Tuesday, November 02, 2010

What makes a good guide a super-crap guide?



Back from visiting family in Ohio and the reality of preseason orders and a local customer base that is busy with hunting, kids' activities, and generally not fishing. For those that are fishing, they generally want a couple of wire worms and a good egg pattern recommendation this time of year. I find that the fish will go on and off egg colors throughout the day, so I always recommend having a good assortment (generally whichever colors you are light on is a good start!).

So I had a crap experience with a guide up on the Muskegon River in Michigan and it got me thinking on that whole thing. The conditions were crap...the water came up from 1000 cfs to 3000 in an hour and the river went from clear to mud...so I can't really blame our success on him. But he was a crap example of how any guide of anything should conduct themselves.
I was doomed at the start
Here are a few things that all of you "guides in training" and the dude on the Muskegon, and yes even myself should remember when guiding. We'll call it my most recent top 10 don't dos when guiding.

10) If you know you're client is an "Orvis Dude"...probably shouldn't start the day off with a comment like "that rod sucks"

9) Don't throw spawn sacks at another guide boat, especially in the first 5 minutes.

8) Don't brag about guiding for a long time and follow it up by a comment like 90% of my clients have never fly-fished...that implies that you don't have much in the way of repeat customers.

7) When discussing techniques like "firing a hole" on a cellphone with the guide boat that is catching fish on your cellphone...don't put it on speakerphone. (firing the hole is chumming with salmon eggs).

6) If your client says he wants to learn how to fly fish, don't give him a rod loaded with a running line and a 1/2 oz bullet weight.

5) If you're looking for hot hens rubbing their carpet and need to throw a little fire in the hole, maybe just  do it without breaking it down for your clients.

4) If fishing sucks for reasons beyond your control and you cook lunch, don't burn the chicken.

3) Don't talk about yesterday too much if today sucks.

2) If you're not really feeling very motivated that particular day...not a good idea to tell you're clients about it 5 min into the trip.

1) Don't try to smoke a bowl with your clients before lunch.
Fire in that Tupperware!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's always the guides fault - you know this by now, right?

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your great

content.

Anonymous said...

Should have contacted a LEO. Firing a hole with salmon eggs is illegal in Michigan

Anonymous said...

The Michigan DNR recently busted the guide that was doing the "firing" that day. Guess he was notorious for doing it and a "sting" was setup where they caught him red-handed