point paying a guide hundreds of dollars if he can't put you on a couple bass.

I'm curious if this is meant to be serious? Is that a standard assumption with guides? I am not trying to be wise here, just wondering.

[soflabasser]

  Any bass guide that I would hire would know in advance my expectations of the trip and based on his responses I will hire him for a trip or not.I understand that most guides can't guarantee a trophy bass,but small bass are very easy to catch(at least down here),especially on a boat with a decent fish finder. All guides offer different packages,so it's up to you to research which guide you like best(and yes there are plenty of guides that guarantee you will catch bass).

[NYWayfarer]

Ask questions and listen to learn is the best advice I can give you about guides. I learned a lot from some good guides on my local lake about rigs,baits and presentation that I did not know prior to the trip.

I like to bring my own equipment to fish on a guide boat. Most of my fishing enjoyment comes from using my toys. I have not met one guide yet that minds this as it saves wear and tear on their own stuff.

I did have one bad guide once. He didn't put my group on many fish at all and actually ran out of bait quite early. Lucky I brought my tackle box of lures or it would have been a quick trip back to the docks.  

[JG233]

To follow up here on my trip: it was a very slow day of fishing. The guide did a really good job under the circumstances. We were on fish, but getting them to bite was a whole other ball of wax. We got four fish between the three of us while fishing for four hours--sounds like the beginning of a math problem. 

That said, the one I caught was a real nice 3+ lb LMB

[WRB]

Saguaro?

Right time, right place, right lure, right presentation = catching bass.

Hope the guide thought you how to locate those tight lipped bass.

Tom

[TxHawgs]

Fished w a guide for the first time 2 yrs ago on Lake Fork. Really had no idea what was the norm and what wasn't. Well let's just say I paid a guy $500 to slam it up my butt for 9 hrs lol. Live and learn, never crossed my mind to research what the guide normally does. Well for $500 bucks I fished on the back of a 21ft Ranger while the guide fished in front of me all day. I caught like 5 dinks to his 15 or so with one being a nice 6lber. Needless to say I was furious half way through the day. And I'm not a quiet guy I have no problem telling anyone exactly how I feel. But this guy was probably in his 60s and I didn't know what was normal so I felt weird to say hey man throw down your weapon lol. Now I'm also not an idiot and in the back of my mind I was like this is messed up. Guess I could of should of said something? But then there goes having any chance of having a nice day as I'm sure it would cause tension on the boat and he could easily be like sure I won't fish and take ya for a boat ride the rest of the day. And then every spot you stop at becomes a "man we killed em here yesterday" spot lol! Teach me anything? lol we barely talked as he was too busy fishing. Obviously I didn't tip. And I kind of have an issue with the whole tip thing. He's not someone that works for someone else and doesn't make a decent salary like a waitress or cab driver ect. This is someone that made his rates and is making $14k a month. Yea I feel that $500-$550 to take someone fishing for 8-9 hrs is fair. And no I'm not cheap, people that work for tips I tip well

.

[soflabasser]

16 minutes ago, TxHawgs said:

Live and learn, never crossed my mind to research what the guide normally does. Well for $500 bucks I fished on the back of a 21ft Ranger while the guide fished in front of me all day. I caught like 5 dinks to his 15 or so with one being a nice 6lber. Needless to say I was furious half way through the day. And I'm not a quiet guy I have no problem telling anyone exactly how I feel. But this guy was probably in his 60s and I didn't know what was normal so I felt weird to say hey man throw down your weapon lol. Now I'm also not an idiot and in the back of my mind I was like this is messed up. Guess I could of should of said something? But then there goes having any chance of having a nice day as I'm sure it would cause tension on the boat and he could easily be like sure I won't fish and take ya for a boat ride the rest of the day. And then every spot you stop at becomes a "man we killed em here yesterday" spot lol! Teach me anything? lol we barely talked as he was too busy fishing.

Wow,that's terrible. Sounds like he made you pay for his own fishing trip and let you tag along for  $500. A "fishing guide" is supposed to be someone who teaches his client how to fish and puts the client on fish.A guide fishing in front of the boat is also a lack of respect to the client,you didn't pay  $500 to be a backseat angler that's for sure. Good thing you learned to research your fishing guides in advance, hopefully you learned to avoid the bad ones.

[TxHawgs]

22 minutes ago, soflabasser said:

Wow,that's terrible. Sounds like he made you pay for his own fishing trip and let you tag along for  $500. A "fishing guide" is supposed to be someone who teaches his client how to fish and puts the client on fish.A guide fishing in front of the boat is also a lack of respect to the client,you didn't pay  $500 to be a backseat angler that's for sure. Good thing you learned to research your fishing guides in advance, hopefully you learned to avoid the bad ones.

Yea lol, actually it was just a really bad set of circumstances that snowballed  until it was all said and done. The guide I was suppose to fish with is well known and has been a guide on Fork for a long time and also fishes or fished one of the professional trails. I forget exactly how many days before I was to fish with him but it wasn't many and I cut my hand very bad. I cut the top of my hand right below my pinky and ring finger it was very deep my tendon was coming out of it. So they weren't sure if I damaged the tendon bad enough that I was gonna have problems moving those fingers correctly and if not would of had to go to therapy. So since it was my fault not the guides he could of kept my $200 deposit. But he said he had a friend and instead of losing my deposit I could pay the rest of the $300 and go with him and you know the rest lol. And with Fork having the reputation it does and people coming from all over the world to fish it the amount of guides to research and choose from is insane.

 

[Onvacation]

I kind of agree with you on the tip thing.  I have never understood it.  Now before everyone gets crazy, to this point, I have always had decent guides and always tipped.  However, in researching guides, many of their websites make a tip appear to be almost part of the deal.  The first saltwater guide I ever fished with had an app on his phone to run my credit card since he preferred credit cards over cash. Thought it was odd to enjoy paying fees, but when he handed me the app, I found out why. He had run it all the way to the screen that asked for me to fill in the percentage of my tip.  The choices started at 15% although there was small lettering at the bottom that said decline.  It's a business.  Adjust your prices accordingly and be gracious and humble when it comes to tips.